Hardwired (28 page)

“I was a lot less obvious when I was guarding you,” she says, her mouth twisting. She reaches for the White, and thick chips of frost fall from the metal flask as she holds it over her goblet and presses the nitrogen trigger. White foam splatters over the goblet lip and lands on Cowboy’s knuckle. He lifts the finger to his lips and feels the chill shock move through his nerves, his teeth.

After dinner he goes in his luggage for an inhaler of softglow, a chemical high that won’t tangle with hardwired nerves. Sarah finishes the last of her Cryo White and then breathes in a pair of torpedoes. She tosses her head back, shakes her hair, grins. Cowboy triggers the inhaler twice and feels a windblown grassfire burning up each hemisphere of his brain.

“Do you remember...?” Sarah says.

“It’s good being allies again.”

Then they’re tangled on the bed, Cowboy watching her body on infrared, seeing the blood rush to the skin in rivers of silver, forming bright pools in her breasts, her groin, little glowing snake tracks following his fingertips wherever he touches her. He reaches into one of the headboard compartments for a headset and some studs, faces in, fits the headset over her temples. Her dreaming eyes grow suddenly wide and her hands jerk up to yank off the headset.

“No, Cowboy.”

There is fear in her voice, and he feels a chill surprise. His eyes click back to normal.

Sarah’s face is deep in shadow. “I thought we could share our heads,” he says.

He can feel Sarah give a quick shake of the head. “No.” She takes a deep breath, presses her hand to his cheek. “I’m not...” She shakes her head again. “There are things in my head you don’t want to know about,” Sarah says. She presses her forehead to his, looks straight into his eyes. Speaks regretfully, plainly. Her breath flutters against his lips. “Things from my past, things that don’t have anything to do with you. It’s just that...sometimes they’re there. Even when I don’t want them to be. And you wouldn’t like it.”

“I’ve been places,” he says.

“Not these kinds of places. Otherwise you wouldn’t have tried to put us both into the same face.”

Cowboy slowly reaches up to his head and takes himself out of the face. Sarah slides her arms around him. He can feel the warm silk of her thigh riding up his hip and switches to infrared, seeing the silver and rust build glowing patterns in the darkness. He thinks about Sarah’s little room above the bat, the single chair, the bare narrow mattress. He knows he will not be invited into that bed, that the sex between the two of them must always remain on neutral ground. Because she will always need that little place, the bare little room where she can hide and nothing can touch her.

He rolls atop Sarah and enters her, seeing her glowing against the sheets, her skin ablaze. Her eye sockets are a cool cyanide violet, the windows to her mind firmly shuttered.

A few hours later Cowboy wakes to find Sarah deep in her own rhythm, her nerves triggered and her body a blur of kicks and punches, running her pattern of makebelieve violence in the center of the room, locked in battle with the night, with the phantoms trying to reach her. He watches her move in the dimness, feeling the vibration of the Ritz Flop rising through his spine. Wondering what she sees in front of her as she launches her attacks, what faces are conjured in the legion of invisible enemies. If his own face is among them, to be kept always at bay.

And then he sees the flicker of darkness from between her lips, and coldness touches him with spiderweb fingertips. He snaps his vision to infrared and sees the cybernetic lash that is Weasel, the cybersnake running its swift deadly patterns in combination with her hand strikes, flashing out against the ghosts that fill the room.

Fear fills him, cold touching his fingertips. He watches silently from his pillow, realizing that she’s always had this, a piece of cold alloy and plastic madness incarnated in her throat, hidden beneath her warm, humid tongue... Cowboy’s heart thrashes in his chest, urging him to run. He thinks about facing with the cybersnake by accident, feeling its cold crystal mind through his sockets... “There are things in my head you don’t want to know about.” In her head, aye, and her throat, her heart. Hidden behind her cyanide eyes.

She finishes her work and sucks the Weasel back in her. Cowboy closes his eyes and hopes she will think he is asleep. Sarah pads quietly to the shower, giving Cowboy time to get his breathing under control.

When she comes back to the bed, he moves over and gives her plenty of room.

Chapter Twelve

Sweat gathers on Daud’s upper lip, on his forehead. His blue eyes are glazed with pain. The muscles on his upper arms bunch as he tries to support his weight on the gleaming metal rails while his new pink-fleshed legs take a few careful steps.

