Counting Heads (34 page)

“Since I can’t recall his favorite fish, I’ll take your advice, Myr Harger, and choose one by size. That shark should do.” She pointed to the largest brute in the pack of sharks that I had.

“The big guy it is,” I said, and all the other fish disappeared. The shark she’d picked was over four meters long. It was a giant mako, farm-raised and put into stasis in 2061, a few years before the Outrage. She’d have a hard time finding one to replace it.

“Oh, and—I almost forgot.” She flashed a “silly me” look and said, “I’ll need it cooked and in my flat in”—she consulted some timekeeper—“ohmigod, in
eleven minutes
! Is that possible?”

“Most things are,” I said. “Skippy, please cook and deliver the shark to Myr Post’s apartment.”

“At once,” Skippy said.

Kitchen arbeitors wheeled the shark on a cart from the stasis locker. Its stiff flesh quickened moment by moment, and by the time the arbeitors had lifted it to the cooker, it was flapping its powerful tail and snapping its toothy jaws in long-interrupted terror. Before it could do any damage to the kitchen, the cooker brained it and slit it open.

I backed up a little to avoid the splashing blood.

Skippy said, “The cooker asks what recipe it should use.”

Myr Post puffed out her cheeks and pursed her lips. “I don’t think my cooker has a recipe for shark. I’m sorry to be such a pest, but could your cooker use one of its own?”

My contracts with visiting chefs during my banquet days allowed me to record and reuse the recipes they fed into my cooker (after making a handsome royalty payment). The cooker displayed frames of six different shark dishes it had prepared in the past. Myr Post picked the
Mako Remoulade
in which the shark was baked whole, stuffed with Arabic rice and pine nuts, and served on a swimming-pool-sized platter that mimicked a pebbly beach littered with baby red potatoes, cashews, giant prawns, sea urchins, and kelp. Around it were tidal pools of pungent and tart cocktail sauces and giant cockle shells of shark fin soup. It fed 800.

Arbeitors started hauling ingredients from the lockers.

“And, Skippy,” Myr Post said, “tell your cooker to tell my cooker what starters, soup, wines, et cetera to prepare.”

“Done,” said my efficient valet.

“And your arbeitors can manage bringing it over?” she asked me. “Or should I send mine up to help?”

“Mine are adequate,” I said.

“Splendid,” she said. “You are a marvelous neighbor. I will replace the shark and other ingredients, and I hope someday to have the opportunity to return the favor.” She began to retrace her steps to my front door, and I saw to my horror that she intended to leave, just like that. It had taken some effort for me to get used to her presence, and I thought the least she could do was stay a while longer.

I tried to think of something to hold her, and I said the first thing that came to mind, “I used to throw dinners once.”

“I know. I attended one,” she said, leading me to the foyer.

I was dumbfounded. Out of the thousands of guests at my banquet table, I was sure I’d remember another stinker, especially one so lovely.

Melina and Darwin Post attended March 3, 2097
, Skippy informed me. That would have been one of my first banquets.

Perhaps guessing my thoughts, she said, “You may not have noticed us. It was before our accident.”

Accident? I thought. Were we all seared by accident, then?

We reached the foyer, she shook my hand and thanked me again, and the door opened for her.

“Tell me about your
accident
,” I blurted out, never good at small talk.

She stopped in the hall and looked at me carefully through my open doorway. “Even if I had the time right now, I doubt that I’d want to relive
that
nightmare, even in memory.” She must have decided to take pity on me then, for she continued. “But I have five minutes, and you have been extraordinarily generous to me, so I’ll give you the thumbnail version of why my dinner tonight, which you are so graciously catering, is so important.”

And she did. I stood in my doorway, and she stood in the hall, and this is what she told me. But first, do you happen to have an Alert!? I could sure use another. The kiosk? Thank you, Victor. I’ll wait until you return.

Fred and Costa analyzed the house from a restricted holding pattern one kilometer overhead. Fred had changed into the HomCom blacksuit in the aft compartment of Costa’s GOV as he briefed his new partner, a recent-batched jerry by the name of Michaelmas. Fred’s new skullcap wasn’t fully initialized yet, and his blacksuit balked at its attempts to synch up.

