Neurolink (12 page)

“Brownout.” Gervasia shrugged. “Second one tonight.”

Dominic realized he had a death grip on Gervasia’s hand. Slowly, he relaxed his hold. “Sorry.”

She arched one eyebrow and smiled.

“She’s fallin’ for you, boy.” The NP snickered. “Ask for a private tour of the Net link.”

Qi stomped Dominic’s foot and shouldered between them again. “Gervasia, you must be running out of fuel. What does your council say about that?”

Gervasia rocked her chair forward, slumped over the desk and stuck out her lip. “They believe in manna from heaven.”

“A man from heaven?” Dominic frowned. “I don’t understand the phrase.”

She gave him a glum look. “It’s some old legend about breakfast cereal drifting down from the sky.”

Prote legends were always absurd. Dominic never wasted time with them. He poked Qi in the ribs and made her move out of his way again. Then he took Gervasia’s hand. She was clearly upset. She kept working her mouth back and forth in a chewing motion, which was not very attractive.

“Nick—is that your name?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Nick, the truth is, I don’t know what to do. We’re running out of everything. So many new people arrive every hour. We didn’t expect this. We don’t have a plan.”

“You could stop the broadcast,” he said on impulse.

She gazed at her cabin’s single window, its view blocked by underwater trash. “That’s not up to me.”

Dominic gently stroked the back of her hand and studied the shape of her mouth. Why did she have to move her lower lip that way? She should look in a mirror.

Abruptly, she gripped his forearm. “Help us, Nick.”

He blinked and tried to calculate an answer.

She leaned toward him. “You look strong. Maybe you could help the mining crews in the tunnels.”

Dominic almost laughed. That was one request he hadn’t expected.

“But you’re educated, too,” she went on. “I hear the way you talk. Do you know anything about medicine? Or engineering? Whatever you can do, we need you. So much is at stake. Find your place, Nick, and help us. Will you do it? Promise me.”

Gervasia’s lovely blue eyes searched his face, and he had no choice but to answer, “Yes. I will.”

She gave his forearm another firm squeeze and let go. Then she dropped her chin and gazed dejectedly at her computer screen. She was captain of a catastrophe, he thought to himself. As he glanced around her dusty, cluttered workstation, he realized she used to be master here, before the council locked down her controls and buried her. Now her seafaring skills were wasted, while this amateur council gave her impossible tasks. No wonder her beautiful lips twisted out of shape.

Just as he was reflecting on her plight, the NP said, “She’s ripe for a bribe.”

“Quiet,” he subvocalized. Gervasia’s situation absorbed him. He asked her, “Why don’t you leave?”

She grunted. “Desert the cause? Don’t think I haven’t fantasized.”

“You could go where your work is valued,” he said. “Any well-managed Com—”

“Com!” She glanced up sharply, and her beautiful eyebrows gathered in angry knots. “I’ve had enough of being
valued
.”

“Forgive me, I—”

Gervasia pounded the arm of her chair. “First Nord.Com. Then ZahlenBank. No Com slaver puts a price tag on me again!” Red blotches colored her cheeks as she swiveled her chair away.

Dominic bit his lip. Faux pas. He shouldn’t have mentioned a Com. Dealing with protes was trickier than he expected. He stood behind her chair, rested his hands on her shoulders, and with his short thick fingers, began to knead the muscles in her neck. She sniffed. He wondered what she meant by this “price tag” nonsense. With her skills, she could transfer to a prosperous Com and earn high wages. She didn’t have to settle for this. “Really, why do you stay?” he asked with genuine curiosity.

After a while, she said, “It’s my duty.”

“But you’re not bound by duty. Protes transfer all the time,” he said without thinking.

Gervasia whirled her chair so fast, she nearly threw Dominic off balance. “What did you call me?”

He stepped back and stammered something incoherent.

“I think you’d better leave,” she said.

Qi said, “Thank you, Captain. We’re going.” She grabbed Dominic’s and moved toward the passage.

The digital genie rumbled inside his eye, “Don’t forget the Net link! Ask her where it is!”

Dominic shook off Qi’s hand and turned back. “Forgive me, Captain. I honestly didn’t mean to insult you. I only meant—”

“Offer her a kickback,” the NP said.