“That’s it, Daud. You got it.” The blond bodybuilder therapist, standing close by in case of a fall, urges Daud on. Sarah adds her own encouragement as Daud walks slowly the length of the rails, then turns and moves torturously back to his wheelchair.

“That was good, Daud,” Sarah says later, as she pushes the chair to the elevator. “The best yet.”

Daud’s head lolls back against its rest. “Can we stop for some cigarettes?” he asks.

“I’ve got some with me.” Back in his room she helps him climb into his bed and then opens one of the two packs of cigarettes she’s brought with her. She puts the other in a drawer where he can reach it. The neighboring bed is empty and Sarah sits on it.

A thin bearded nurse comes in, with a basin for Daud’s bath. “You shouldn’t be smoking in bed,” he says mildly. He carefully begins to stack towels on the bedside table.

“I’ll wash him,” Sarah says. She slides off the bed and reaches for the basin in the nurse’s hands. The nurse looks at her in surprise.

“Daud and I have some talking to do,” Sarah says. “In private.” The nurse’s nervous eyes flicker to Daud, and Daud nods.

“Doesn’t matter to me,” the nurse says, and shrugs. He looks at Sarah. “You’re not supposed to sit on the beds.”

“Won’t happen again.”

The nurse leaves, and Sarah pulls down the sheets covering Daud, unbuttons his pajama tunic, exposing the slack white chest mottled with pink shrapnel scars. She washes him while Daud stares at the ceiling, the cigarette in the corner of his mouth.

“You should exercise more, Daud,” she says. “You used to exercise all the time when you lived with me. You’ll be walking a lot faster.”

“It hurts too much.” He blows smoke at the high acoustic ceiling. “They keep dropping my dose.”

Sarah washes the long legs, the thin white calves weightless in her arms.

“I’ve got to leave again, Daud,” she says. “I don’t know for how long.”

Daud blinks, his eyes still upturned. “I knew you were going again,” he says. “All those afternoons when you were at meetings and couldn’t see me.” She reaches for his cigarette and taps the lengthening ash into his tray.

“I have to pay your bills, Daud,” she says.

He swallows hard. Sarah watches the cords in his neck. She gives him his cigarette.

“Don’t go,” he says. “Don’t leave me here again.”

“Roll over on your side.” She washes his back, the deep white hollow between his shoulder blades.

“There’s a number where you’ll be able to leave a message,” Sarah says. “It’s in New Mexico. Maybe they’ll be able to patch you right through to me, maybe not. But I’ll get the message and call you from wherever I am. Okay?”

“Whatever you say.”’ Dully, pretending not to care.

“I’ll give you the number,” Sarah says. “You’re going to have to memorize it. I can’t ever write it down. And you can’t call from this room. Your phone might still be monitored. You’ll have to get in your wheelchair and go down to the waiting room and use the phone there. I’ll give you a credit needle so you can use it. Understand?”

“Yes. I understand.” Daud’s voice is a whisper. He reaches to the table for a towel and snatches it, but he’s using the new left arm and the movement lacks precision. The towel unfolds and Sarah sees the flash of crystal and metal in the instant before a vial strikes the floor and dances under the table. The cold rattle of glass on tile seems to last for a long time. Sarah feels the chill touch of metal on her nerves.

“No,” Daud says. “It’s mine. Don’t look.”

He gives a little moan as she reaches for the vial, as she brings it up to the light. Polymyxin-phenildorphin Nu, solution of 12 percent. At his old level, it should last him about a day. Less now. Not a surprise, now that she thinks about it.

Daud whimpers as she searches the towels and the bed, finding another new vial and one near-empty vial under his pillow. “No,” he says. “Look. Joseph was just doing me a favor.” He looks at the coldness in her face and falls silent.

“You don’t have any money, Daud,” she says. “How’d you pay for it?”

He clamps his mouth shut and shakes his head. Sarah feels the towel in her hands, and she flicks it in his face. He jerks his head back, his lips trembling.

“Tell me.”

He swallows, tries to turn his head away. Sarah flicks the towel again. It makes a hard sound in the air.

“Look,” he says, “they just add the cost to the– the hospital bill. Disguised charges. Joseph has a friend at the desk. You would never have known. ” He begins to talk fast. “I’ve been making such progress since, Sarah. I really have.”

“I’m moving you out of this place. A recovery hospital somewhere. You don’t need full care anymore.”

“Sarah.”

