Company Town (24 page)

School was fine, but Mr. Branch was sick for the day, so science club didn't meet. Hwa suggested they do a full circuit, just to burn off the day, but Joel wanted to keep working on his project in the library. At least, that was what he said in order to get her into the library. His story changed the moment they were inside.

“What do you have here that's about serial killers?” Joel asked.

Mrs. Gardener's tattooed eyebrows rose only slightly. Her forehead would not permit any further wrinkling than that. “Quite a bit, as a matter of fact,” she said. “It's a very popular presentation topic in Mr. Harris's Introduction to Psychology elective.”

“Could I please see what you've got?”

“Certainly. Are you looking for books, periodicals, media, threads, or immersion?”

Joel brightened. “You have immersions for that kind of thing? Really?”

Mrs. Gardener lowered her voice to a delighted whisper. “You have
no
idea. If you want, I can let you walk through Whitechapel. Or Leimert Park. Or Jones Beach. Even the Manson houses! Every scene of every crime in the catalogue.”

Hwa blinked. “Seriously?”

Mrs. Gardener nodded. “The more recent cases sometimes have their faces changed—when the victims' next of kin wouldn't license their likenesses—but all the other details are the same. Some of the nudity is fogged over, naturally.” She snapped her fingers. “Not for you, though, Hwa! You're not a minor, any longer.”

Hwa grimaced. “That's fine, thanks. Had my fill of it.”

“We're interested,” Joel said, as though he hadn't heard her.

“No, we're not,” Hwa said.

Joel held up a finger. “Just a moment, please.”

He walked a little ways away from the immersion booth. “What are you at?” Hwa asked. “I thought you wanted to work on your generation ship thing—”

“I think your friends are being hunted by a serial killer,” Joel said.

Hwa blinked. “Eh?”

“Well, Dad took me on a trip to D.C., because he had to talk to Congress? Or a subcommittee? Or a hearing? Something like that. Anyway, I went to the FBI's Museum of Behavior. It used to be called the Evil Minds Research Museum. I don't know why they changed it; I think Evil Minds would have looked better on the t-shirts in the gift shop. But they had a whole exhibit about serial killers. It was next to the Wall Street exhibit.”

“Serial killers.”

“Yeah. They're pretty rare. And they don't happen as much, anymore, because of the birthrate and data collection and stuff. Also now that the
DSM
says you can diagnose psychopathy in children—”

“Why would you think someone like that killed Calliope and Layne?” She shook her head. “Sorry. My friends.”

“Because they were prostitutes,” Joel said. “That's who they kill. Mostly. Prostitutes.”

Hwa closed her eyes. “The correct term is
sex worker,
Joel. I belonged to the
sex workers'
union. Okay, b'y?”

“Okay. I'm sorry.” He sounded genuinely apologetic. It was hard to tell for real. But he was the kind of kid who liked to know the right words for things. “But, if you've been looking into it at all, I mean, if you had some data to make sense of, you could put it into the immersion unit. There's a lot of processing power. You could even ask the AI inside some questions! It's been really helpful, with the ship design.”

“If I'd been looking into it.”

Joel looked at the floor. “You know, investigating it.” His voice cracked. “It would be private. Outside the Prefect system.”

She let the full weight of her gaze fall on him. “Joel? Is there something you want to tell me?”

“You might want to change your privacy settings,” Joel mumbled.

Hwa rolled her neck back to look at the ceiling.
Master control room,
she reminded herself. She waited for the overhead lights to beam some patience into her eyes. “I'm going to make you very sorry, during tomorrow's workout.”

He sighed. “I know. But…” He gestured at the booth. “This is better, isn't it? Better than going out there on your own.”

She didn't know how to tell him that his instincts were better than he knew. That in all likelihood, the person killing her friends was probably after her, too. On the other hand, an offsite storage facility for all the data, all the footage, was probably a good idea. If she stored it somewhere else, maybe the people peeping her Prefect account would think she'd given up.

“You don't get to go in there, with me,” Hwa said. “I don't want you looking at that shit. Any of it.”

“I won't see anything! I'm a minor!”

