Kaleidocide (7 page)

“Good for her,” Lynn said. “A bright spot in Oakland's otherwise miserable history.”

The Firehawks hovered near the building on three sides, and Ni's voice rang out on her bird's PA system.

“You are surrounded, with enough fire power to blow you all out. Please surrender, so we don't have to further damage that nice historic building.”

They came out, but not in the way we hoped. And the triplets had one more surprise for us as well.

 

7

NAPA CITY

“You don't get nothin' for nothin', piece.” That's what Simon had said when Angelee realized what he was all about. The “free” place he had given to her seemed too good to be true, and it was. It had a separate room for her little boy, more than she could have hoped for, but now she knew why that room was necessary. Simon's customers wouldn't be interested in that kind of audience (at least most of them).

At first she had blamed Mariah, the friend she made at the homeless shelter. But then she remembered that the big black woman had told her what was going on, in her own way.

“He'll get you some work,” Mariah had said while nodding her head slightly—the only way she could have relayed such sensitive information in that cramped and crowded environment. And all Mariah's references to how pretty Angelee was were now starting to make sense. Angelee had thought her older friend was attracted to her, but she knew now that Mariah had been pointing to her only way out of that diseased death trap. But she wasn't sure whether she should be grateful or hateful to her “Mama,” as Mariah liked to be called.

Angelee knew that she
needed
Mariah, however, so she couldn't tell her off, or otherwise spurn her “kindness.” Mariah was her only hope in case the handsome rich man ever made it back to the shelter. Mariah had promised to watch for him or one of his assistants, and Mariah knew where to find her, if necessary. And Mariah was simply the best person for this job, because somehow she had managed to live at the shelter for years, when most arrivals either left or died within weeks.

Angelee lay on her new bed, the biggest thing in the room, and waited for her four-year-old son Chris to stagger droopy-eyed out of his room, which he did every once in a while until he finally got too tired and fell asleep. She looked around at the brownish colors on the carpet, curtains, and paint—Simon had said it was “like living in a sewer, pony, but without the smell.” Remembering that, she noticed for the first time that there
was
a nagging odor, and tried to figure out what it was for a minute or two before giving up.

Then she closed her eyes and reviewed her meeting with the handsome rich man for the hundredth time, picturing it in her mind and savoring every detail to keep the memory alive. Even as she did, she wondered if this was good for her. Perhaps it was a dream that needed to die. But not yet—these were the last few hours she would have the room to herself (judging by what Simon had said), and the last time in her life that she would be Angelee. When the tricks started rolling in, she would become someone else, back to being just “Lee.” Back to being some kind of monster? She didn't want to think that way—this was something she had to do, or else her little boy would never make it. But for right now she was still Angelee, and Angelee was the girl that the handsome rich man had come looking for …

*   *   *

They had tried to get him to wear one of those little masks that most of the visitors wore, but someone who saw him come in said that he had waved it off. He must have been a very important person, because the staff who saw him all followed him with their eyes—some of them even stopped working to watch him. (She got this information from other “residents” also, later on.) And then there was the seven-foot-tall Chinese man who stayed at the door, his eyes sweeping the room in a machinelike, measured cycle.

“Are you Angelee?” he asked from behind her. (She was changing Chris's diaper.) She looked back over her shoulder, and then did a double take because he was so good-looking and well-dressed—unlike anyone else she had seen at that place, including the staff. His voice was tinged with a slight accent, which someone later said was English. She didn't know about that, but she did know that it immediately struck her as dignified, kind, and even sexy. Maybe she was projecting a feeling back on her memory of the moment, but thinking of it now, it seemed that right away she knew that he was unlike any other person she had ever met. This was one of the
special people,
the ones who seemed so unreal when you saw them on TV.

“Mommy!” Chris had blurted out, and jerked her out of the seemingly eternal moment. The boy was old enough to be bothered by lying there with his diaper off, but unfortunately not old enough to be completely out of diapers yet. Angelee turned back to the little boy and finished with him, wondering if she should have said “Wait a minute” or “Excuse me” or something to the man, and wondering if he would still be there when she turned back around. While doing this, she briefly glanced up at some of her “bedmates” nearby, and noticed them staring past her at the man. Valya, a young Eurasian girl with only one eye, was moving a bandaged hand up and down in a futile attempt to beautify her greasy, matted hair.

Finally, after what seemed like another eternity, Angelee turned around to face the man. She stayed seated, clasped her hands down between her knees, and grew painfully aware of how unkempt she was. Why couldn't this have been shower day?

“Angelee?” he said in that heavenly voice. “Are you the wife of Peter Kim?”

Maybe it was the rush of odd emotions provoked by this unexpected visitor, or maybe it was because she had not heard a reference to her husband in a while, but she lost it. She began sobbing uncontrollably, her shoulders wrenching forward as though they were trying to touch each other. But she did happen to manage a nod or two in the midst of her blubbering and dabbing at her face with the bottom of her shirt.

When he was sure that she had nodded, the dark-haired angel sat down beside her on the cot and put his arm around her. The shudders of grief were now joined by euphoric waves of pleasure, which seemed to spread through her body from where his arm was touching her. This was the first time a man had touched her since Peter died, a fact that provoked more sobs and delayed her further from any kind of rational interaction with the man. But he just sat with her, squeezed her shoulder now and then, and waited for her to come out of it.

“Sorry. Very sorry,” she eventually got out, but then jumped in her seat when she looked up and saw the Chinese giant, blocking half the light as he towered over them. He had left his post by the door, glided through the beds with surprising ease—since he seemed too big for some of the spaces between them—and was now holding out a tissue for her.

