A Memory in the Black (The New Aeneid Cycle) (9 page)

Michael wrote his number down on a napkin
and gave it to him. "Just tell him his old roommate is looking for him."

He pocketed the number without looking at it.
"He'll get it. If he comes in. Bounty on 'im, so who's to say?"

"I appreciate it.
You sure you haven't seen him? You don't know where we'd find him?"

"'S'all I know, kid.
Yer the one that lived with him. 'Scuse me." The man across the bar was waving for him. With a nod, he left Marc and Michael to their drinks.

Michael took his first swallow of the beer.
"Well, it's a start."

"Yeah.
" Marc looked around. "Think he'll get the message?"

"I don't know. He's right;
Diomedes is wanted, maybe he'll lie low. But I think he was wanted before this started. I guess it might depend on how much heat he thinks is on him."

Marc nodded and
then held up his glass. "You know I don't even like beer?"

A short while later, Lars picked the half-empty glasses off the bar and wiped it down as he watched the two men leave. No one was trying to get his attention. He wiped his hands and picked up the phone. The number was dialed and ringing a moment later.

Someone picked up, answering only with silence.

"Hey, it's Lars."

"
Yeah?
"

"Two guys just came askin' for ya.
One said he used to be yer roommate."

"
Was he?
"

"Could be.
Been a while since I seen him, but yeah, think so."

"
And the other?
"

"Didn't recognize him.
Data visor, kinda scrawny. Didn't say much. If he was a freelancer, I'm a damn nun."

"
Anything else?
"

"Just a message.
Roommate left a number. Want it?"

Silence.

"You want it?"

"
No.
"

T
he line clicked dead.

Diomedes set
his phone down on the passenger's seat. The car's engine rumbled. Idled. Traffic moved slowly, when it moved at all. He gripped the wheel and squeezed, waiting.

Paying off Lars had been
smart. Diomedes needed assets. Eyes. Ears. He'd been betrayed. He was wanted. Lars would likely betray him sooner or later too, unless he took revenge on the one who'd sold him out. Only the woman who hired him knew. Only she could have placed the camera. She'd regret it.

Michael was looking for him. Why was Michael looking for him?

The voice came, deep and large like always, to guide him.
The same reason everyone else is looking for you,
it told him.
Just like the others, come to find you for the same reason: there's a reward. He betrayed you before. Pulled a gun on you, after all you did for him. Now he's coming back to do it again and cash in.

Of course that was it.
Diomedes nodded to himself, to the voice. He'd learned to trust it, so much so that when the second voice came, it was barely a whisper.

Michael let
you go before,
it said.

What?

He let you go. He could have shot you. He let you go.

Michael betrayed you!
shot the large voice.

But he let you go.
He's a friend. You need a friend.

That's what y
ou said the last time. Protected him, taught him, and he betrayed you. Friends die. Friends betray. Friends invite weakness. Trust is weakness! You trusted the woman who hired you, and look what happened. You'll take care of her, find out what she knows. Then you'll take care of Michael, like you should have done already.

The traffic moved.
Diomedes pushed the car forward.

No,
came the small voice.
Not Michael.

Why not?

No.

The voices drifted away to argue.
The Marquand building was ahead. He'd seen her enter there, days ago. He'd guessed, he'd looked, and she was there. He couldn't take her in the Corporate District. Too many eyes. But he could watch. He could wait until she left it. Today, he waited.

Up the street, a
delivery truck had crashed. Traffic oozed its way around it. He would find a vantage point nearby. He would wait. He would find her. And then, he would find Michael.

No.
Not Michael.

Within an elevator inside, the lights changed as Ondrea waited for her floor. The procedure had been successful. Of that there was no question, and the part that mattered most to her was, aside from a few surmountable obstacles, complete. Yet what mattered to Marquand was proving more difficult to achieve. She'd told them this, of course. She had warned them that it would take patience.

Fine
, so she may have oversold the possibility of success in order to accomplish what she wanted. But what did they expect? The more humanity learned about the brain and the minds it could hold, the only thing that became truly certain was that it was far more complex than anyone could dream. Marquand wasn't working with muscle and bone anymore; neurons weren't so straightforward. Even if they were frustrated with the sluggish progress, they were committed.

Or perhaps they had known it was a gamble.
By taking his alien secrets elsewhere, Joseph Curwen forced them to choose between a gamble and nothing, but that didn't mean they would accept defeat any more lightly. Management was itching for more intensive hypnosis sessions, but they were patient enough to listen to her and the other specialists on the project team. So far.

She wasn't sure if Gideon could take any more right now.

He was still confused from time to time. It was definitely Gideon—in that, at least, she was confident—and in some ways he was actually more stable and willing to listen than he had been. . . before. Ondrea was tempted to say Gideon almost seemed like he'd been before his cybernetics pushed his sanity closer to the brink. But he wasn't yet confident in that identity, even as it struggled to assert itself.

Last week's
outburst at his old apartment meant he was trying to regain the consciousness he remembered. He refused to believe it had been six months since he'd lived there, as if such a thing would invalidate his existence. Ondrea had barely managed to talk him down and get him back to Marquand.