“Aye, exactly me point. You're too—”

“I thought you were trying to toughen me up,” Joel said. “And not just physically. It's going to be my town, someday, Hwa. I have to take care of it. I have to learn how to take care of it.”

Mrs. Gardener walked them to the booth. It was fashioned entirely of glass, or something like glass that wouldn't break and wouldn't transmit sound. You could wear the helmet in perfect silence, and no one would be annoyed or distracted by your commands. As Hwa watched, Mrs. Gardener waved her way into the booth with her right hand. The doors clicked open, unfolding as though to embrace the booth's next visitor. Mrs. Gardener pointed at a couple of X's on the floor marked out in tape.

“Stand on those,” she said. “You have to hit your mark so it can calibrate. Now, where would you like to start?”

Hwa shrugged. “The beginning, I guess.”

Mrs. Gardener smiled. “Whitechapel, then. Oh, before I forget.” She dashed behind the help desk and came back with a towel. “Tuck this into your collar, would you? The booth is just so tough to clean. There's a special cleanser and everything, and it's unbelievably expensive. I tried vinegar and water once, and the damn thing reported me to the company!”

Hwa plucked at the towel. “Um … Why exactly do I need a towel?”

“For when you throw up, of course!” Mrs. Gardener shut the doors to the booth. She started programming something into a panel only she could see. “Good luck!”

Hwa waited until Mrs. Gardener was gone, then she untucked the towel and left it in a heap on the floor. She reached for the helmet and wiggled it down across her head. It smelled terrible: bad breath and cheap pomade. Her skin would probably break out tomorrow. As if standing in a glass booth talking to yourself in front of the whole library weren't embarrassing enough.

PLEASE FOCUS, she read in large white letters on a black ground.

Hwa focused.

LOOK LEFT.

She looked left.

LOOK RIGHT.

She looked right.

LOOK UP.

She looked up.

LOOK DOWN.

And as she looked down, Helmut the Assistant Librarian walked up to her and introduced himself. He was a tall white guy in grey trousers with a black turtleneck sweater. He seemed excited to see her. He held out his hand. Hwa shook it.

“Welcome back, Hwa! It's been a while!”

“Three years,” Hwa said.

“Wow! Time flies! So, you want to go to Whitechapel?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, can you just sign this waiver, for me? The manufacturer needs to know that you don't hold us responsible for any adverse effects you might experience.”

“Sure,” Hwa said.

Instantly, her eyes filled with boilerplate. She sped to the end, and signed her name with one finger. When she'd finished, the boilerplate dissipated into fog. The fog was grey and dim, lit only by spots of orange glow that might have been flame. Hwa heard horses and something rattling. She looked around—a big team of black horses was about to run her over. She jumped out of the way and straight into a puddle. The horses pulled a carriage full of laughing women in corsets and tiny hats. When it pulled away, a man stood across the street and looked at Hwa. He hadn't been there before. He had an impressive brownish beard streaked with white, and his top hat perched above a head of the same. He brandished a cane, and it tapped on the wet cobbles of the street as he crossed it to meet her. When he ascended the sidewalk, he held out one elbow. There was an awkward moment where they both stared at his protruding joint, and then at each other. Maybe these people didn't believe in shaking hands. Hwa stuck out her own elbow, and touched it to his.

“You're supposed to take it in your hand, and let me lead you,” he said in a very deep, rough voice.

“I don't really like being led,” Hwa said.

He nodded. “As you wish.”

“Who are you?” Hwa asked.

“You may call me Mr. Moore,” he said. “Welcome to Whitechapel.”

*   *   *

“Could I put this data into an immersion unit?” Hwa asked Sandro, once her time in Whitechapel was over.

“Sure,” he said. “What, you want an AI to work on it? 'Cause I've got one here. Not, you know, top of the line or anything, but not bad. Fan-crafted. Kind of a DIY thing.”

“That's cool,” Hwa said. “But I've got some elsewhere.”

“Your call,” Sandro said. “What's in the bag?”

“'Nother sample.” Hwa tossed it to him.

He peeled it open. “Your shirt? Your blood?”

“My money. My questions.”