“Thank you,” she said as she took it. The bald, brown monstrosity just nodded slightly, then made his way back to the door, scanning the room the whole time. As she wiped her nose, she looked again at the handsome man, who had now taken his arm off her and twisted sideways so he could see her better.

He chuckled, waving his finger toward the back of his head and said, “He has a bit of a leak from his upper cranial port.” His mild amusement seemed to fade as he realized she had no idea what he was talking about. “The tissues,” he added with a more serious expression. “That's why he carries tissues.” He pointed to the one she was holding, and then grinned again. “We can engineer a cybernetic vascular system impervious to the common cold, but he still needs tissues. Funny.”

He paused for a moment as she sat silent, studying his green eyes. Then he said, “Angelee, I came here to help you.”

He explained that her husband had worked for his company and had provided some assistance to him personally before he had died “in the line of duty.” Wanting to make sure Kim's family was cared for, and to thank them personally, he got their address and came to visit them in Napa City, only to find that they had been evicted because the BASS salary had been their only source of income. The apartment manager had mentioned the downtown shelters, because that was where he had directed the young mother when she asked, “Where can we go?”

“So here I am,” the man concluded with that charming smile. “And I want to give you this.” He handed her a wad of cash, and squeezed her shoulder with his other hand. “That should take care of you and your son for now, but I'll come back, or send someone to take care of you. I'll have to think about what else I can do for you, and check on a few things.” He looked over toward the door.

“Well, I have to go now,” he said, politely regretful. He gestured at the big cyborg by the door. “They have a security window for me—I can only be in public for so long. But I'll see you again.”

He smiled and walked away, dodging the miscreants and their makeshift homes, until he and the bodyguard had disappeared. Angelee sat with her mouth open, clutching the money, realizing that she never got the man's name. Important people usually don't need to introduce themselves, and an utter nobody like her was too intimidated to speak, let alone ask for his name. But none of that mattered to her at that moment, as her homeless neighbors gathered around her to begin the gossip and speculation that would give them all a reason for living in the days to come. And he said he would come back!

*   *   *

Now, lying on her bed in the brown room, Angelee was crying again, much like she did on that day when the beautiful man put his arm around her. But he wasn't there to comfort her this time. In fact, more than a month had passed since he promised that he would come back, and apparently he had forgotten her. Thinking that he would be taking care of her, and knowing that holding on to that much money would make her a target for crime, she gave some of it to her extended family members who had qualified for federal housing. The rest she spent on food for herself, Chris, and Mariah, enduring the shelter until her knight in shining armor would ride in and take her away. But that day never came, and the money ran out. So here she was, about to return to the oldest profession.

“You got settled in by now, hoover,” Simon had told her earlier today. “So tonight you open for business. Get some sleep now, baby girl, cuz you won't be sleeping much at night no more.” He groped her with both hands and added, “You won't believe how they go for the new ones. Be real busy at first. But after a while, it'll slow down some. Won't be such new stew—be just like the rest.”

She moved to take his hands off, but he drew his face up close to hers. “Ah, ah, stew,” he hissed through chemical breath, “You mine. An' sooner you learn that, the better. You say no to me, or any my customers, you dead, and we put your kid to work. Simple as that, stew.” Finally, he drew back from her.

“Sample some of the merchandise myseff,” he said, “but wouldn't wanna dirty it for your first night. Expectin' to get some big money on that one. Good marketin' mierda, you know.” He moved his hand across the air in front of him, as if depicting a billboard. “
Brand-new stew…”

 

8

PREY

Not long after the triplets' warning boomed out of the PA into the dusty Oakland air, about ten of the teal-armored mercenaries ran out of the bottom of the YWCA building through several different exits. Some took off on surface paths—they could hardly be called roads anymore—while others disappeared into nearby tunnels that had been discovered or dug in the debris by survivors of the quake. They probably figured that the Firehawks couldn't shoot them all, and that we had no ground troops on site to chase after them. And on both counts they were right. But they didn't count on what happened next.

From the side doors of each helicopter sprang four dark shapes, two on each side, which hung in descending order next to it for a moment, making it look like the big birds were sprouting wings. But it soon became apparent that these were not wings, but smaller birds—the remote-controlled flying machines called “falcons” that we had built with the Sabon antigravity technology and used to assist our peacers in surveillance and pursuit. As these falcons now dove toward the surface in different directions, it was clear that the triplets were controlling them wirelessly with their cyber brains, and sending them in pursuit of the fleeing mercs. We had “falconers” who could control the flying robots, but only one or two at a time. The triplets were each controlling
four
of the black birds, while also piloting their Firehawks.

Terrey switched the displays so that twelve screens with a view from every one of the falcons hung around us in the room. Now I was really experiencing sensory overload, and I'm sure it was worse for Lynn, but our gazes darted among the screens nonetheless. This was just too good to miss.

The first falcon that reached a man running on the surface simply gassed him and left him lying unconscious (it did this by firing softshell pellets from its wings, which also contained killer and stopper rounds). But when another caught up with a merc in a rather big underground tunnel (the remains of a subway, perhaps?), it not only hit him with one of the gas pellets, but also hauled his body back up to the surface by shooting toward him an Immobilization and Retrieval Apparatus (IMRATS or more often RATS, for short). This device looked something like the back of an open wallet and was attached to the falcon by a plasteel cord that extended and retracted from the bird. The apparatus at the end, when contacting a human figure, would encircle the person and lock its ends together. Then it would contract, immobilizing the person and enabling him to be transported (usually without too much injury). By an interesting coincidence, the RATS was located on the bottom of the falcon, right about where a real bird would extend its claws to grasp its prey.