When Fred joined Costa in the cab, he made no comment about the fact that she, too, wore a full, regulation blacksuit. The evening must be too chilly for culottes.

Although the neighborhood they covered from their parking loop was bright with alarm, there wasn’t much moving down there, and the rows of houses, each proudly planted on its own lot, were doubly opaqued to outside snooping.

Costa said, “Hail them.”

Fred opened a diorama of the Line Drive neighborhood and laid it over the theater map on the car’s HUD. Then he reached into the diorama with his pointer and tapped a house on its roof. “SFR2131 Line Drive,” he said, “this is Homeland Command.”

The house made no response.

“I repeat, SFR2131 Line Drive, this is Homeland Command. Please respond.”

When still the house ignored Fred, Costa said, “Libby?”

The UDJD mentar replied,
The subject SFR possesses a federally granted surveillance variance
.

Fred and Costa exchanged a glance.

The subject SFR is registered to the Sitrun Foundation
, Libby continued.
We are attempting to locate the foundation’s officers. In the meantime, you may serve your warrant
.

Costa spiraled the Gov down to the street and landed it within view of the house. Fred said, “Go over this again with the broadcast.”

“Libby says that Nameless says that it came from the basement here.” Costa leaned over Fred and pointed to the spot in the diorama. “It was encrypted and unintelligible, except for the sig. The broadcast was on multiple bands and channels and ended with what appeared to be small-arms discharges inside the house.” She pointed again. Fred looked at her arm rather than where it was pointing. Not a small arm. Rather an athletic one. He turned his attention back to the diorama. The many bees present showed up as pinpoints of colored light, the color depending on the mech’s affiliation. More bees were arriving by the second and joining the legions already lurking in the shrubbery. “I feel like a latecomer to the party,” Fred said.

Costa gave him a look. “Speaking of parties. I’m sorry to have interrupted yours.”

“Not a problem.”

Costa pointed into the HUD again, this time at the outskirts of the theater map where a little blip was moving in their direction. “I’ve ordered some scouts to ring the doorbell for us. They’re still five minutes out.”

Fred pointed to a closer blip approaching from the opposite direction. “What’s that?” A large vehicle was entering their perimeter. Its transponder ID’d it as a shipping container belonging to a moving and storage company.

Costa said, “Libby?”

They seem to have a legitimate permit to pick up an object in the subject SFR
.

“I’ll bet they do.”

The huge van touched down halfway in the residence’s driveway and halfway in the street, effectively blocking both. On its vast side was painted a large, mustard-colored capital T in an olive-green circle—Charter TUG.

Libby said,
What do you want me to do with them, Inspector?

“We’ll want to talk to them, of course,” Costa replied, “but not right now. Send me someone to collect them, and in the meantime, order them to shut everything down and to remain inside their vehicle.”

Acknowledged
, Libby said, but a minute later, the van’s rear hatch opened, and two TUGs stepped down to the street.

“Libby?” Costa said.

They’re ignoring our orders
.

Two matched specimens of that odd charter, in their olive and mustard jumpsuits, loitered next to the aft hatch of the container van.

“Michaelmas,” Costa said, “what are they doing?”

“Just standing there s’faras I can tell, Myr Inspector,” said the jerry. “They scan as unarmed, but the van is opaque, so there’s no telling.”

Fred zoomed in a little with his visor and discovered that one of the tuggers was a woman. Their body mass and shape were so similar it was hard to tell. A jarhead uniformity achieved not through cloning or retrosomal gengineering, but through deep body sculpting and phenocopic surgery.

Fred zoomed in a little closer and said, “I know her.”

“Say again,” Costa said.

“I recognize one of them.”

“Really? How can you tell?”

Fred let the question pass and said, “Looks to me like they want to parley.”

“They can parley at the station.”

Fred got up and opened his door. “Looks like our scouts are still a few minutes out. I won’t be long.”

Costa watched him without comment. The jerry rose to accompany him, but Fred motioned him to sit. He exited the GOV and was immediately surrounded by bees. They darted in front of his face vying for his attention. Tiny frames opened, and tiny heads shouted questions at him: What is the nature of this HomCom action? Is it related to nanoterror? Was there a firefight inside the house at 2131 Line Drive? Is the incident related to the Market Correction of’34?