Sandro shrugged. He plucked the shirt out with a pair of long chopsticks, then threw it into the scanner. He pressed the green button with one big toe. He chewed his thumbnail as it ran. Then he pressed another button with his toe and leaned back in his chair.

“Got cold tea, if you want,” he said. “In the cooler.”

Hwa pulled two bottles free from a brick of foam, and tossed one to him. She watched him drink, decided it was safe, and took a long pull from her own bottle.

“How's she gettin' on?” Sandro asked.

“I'm on nish ice with this job.”

Sandro's lips twitched. He nodded to himself. He leaned forward in his chair, and spun to face her. “I've been getting me hands dirty with the other sample you showed me. Wicked stuff. Evil. I don't want it, no more. I want it gone, whatever it is.”

“And what is that?”

Sandro stood. He stretched. He gestured for her to stand, too. “Come on, then. Let's have a peek.”

He made a pulling motion in the air, and a frosty pane of glass slid aside, exposing another room. They strode through. Inside the new room was a set of five terrariums.

Inside the terrariums were different clots of decaying flesh.

Sandro waved some buzzing flies—real ones, not botflies—away from the glass boxes of rot. As Hwa looked closer, she saw that two of them appeared to still be alive. They pulsed. Their terrariums fogged. Hwa tried to breathe through her mouth. Not that doing it that way was much better. The scent stuck to her tongue like rancid fat.

“The fuck
is
that shit?”

“It's tissue,” Sandro said. “Programmable tissue.”

Hwa thought of Síofra's broken nose, and how quickly it had healed. “What, like a regimen?”

“Like fucking cancer, more like. Fucking uncontrollable. I keep hiving it off and trying to kill it.”

“Aye? Any luck?”

He shrugged his massive, oozing shoulders. “It's cancer. It hates radiation.”

“What, you've got like random isotopes just lying about?”

“Nah. I had a friend take a sample under her shirt, during treatment in St. John's.” He drew a line across his throat with one finger. “Killed it right dead.”

Hwa pulled up a stool and watched the samples. They seemed to breathe. Each of them were hooked up to various bags of fluid. One of them looked like beer. How had Calliope gotten something like this in her system? All the USWC members were extremely cautious about health. Testing for all types of cancer was regular. Having unprotected sex was verboten. Unless you went off-book. And Calliope had.

“Could you give this to someone else?”

“Who else you want to be looking at this shit?”

“No, I mean, could one person pass it to another? Sly like?”

Sandro frowned at the samples. He squeezed a pustule on his arm. “Maybe. I heard the CIA tried giving Putin cancer, way back when, with the early programmables. You could program these tissues to make a tumour, I guess.”

“So you could get someone sick, and then hold their health for ransom?”

Sandro's eyes widened. He crouched on his knees. “Gonna pretend you didn't just say that. I don't even want that thought in my head.”

The timer dinged. They went back into Sandro's “office,” and he slid the glass wall back into place. Then he threw images up on it. Hwa recognized the dates. He was comparing the two samples, Calliope's and Layne's.

They were identical.

“You know a lot of sick people,” he said.

“I know a lot of dead people.”

Sandro reached over to a shelf above the scanner, dug in behind some beakers and flasks, and pulled out a necklace. A rabbit's foot dangled at the end of it. He slung it over his head. “You're an ill wind, you.”

“You should meet me mum.”

“Think I have, once or twice,” Sandro said, and winked.

Hwa snorted. “Is there enough here to do a search?”

“Now there is. Now we got more of the original.”

He expanded the image, capped it, and threw it onto another screen. Rapidly, similar images overlaid it, like cards being shuffled together. Finally, another image popped up.

It was the Lynch logo. A press release. About the experimental reactor they were building deep in the Flemish Pass Basin, right under New Arcadia.

“Project Krebs will allow Lynch to build Canada's energy future from the ground up, with less risk and fewer errors. We are confident in the capability of the Krebs self-assembling devices to assist in construction of the reactor…”

And there, at the bottom of the release, was a render of the self-assembler machines. It wasn't a perfect match—the matching function straight-up said it wasn't—but it was close. Damn close. Almost like looking at the difference between a prototype and the finished product. Only one was made of protein, and the other wasn't.