Marlowe and the Spacewoman (30 page)

“Didn’t House?”

“No.”

Nina jammed her thumb over the elevator call button.  “I don’t see any indicator showing which floor the elevator is on.  What do we do if we lose them?”

“Go home empty-handed.”  Marlowe closed his eyes, trying to still the sudden din in his head.  

“Marlowe, are we just going to stand here?  We’re losing them!”

“Shh, I can’t hear myself think.  Wait a second, that’s it!”  Marlowe opened his eyes, and let out a cry of triumph when he saw the entrance to the stairs.  “Come on, and be quick about it!  I only hope we aren’t too late.”

Marlowe bounded through the doors.  “Down, the elevator went down.  Stop at each floor and listen!”

They went down one flight and stopped, Marlowe in the lead, his hand raised in the air.  Silence greeted them.

“What are we listening for?” asked Nina.

“Marching!”

They went this way down seventeen flights, pausing for a few seconds to listen, before moving on.  At floor -2, they were rewarded with the sound of the R.E.T. team’s clip-clopping march.

“Come on, before they get too far from the elevators to find!”  Marlowe hoofed it through the door and promptly plowed into the Rapid Expungement Team leader, sending him sprawling.

“Watch where you’re going, you stup…sir!”  The swarthy man, ‘Icasiano’ stitched over his left breast, had recovered enough from the collision to notice Marlowe’s lack of a name tag.  “Begging your pardon sir, very clumsy of me.  Official police business, can’t stay any longer.”  The team started up their marching again, and Marlowe just leaned against a wall to catch his breath.

“Damn, what are the odds of that happening?”

Nina patted him on the back.  “We’ll have to ask House when we get back.  But shouldn’t we follow them now?”

“What?  Oh yes, absolutely.”

It wasn’t hard.  What they achieved with speed, the R.E.T. paid for with subtlety.  Marlowe and Nina were able to keep well behind the team, simply following the echoes of their boots.  Marlowe had fired up his clipboard and was paging through House’s list of suspected sites.  

“There’s only one site on this floor.  I know where they’re heading.”  Marlowe stopped short.  “We should find a terminal and send a message to father, to cancel the request.”

“And if House is wrong?”

Marlowe looked at Nina with mock shock.  “House wrong?  Please.”

They found a small room crowded with cubicles under flickering yellow lights.  A lot of tiny, cramped cubicles.  Marlowe stormed over to the nearest one, which contained a desk, a terminal, and a phone.  He logged into the terminal as Thinners and sent himself an email with the site number from House’s list.  Twenty seconds later he had an email reply from himself, saying simply “All taken care of.”

“Right, father’s done it.  Let’s go.  Hopefully that cleanup team will be recalled before they have a chance to successfully expunge anything important.”

Much to their relief, a very obviously dejected group of softly walking expungement professionals sulked past them as they headed toward the site indicated on Marlowe’s clipboard map.

They reached the indicated room.  Nina tried the door.  “It’s locked.”

“Hang on, I’ve got a lock pick set sewn somewhere into this unif-”

The sound of a door frame cracking interrupted Marlowe.  Nina shoved the somewhat bowed door open.  “Not a problem.”

“I hope there wasn’t an alarm on that door.”

“One step ahead of you, Sherlock.  I asked House about that, and he felt the odds were so low as to be off the charts.  What place is more secure than the Ministry of Policing building?  Well, supposedly secured, anyway.”

“I haven’t been called Sherlock in years!”

Nina grabbed Marlowe’s arm.  “Come on, we’re not supposed to dawdle, remember?”

They crossed over the threshold together into the dark unfathomables of Obedere’s secret lair.