“Don’t.” She raises a hand clenched around a towel, feeling the anger making her fist tremble. She balls the towel up and flings it into a corner of the room, then spins and stalks into the corridor.

She finds Joseph in another room, washing the gaunt corded muscles of an accident victim who has both his legs raised in traction. “Hey, Joseph,” she calls, and sends one of the vials at his head. He ducks, his eyes wide, and the vial splinters against the wall. The room fills with a glycerine chemical smell.

Sarah’s moving too fast for him to dodge. The first kick catches his midsection; the second, his face. He goes down and she stands astride him, her hands seizing his collar, holding it tight, cutting into the skin around his neck. “Joseph,” she says, “I should fire the rest into your veins. How’d you like a nice endorphin overdose, hey?”

The accident victim is scrambling with his one good hand for the emergency cable. Sarah drops the bearded nurse and gently takes the emergency cord and puts it out of reach. Joseph puts a hand to his throat and gasps for breath.

Sarah turns to him. “Stay away from my brother, Joseph,” she says. “He doesn’t need you, or the things that you hide in his towels.”

“I was just– ”

Sarah slaps him hard across the face. She can feel the man in the bed flinch at the sound.

“Just follow instructions, Joseph. My brother doesn’t get any of the drugs you’re selling, and the price of what you’ve sold him comes off my bill. Don’t say anything, just nod yes or no.” Joseph looks up at her, gives a slow nod.

Sarah straightens, takes the emergency cable and puts it in the hand of the accident victim. “Sorry,” she says. “I just had to reach an accommodation with the local ’dorphin dealer.” She looks into his surprised eyes. “Check your bill carefully before you pay it. Joseph here may have added some of his disguised charges.”

She turns and leaves the room, the smoldering anger turning to sadness. She can’t keep Daud away from the endorphins, not even if she stays with him. They’re a part of what keeps him alive now. He’s got nothing to look forward to but the next injection, nothing but a visit from his sister–– and Sarah wants only to make him feel again, to bring him back to the world of pain, where nothing stands between him and the city. No wonder, she thinks, that he made his deal with Joseph. She’s a part of the city, the city that wants him. Joseph was his only chance to get away.

Chapter Thirteen

“Dodger?” Cowboy looks at the phone in surprise.

“Who else?” says the Dodger.

Cowboy grins at the sound of the Dodger’s voice. “I’m glad to hear you’re out. I hope your Flash Force people are keeping as good an eye on you as they are on me.”

“Nothing to worry about there.” Cowboy hears the sound of chewing tobacco being shifted from one cheek to the other. “Some of their mercs tried to set up an ambush down Mora way, on old Bob Aguilar’s land. I must’ve heard from half a dozen people about it; Bob in particular, so we hired an extra platoon for one afternoon and took them out. A wired fight, lasted about ten minutes all told. Had to lock Jimi in the bathroom so he wouldn’t jump in his panzer and join the war. I don’t think our friends’ll be coming into the mountains again. Strangers are too conspicuous up here.”

Cowboy laughs and offers his congratulations. He’s talking from a public phone at the Orlando port of entry to the Randolph Scott accommodation link in Santa Fe. His phone-in time was set up in advance, giving the Dodger’s people time to instruct the Randolph Scott number to forward the call to Mora or Eagle Nest or whatever public phone the Dodger was standing by.

“The meet with Roon’s still set up for tomorrow,” Cowboy says. “I’ve got a cube holding the instructions for the treaty we’re going to cut. Ready to receive?”

“Anytime, Cowboy.”

Cowboy snaps the trapdoor shut over the cube and fires the data to New Mexico. Dodger’s voice informs him that he’s got the treaty in his crystal.

“Michael got hit bad last night,” Cowboy says. “One of his people went over to the other side, took his crowd along and a warehouseful of hearts and antibiotics. ”

“We’ve been doing a little better thisaway.” In spite of the news the Dodger’s voice seems full of good cheer. Probably, Cowboy thinks, because it’s the first time he’s left his house in months.

“The, ah, express riders are about to split from Arkady’s group.” A pulse of slow delight flares in Cowboy’s mind. The panzerboys, following his lead. They could shut Arkady’s machine down cold. “After Jimi did...what he did...Arkady started insisting on one of his people going along on every run, riding shotgun inside the delivery vehicle. That didn’t sit well with the drivers. And after Arkady’s plane crash his people got even more nervous. It seems Arkady’s replacement showed up real quick.”