Fred said, “Uh, Libby?”

Suddenly, and all at once, the bees flew away.

Cordon in place, Commander
.

“Thank you.”

He shut the starboard door, catching a glimpse of the inspector, who didn’t seem too happy with him.

Fred approached the van and TUGs.
Well?
he said, when he was almost upon them.
Marcus, I’ve forgotten her name
.

Veronica Tug
, Marcus said.

“Veronica Tug,” Fred said, offering her his hand. “Didn’t expect to see you again today.”

“Me neither,” she said, shaking his hand. Her hand was bigger than his, and stronger, an odd sensation for a russ to experience. “Looks like you’ve had a day of it,” she chortled. Though her mouth was buried in the fleshiness of her face, the sound that came out of it was light and melodious. “And an interesting one, by the smell of it.”

“Interestinger by the minute,” Fred said and offered his hand to the male tugger.

“This is Miguel,” Veronica Tug said, not bothering to append his charter name.

“A pleasure, Miguel,” Fred said. “I’m Fred Londenstane.” But the tugger couldn’t force himself even to shake hands with an iterant. Fred dropped his hand and turned back to the woman. “I haven’t had a chance to debrief my proxy from this morning, Myr Tug. I hope the arrangements you made with it have satisfied Myr Pacfin.”

“There’s no satisfying some people,” the tugger woman said, “so don’t beat yourself up. You did a good enough job. You agreed to keep the pikes on a leash.”

That probably meant keeping them off the convention floor. “That sounds doable,” he said.

“Those are the exact words your proxy used. It also agreed to enlist five hundred TUGs to supplement your security force.”

“It did?” Fred said. “Amazing. I’ll have to talk to my proxy and find out what I was thinking. As to this situation—” he went on, gesturing to include the entire block. “We want you to return inside your big box and wait for some nice officers to come talk to you. Okay?”

“Gladly, Commander,” Veronica Tug said without hesitation, “but first you might wanta see what we got in our big box.”

“And what would that be?”

“I don’t know what it would be, Commander, but I know what it is.” Her delivery was deadpan and sweet.

Fred said, “So what
is
it?”

“Only just a gamma S-ray densiscanner.”

Fred looked doubtfully at the van and then at her. “That’s a pretty hairy piece of gear to be hauling around.”

“Why, thank you,” she said. “It can do a seatrain in fourteen passes, a warehouse in two or three.”

“I’m sure it can,” Fred said. “And now that you mention it, I guess I wouldn’t mind seeing something like that.” He gestured them toward the hatchway. “After you,” he said and followed them inside.

Londenstane
, Costa said.
The van is opaque
.

Her transmission was cut off the instant he entered the container. He turned to Veronica Tug and said, “You have about fifteen seconds to convince me.” Even as he spoke, a valve in the undercarriage of the GOV shot open, and a dozen homcom bees streamed out and flew for the van, stringing themselves into a beevine.

“Ellen Starke’s head—” was all Veronica managed to say before the lead bee entered the van and took up a relay post just inside the hatchway.

Ellen Starke, of course, Fred thought. No wonder Cabinet wanted me here.

The male tugger, Miguel, reared up in front of the lead bee and said, “Desist!” But the homcom bee was under no obligation to leave.

“I said desist!” he roared.

“Miguel, leave it alone,” Veronica said, “and show the commander the way to the booth.”

When Miguel hesitated, she made a sharp click with her tongue, and he jerked into motion.

Londenstane? Do you copy?

Yeah
, Fred said.
Thanks for the bees
.

Londenstane, my scouts are only two minutes out
.

The tuggers were halfway down the van, waiting for him. Fred picked up his pace and almost tripped when he saw the gear. The van was filled with electronics. A whole wall of fuel cells and a row of man-sized, rapid discharge, ultra-high voltage capacitors. There was a shaft along the entire length of the van’s ceiling, watercooled and bristling with induction coils. No wonder Miguel didn’t want him or the bees in here.