CHAPTER 17

THE GREAT PAPER CHASE

OR

THE WHOLE IS GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS

The secret lair was a bright, well appointed oval room.  Dark cherry wood panels lined the walls, crowned by a gold and inlaid pearl dome ceiling.  A large, four-paneled Virtu-window took up an entire wall, displaying a rocky coastal outcropping enduring the pounding of a raging late-night thunder and lightening storm.  Facing the window, and set back from the wall a couple of meters sat a squat, cherry wood desk consisting of a wide, gleaming top and three drawers on the right side.  An antique chair with plush royal purple cushions framed by yet more dark cherry wood stood inattentive guard over the desk, its back to Marlowe.  Extending out from either side of the desk and wrapping around the length of the room like large segmented antennae were oak cabinets stained dark brown, containing three drawers each.  There was another cabinet, different from the others, at the apex of the antennae.  This cabinet, shorter and wider than the others, was made of beige plastic.

They approached the desk quickly.  Marlowe felt a chill run down his spine as he explored the desk top.  The strange, alien objects on it were no doubt fiendish devices of torture used by Obedere to delight himself in the wee morning hours.

Nina moved over to the largest of the strange devices, a large, oversized keyboard.  The keys were arranged in the usual keyboard order, but the rows were staggered like stadium seating, the line of keys of one row being raised a half-step above the row immediately below it.  It must have been a wireless model, because Marlowe didn’t see a data cable running from it.  The top of the keyboard ended inexplicably in a black cylinder running the length of the device.  A shiny metal lever extended from the right side of the cylinder.

Nina ran a finger over the top of the cylinder, as if checking for dust.  “Wow, a typewriter!  That’s the last thing I expected to encounter here!”

Marlowe looked at her blankly.  “A what?”

“A typewriter.  You know, for typing?”

“You mean a keyboard.  It’s a weird sort of keyboard.  And given you recognize it, a bit of an antique too.”

“No, not a keyboard.  A keyboard implies a computer somewhere that you’re typing your keystrokes into.  The typewriter predates the computer.”

“If your keystrokes aren’t going into a computer, where are they going?”

“Onto paper.”

“Paper.”

“Yes, paper.”

“Directly onto paper.”

“Yes.  You sound like you don’t believe me.  What about that printing press you used to print your map of the sewer ?  That used paper.”

“Vellum, to be precise.  But that’s a toy.  Why would you want to print anything important on paper?  It would be so inconvenient.  You wouldn’t be able to access it with your PDI or computer…son of a parrot, the fiend’s a genius!”

Nina clicked her tongue, her head tilted to one side.  “Of course.  If it isn’t in electronic format, it can’t be hacked.  Paper has to be the most secure form of storage available in a place like this.  House would never be able to find this stash!”

There was a sudden thump against the door, followed by a sickening groan as the door swung open.  Marlowe jumped nearly high enough to alight on the desk, but when he spun around, it turned out to only be Jebediah.

“Great Cesar’s ghost, father, you shouldn’t sneak up on people like that!”

“Oh really,” replied Jebediah smartly.  “And I suppose I should knock loudly and announce my illegal presence for one and all to hear?”

Nina walked over to the door and wedged it shut.  “No, actually, in this case, you did exactly as you should have.  We’re just a little jumpy right now.”

Jebediah harrumphed.  “How goes the search?”

“Ah,” stuttered Marlowe, “the search.  We’re just working out where to get started.  We discovered this antique typewriter thing on Obedere’s desk and realized that he’s-”

“Committing all his important stuff to paper only, to make hacking more difficult?  Yes, I did the same thing when I was…well, before my…hiatus from power.”

“It presents a bit of a problem,” said Nina.  “If it’s all on paper, we’ll never be able to look through everything in a timely fashion.”

“Not a problem at all,” said Jebediah, rubbing his hands together.  “We just make copies.  And if we can’t find a copier, we steal the originals.”  He surveyed the room, and then jabbed a finger at the beige cabinet Marlowe had noticed upon first entering.  “There’s the copier.  Now to find the documents.  What are we looking for again?”

“Anything on Nina,” said Marlowe.

“Or my mission – Odyssey I.”

Jebediah’s eyes lost their focus as he receded into deep thought.  “Now what would I file information about Nina under?  N for Nina?  M for Minari?  O for Odyssey?  Hmm.  Nina, you check under N.  I’ll check under M.  Spares, you’re on O.”