The company hadn't wanted to let him go out there at all, but Ondrea
had told them that it was necessary. She was certain that once he was satisfied with what she had told him, his subconscious would be more willing to share the secrets they sought. Trying to force things along might have catastrophic results, and she refused to lose her brother now.

The elevator doors opened onto a view of the bio
labs and one of her lab assistants running straight toward her. She stepped out and he gripped her arm as if he might blow away otherwise.

"Where've you been?"
The way he whispered it set alarms in her head screaming.

"Jesus, Beck, getting some lunch.
What happened? Is he okay?"

"I don't know
. He broke out. He's gone!"

Outside, a tow truck had somehow gained a spot ahead of the crashed delivery truck. Inside the main lobby of the Marquand building, its flashing hazard lights caught Felix's eye through the windows as he waited for the receptionist to check his computer.

"I'm sorry," he said, regaining Felix's attention.
"Ms. Noble has not given permission to be paged for public visits."

"Well, that has to be a mistake," Felix
tried. "How do I let her know I'm here?"

"I'm sorry, but if she
's expecting you, she should have logged your appointment with the system." The man watched Felix patiently, his eyes apologetic, yet clearly hoping Felix would be satisfied with his explanation.

Not likely.
"That's hardly my fault, I think. Look, I know she's in the bio labs. I'm sure she just forgot to say I was expected."

"I can't give you a pass for the labs, sir.
If you like, I can take a message and see that she gets it."

"But she won't get
it immediately."

"She'
ll get it as soon as she checks her messages."

"Right
, but that will be when?"

The receptionist frowned.
"I'm afraid I can't speak to that, sir. But it's the best I can offer."

"The best you can do."

The receptionist nodded contritely. Felix harrumphed, let him wait, and glanced across the wide foyer to where Caitlin stood. Marquand had sacrificed the space of four stories above ground level to aesthetics in order to create a spacious, open area accented with a mix of mirrored trim and cascading plant life that spilled down around octagonal support pillars. It was a mix of technology and life that matched the company philosophy. Along the wall, transparent elevator shafts rose up, met the ceiling, and disappeared into the structure above. At the moment, Caitlin was watching the shafts.

Felix turned back to the receptionist. "Alright,
a message. Tell her a friend of Gideon's is here to see her. And him."

The receptionist dutifully
took it down along with Felix's phone number. "And your name, sir?"

"Just tell her it's Felix," he said.
"She'll know me."

She wouldn't, of course, but the message itself
might get her attention if he couldn't find another way in before then. Temporarily unable to come up with a suitable smart-assed remark, Felix turned away from the desk. He would give the man a few minutes and then come at him anew.

W
here had Caitlin gone?

A few glances revealed no trace of her among the small groups of people waiting near the elevators.
Curious, he strode about the lobby. There seemed to be no sign of her inside, though he doubted she was in trouble. Caitlin was certainly capable of taking care of herself. He still owed her for coming to his own rescue once, in fact.

Felix crossed
to the wall opposite the reception desk and took a seat in one of the plush couches he found there. He watched, he waited, and he glared at the receptionist who'd been keeping an eye on him since he'd left the desk. He tried to think of what to say when he was ready to harass him again, but he couldn't stop wondering what interesting thing Caitlin had found to go off and do.

He should've let
her
talk to the receptionist, dang it.

His phone rang.
It was Caitlin.

"Felix, get to the parking exit, hail a taxi, and wait for me."

He was up and moving for the door before she'd finished her sentence. By her tone, she wasn't in trouble; she'd found something. "Bossy, aren't you?" he teased. "You sure you don't want to come in here and play with my receptionist friend? He's all bureaucratic and efficient!"

"Felix, you need to hurry on this."

"Don't worry, I'm already outside." He jogged around the corner to where the parking garage fed out onto the street from below the building. "Where are you, anyway?"

"Don't worry, I'll meet you there. I need to go."
A moment later, she'd hung up.

"That wasn't what I asked
," he muttered with a grin. She liked keeping secrets too much. That was his job. Hardly fair of her to spoil his fun by making it her own.

No wonder he liked her.

Cabs were abundant in the Corporate District, and he had one idling just outside the garage when Caitlin raced out on foot, jumped in beside him, and told the driver to follow the grey sedan that had slipped out ahead of her.

"We got lucky," she explained
with a grin.

"Is it them?"

"It's her. I spied her on a lift going down and caught the one beside it. She was making for the garage. She's with someone else, a man, and they're in a hurry. It wasn't hard to tail them."

Felix grinned back
. "And you said we weren't making any progress."

Halfway down the block, Diomedes caught sight of the blonde woman in a car leaving the garage. Headed his way. Grey sedan, passenger's seat. He'd nearly missed her, would have missed her if not for the hardware in his eyes.

Worth the price
.

She might be lea
ving the Corporate District. Might make herself vulnerable. There was someone else in the car. He'd have to be careful.

He let the sedan pass
and pulled out to follow. A few cars back, behind a city cab, he drove. He watched. He waited.

Soon.
 . .