The genie’s intrusions infuriated him. With some reluctance, he asked, “Can you at least tell me where I can find the Net link?”

Gervasia arched one eyebrow. “Why do you want the Net link?”

But before he could speak, she rose from her chair. “You look familiar. Have I seen your face on the Net?”

Qi jerked him out into the passage and shoved him ahead of her.

“Come back,” Gervasia called. “What’s your name?”

“Move!” Qi pushed him forward and followed on his heels. “You handled that beautifully. Preter-smooth negotiator, you are. I see why Gig wanted you on this mission.”

“The woman’s bribable,” the NP said. “Go back. She’s disgruntled. We can buy her.”

Qi raced ahead, while Dominic followed sullenly, and people in the corridor drew out of their way. They retraced their steps back to the stairwell, but instead of the ladder leading up, they found a squad of workers erecting a new partition wall.

“Sorry, this way’s closed,” one of the women said. “Floor fell through from above. Too much weight, I guess. You have to detour.”

“Which way?” Qi asked.

“Which way to the Net link?” said Dominic.

The woman was grappling with a heavy steel panel and didn’t have time to talk. One of the other workers grunted, “Go around.”

Their only choice was to follow the traffic in the corridor. After wandering for several minutes, they found another ladder shaft, but it went down, not up.

Dominic stopped someone in the corridor and asked, “Which way up to the bridge?”

The man released Dominic’s hold on his arm and pointed down the ladder shaft. “This is the only way, man.”

When Qi started down the ladder, all Dominic could do was follow. In his eye, the NP complained that they should be climbing, not descending, the Net link would be on the highest deck.

“Enough!” Dominic subvocalized. “Be quiet and let me think.”

If anything, this ladder shaft was even more crowded. People stood on the rungs talking, and Dominic had to squeeze by. One landing down, they ducked through a bulkhead and wandered what seemed like half a kilometer through passages crammed full of protes. A left turn, two rights, another left, he tried to memorize the way, but he kept bumping his elbows on the narrow bulkhead openings. He dreaded losing track of that bathysphere.

“I trust you’re recording this route?” he subvocalized.

“Every millimeter,” said the voice in his eye, “but it’s useless without a reference point. Ask someone what deck this is.”

About then, Qi stopped to rest. Dominic slumped to the floor beside her and sneezed. Since he’d lost his scrap of silk, he had to wipe his nose with his filthy shirttail. Qi slid down beside him.

“Gervasia,” she mimicked. “What a lovely name. Hoo-hoo, we like Gervasia, don’t we?” Her mischievous mood had returned.

He sat up and smoothed his short stiff hair. “Are you jealous?”

“Jealous over a coin machine?” She shoved him playfully, but rather hard.

His scraped knee was bothering him, so he examined the black crusty scab. Somehow he’d knocked it loose chasing the major. The rags around his feet had begun to unravel, so he retied them. Then he checked his hands and arms for skin rash. No sign of it. Good.

“Ask what deck this is,” the NP said again.

“Major, where are we in the ship exactly?” he asked.

Qi shrugged. “It all looks the same to me.”

“That’s just splendid,” said the genie. “Ask someone else.”

Farther down the passage, a trio of old men were sharing a pipe and stinking up the air with their ersatz marijuana. In the other direction, a woman was weaving a mesh bag out of plastic cord while two small children played at her feet. A younger woman was braiding beads into her hair. He saw nests built out of crates and rags. People lived here. They seemed to be well settled in.

Qi went on mocking him. “Pretty Gervasia, is that a flower name?”

Dominic drew a little closer to her and whispered, “The truth is, I pity Gervasia. A captain on a ship that won’t move. That’s sad.” He spread his fingers and marveled at his chipped, blackened fingernails. “This whole situation is misguided. These protes need their execs to put things in order.”

“Their Com slavers, you mean?”

“No, I don’t mean slavers.” Dominic shifted to face her. “I mean skilled execs trained in resource management. You know what I mean.”

“Do I?”

Dominic scowled. “Protected employees are certainly not slaves. They have lifetime job security, subsidized food and housing. That’s what the agitators demanded. Management made killer concessions to keep the workers happy, and every prote signs a contract at age thirteen. Nobody’s forced to sign.”

Qi pursed her lips as if tasting something sour. The way she looked at him, he began to wonder if he needed to wipe his nose again.