Two minutes. Understood
, he replied to Costa.

The heavily shielded control booth in the center of the van was too small for more than one tugger at a time, and while Miguel sat in it on a stool to operate the board, Fred and Veronica stood on either side of the door and looked in. The beevine expanded to remain right over Fred’s shoulder.

Miguel shot him a look of pure hatred as he thumbed the board pads. Some lumbering machinery began to spin up, and the metal floor rattled. There was the smell of ozone. Fred scrunched in closer to get behind the booth’s shielded door.

When the hum reached a turbine pitch, Miguel thumbed another pad, and a frame, like a sheet of paper, appeared before him. To be joined by another and another until a stack of sheets, each an individual cross-section of the residence, blended into a small diorama of the house and yard. The house and everything inside it was outlined, like transparent boxes inside boxes.

Miguel dialed down the gain, tinting out the furniture, walls, and floors. Only the plumbing, antique wiring, and other dense objects showed up as dark gray lines. The electronics in appliances were smudges. There was a coffin-sized wall safe in a room upstairs, and a brace of pistols in a downstairs closet. No people, at least none with implants. By far the densest thing in the house, so massive it showed up solid black, was a four-legged object in the main ground-floor room. It might be a sculpture done in some weird material, though probably not.

“Patch this through to my GOV,” Fred said.

Now even the tugger woman seemed reluctant, but she ordered Miguel to comply with a curt jab of her chin.

A few moments later Costa said,
Nameless One IDs it as an unregistered warbeitor of unknown ownership, design, and capabilities
.

“It’s a warbeitor,” Fred told the TUGs.

“No kidding,” Veronica replied. “We thought it was a house pet.” She caught Fred’s eye, reached into the diorama, and touched a rectangular object, much less dense, in the same room. “And this might be its bone.”

Fred studied her expressionless face. Why was she being so helpful? Part of her campaign to heal the rift between her people and his? He doubted it. She was here on a job, a big job from the look of it. The TUGs were risking this whole expensive field unit. There was too much at stake to waste time as a goodwill ambassador.

More than likely, Cabinet had recruited both him and the TUGs to accomplish the same goal. Why else would she tell him about the girl’s head, if that was what the warbeitor’s prize was? Double teaming made sense. She’d let him and the inspector do the heavy lifting and be in position to pick up the pieces in case they fumbled.

Fred nodded to Veronica and said, “Inspector, inform Nameless One that I’m officially confiscating this van for an ongoing police action.”

“Hey, feck you, man!” Miguel Tug said, springing from his stool.

“Sit down, scrub,” Veronica ordered, “and shut the feck up.”

The tugger sat down and glowered at Fred. Fred said, “Just keep the pictures coming, sonny.” Turning to leave, he said to Veronica, “You say I hired five hundred just like him?”

As Fred walked back to the aft hatch, he could feel the rippling of magnetic fields against his suit. He stooped to retrieve a homcom bee that had fallen from the beevine. “Saddle up,” he ordered the others.

As he returned to the GOV, the scout tender arrived and set down alongside them. When Fred reclaimed his cab seat from the jerry, Costa said, “Nice of you to return.” The densiscanner diorama was superimposed over their own in the HUD. The warbeitor had not moved in the house.

“Are we ready with the scouts?” Fred said.

“Just waiting on you, Commander.”

Fred glanced at the inspector. Despite her tone, she seemed to be enjoying herself. He cleared his throat and said, “House at 2131 Line Drive, this is Commander Londenstane of the Homeland Command.” He swiped his hand at the house through the windshield. “And these are Justice Department Inspector Costa and HomCom Lieutenant Michaelmas.” The other two swiped their hands.

When the house remained unresponsive, Fred continued. “We’re here to serve you this warrant—he swiped again—allowing us to frisk you.”

It was a federal warrant, one that superseded the SFR’s surveillance variance, and after a few moments, the house said,
Proceed
.

Across the street from them, the house’s heavy front door unfolded. The scout cart rolled around the van and up the drive and climbed up the stone steps to the porch. It lowered its shovel chute through the open doorway and opened its tank. Thousands of scouts rolled into the front foyer, unwrapping themselves and fanning out.