They searched.  Marlowe found the drawer labeled ‘Oa-Or’ in one of the cabinets and opened it.  Inside he found folders with tabs on the edges, each of the tabs labeled, starting with ‘Oasis Project’ at the front and ‘Orange’ in the back.  The folders were in alphabetical order.  Marlowe thumbed through them, but where ‘Odyssey I’ should have appeared, there was nothing.

“Nothing,” said Jebediah.  “Maybe S for spacewoman.  Yes, I’ll look there.”

“Same here in the O cabinet.”  Marlowe was struck by an inspiration and abandoned the cabinets for the desk.  The typewriter was centered on a rectangular piece of thick, brick red paper framed on the shorter sides by a strip of padded leather delicately embroidered with gold leaf.  Two piles of paper were stacked in pewter trays next to the typewriter.  The top page in both trays was blank, but Marlowe could see faint impressions in the paper of one stack.  He smiled and slid himself into the chair.  Once seated, he noted a faint oily odor of wood polish.  He pulled open the top drawer.  It contained more stacks of paper, neatly tied off with twine, a box of something called ‘typewriter ribbon’ and a small bottle of something called ‘correction fluid’.  It was all quite beyond him.

The middle drawer yielded a couple of not-so-mysterious objects.  The first was a pearl-handled, silver-plated, dual-barreled, double action, compass-set-in-the-butt-of-the-grip 12mm Walloper.  Marlowe whistled.  This was the James K. Polk of handguns.  Next to it was a 2 liter bottle of Papa Doc Scotch, dated in the old, old calendar: 1984.

“Tut tut, that’s a dangerous combination, alcohol and guns.  I better do something about that.”  Marlowe grabbed the three-quarters full bottle and slipped it into one of the hidden pockets sewn into his uniform.  “And a work of art like this, it belongs in the hands of a true connoisseur, not a ham-fisted power monger like Obedere.”  He pocketed the gun too.

“Hey, stick with the program!”  Jebediah’s failure to unearth anything had left him touchy.  “You’ll only aggravate Obedere by stealing from him.  Any luck, Nina?”

“No, nothing yet.  Maybe it’s under something else, something we haven’t thought of?”

Marlowe had a thought.  “When I first talked to Obedere about you, he called you feisty.  Try looking under that.”

“Feisty?”  Indignation laced Nina’s voice.

“Don’t get mad at me, I didn’t say it.”  Marlowe reluctantly put the bottle and gun back in the middle drawer and closed it.  He pulled open the bottom drawer, which contained a very battered, yellowing shoe box.  Taking the lid off the box, Marlowe found hard copies of images.  He started thumbing through them.  Most of them were pictures of a man and woman.  They were of different ages in the photos, sometimes together, sometimes with other people.  The man bore a strong resemblance to Obedere.  Towards the back of the pile, a child and a dog appeared.  One picture grabbed Marlowe’s attention.  It looked like a family portrait – the man and woman in their forties, and a hale, hearty young man between them, smiling.  Marlowe recognized the young man – it was Obedere.

“Pay dirt!” shouted Nina.

“Pay dirt?”  Jebediah looked confused.  “Why would I pay dirt anything?  Furthermore, what currency would it accept?”

“No, I found a folder labeled Feisty.  Feisty, indeed.  He’ll regret that.”

“Will he?”  Jebediah had moved to Nina’s side, hand extended.  “And just when will that be?”

“Someday,” said Nina, pulling the folder out.

“So far,” said Jebediah as he took the folder from Nina, “this has been entirely too easy.  Well I’ll be a son of a parrot!”

Marlowe looked up from the photo.  “What is it?”

“The folder’s empty!”

Nina groaned.  “Empty!  Then where the hell is my file?”

Marlowe put the photos back in their box, replacing the lid and closing the drawer.  “That?  Oh, I found that ages ago.”

“What!” Nina and Jebediah both exclaimed simultaneously.

“Elementary deduction.  It seemed likely it was early days yet for Obedere to actually have everything together and filed.  It occurred to me that he was probably still typing everything up.”  Marlowe lifted the stack of paper that had the faint impressions on it and turned it over.  On the flip side was a cover sheet.  In the center of the page appeared the word ‘Feisty’, and then the sentence ‘Evidence analysis and investigative results pertaining to Nina Minari, so-called spacewoman.’  The stack was quite high.

Marlowe carried the report over to the copier Jebediah had pointed out earlier and then stopped, stumped.  The top of the copier was confusing.  There was a space that looked like a tray, but it was set into the top, and had rollers at one end.  In the corner were a lot of buttons.  “OK, how does this work?”

Jebediah joined Marlowe and took the papers out of his hands.  “Give me that.  I’ll do it.”

Jebediah put the papers face down into the incorporated tray and pressed a few buttons.  Suddenly there was a whirring sound, and the pages started getting sucked into the machine, from the bottom, only to be returned a moment later to the top of the stack.  On the right side of the copier, another tray folded down from within the machine and sheets of paper began to appear in it.  Jebediah picked up the first sheet and examined it.

“Yes, that seems to be working.  I’m making our copy double-sided, so it’s smaller and easier to smuggle out.”  He held the sheet up the light.  “Ah, what luck!  The paper in this copier has the Ministry of Policing watermark!  Makes our copy that much more legitimate.”

. “How long will the copying process take?” asked Marlowe.

Jebediah looked thoughtful.  “Another minute or so.”

“As soon as it’s done, we’re getting out of here.”

“Very well.  But did you want to look in the secret passage before we go?”

This time Marlowe and Nina exclaimed in unison.  “What!”

“Yes, I noticed that the S cabinet isn’t secured to the wall.  It pulls away, and there’s an opening behind it.”

“Why didn’t you say something!”

“I thought getting Obedere’s files on Nina was more important.”

“Well, of course it is, but-”

“Maybe the stuff they stole from the shuttle is in there!”  Nina was already pulling the cabinet away from the wall.  “Come on, there’s a really important item from the ship I want back.”

“Wait!” called out Marlowe, but she’d already disappeared into the dark rectangle hewn into the wall.  The copier was still churning out pages, far too slowly for Marlowe.    “Oh bother.  I guess while we’re waiting we’d better follow-”  But Jebediah had already gone after her.

Marlowe decided a more cautious approach was called for, and pulled the cabinet against the wall as he backed into the opening.  It wasn’t quite flush, but if someone, say Obedere, came in and didn’t look too closely, it might pass for a while.  Seeing the copier running would probably serve as a good distraction, at least until it was discovered what was being copied.

A light strip fluoresced the length of a short corridor that was literally cut out of solid rock.  Obedere must have chosen an underground office on the perimeter of the Ministry of Policing building so he could excavate outwards and create a secret chamber.

The tunnel ran a few meters and then exploded into a cavernous chamber.  Glowing cones of light hung down like stalactites, casting a reddish hue across the room and its contents.  Despite his evil tendencies, Obedere did have a flare for style.  Gothic style.  The iridescent stalactites aside, he seemed to have made every effort to create the illusion of a naturally occurring cave.  The only concession he made besides the lighting was the floor, which was flat and covered with a crunchy layer of sand.  Suddenly a ripple of lightning strobed down between two metal nodes hanging down from the ceiling, providing a flash of white light.

The walls were lined with tanks of various sizes, and made Marlowe flashback to the fiasco at the recon parlor.  A cluster of smaller tanks drew their immediate attention.  No bars of soap in these tanks.  These contained something larger, fleshier.  They approached nervously, all having deduced at the same time the contents of the tanks.  Brains.  Glowing, pulsating human brains.

Nina touched a tank with a small brain in it.  “Look at all of them.”

Jebediah shivered.  “They’re all different sizes.  What does that mean?  Is he yanking brains from babies and children as well as adults?”