“Major, why are you picking an argument with me? You’re an exec yourself,” he said.

She tugged the rubber band off of her short braid and shook her hair free. Dominic watched her and waited, but she didn’t answer his question. She seemed thoughtful. As she twiddled the rubber band between her fingers, he examined the sweep of her ebony cheek. Usually he could read people, but this exotic spook had him mystified.

“Nicky, tell me why you keep asking about that Net link,” she said. “You’re here to negotiate, or has our mission changed?”

Impulsively, he invented a righteous-sounding lie. “I don’t know your agenda, Major Qi, but mine is to bring these employees back under Com protection. I intend to find them jobs.”

“Aren’t you the one who set them free?”

Dominic opened his mouth, but Qi kept talking. “Play noble if you like. You don’t care if they suffocate in the dark, as long as they do it quietly. You’re here because they’re making noise.”

Dominic restrained his urge to argue. He could defend the value of stable markets for hours, but at the moment, the thought of it wearied him beyond words. “I made a mistake,” he said. “I’m here to fix it.”

“What mistake, Nick?”

Why did she insist on mocking him? Every news page on the Net had reported his stupid blunder, and the WTO lawsuit accused him by name. Did she enjoy rubbing salt in his wound? He didn’t understand her at all. Without another word, she lay down on the floor, closed her eyes and—to his utter consternation—fell asleep.

“That broadcast is still going out, or did you forget.” The NP’s words made a gnashing sound deep inside his eye. “Every minute it lasts, the markets get more nervous, and the Orgs’ case against our bank gets stronger. How long are you gonna sit there?”

“My guide is resting,” Dominic subvocalized. “It’s a physical thing. Not in your database.”

Qi’s chest rose and fell in rhythmic breathing. She didn’t deserve to sleep that well. Leaning over her, he delicately drew a strand of hair away from her ear. There was her implant. It made a purple square just under her dark satiny skin. If he could get her implant, he could link to the Net and give ZahlenBank his location. But how could he remove it—with his fingernails? Maybe he could hold her down and bite it out. The idea appealed to him.

“Her implant won’t help,” the genie’s voice intruded. “I’ve already scanned it. The chip’s hard-coded to that bastard Gig. You have to find the ship’s Net link.”

Dominic pinched the bridge of his nose. If only he had relocated the miners in the first place instead of giving them this ship! He should have bribed some Pac-Rim operation to take the crew and dependents. ZahlenBank would have lost a couple million deutschdollars. What was that—a month’s salary? He should have paid it out of his own pocket! He hunched over and held his head between his hands. Even now he could still see his father’s look of approval when he suggested the spin-off. The last proud look his father would ever give him.

His stomach growled. He tugged at the ragged shirt Qi had given him and tore off a scrap to wipe his dripping nose. Gervasia said they moved the Net link every day. What if he couldn’t find it? Maybe persuading the miners to give themselves up would be easier. Could he do that? Negotiate with illiterate protes?

“I’ll be damned if I’ll bargain with protes,” the NP said, as if reading Dominic’s mind.

“Why rule out options?” Dominic said. “Maybe I could talk them into—”

“Son, where did you get that soft-headed streak? You didn’t inherit it from me!”

Dominic suppressed his impulse to react. When Qi rolled onto her side, he noticed how her hip curved up from the graceful saddle of her waist. What am I doing here, he asked himself. I’m a banker!

Sometime later, she nudged him awake. When he sat up and rubbed his eyes, she leaned against him and laced her fingers through his. He felt as if he’d been drugged.

“Nick, do me a favor. Look at that wall, and tell me if you see black spots in your vision.”

He blinked in bewilderment, then looked at the wall. “Spots, no. But…”

“Tunnel vision?” she asked.

“Now that you mention it, yes.”

“Me too. This air doesn’t have enough oxygen.”

“Good God!” Dominic sprang to his feet. He staggered with weakness, and that frightened him more. “Let’s get out of here!”

“Where do you suggest we go?” Qi asked calmly.

He spoke on impulse. “Back to the bathysphere.”

“Hoo-hoo. The bathysphere. You expect that little shuttle can rescue five thousand people?”

Dominic hauled Qi to her feet. “It’s not a joke, Major. We could die.”

She said, “I think you’re getting the picture, Nick.”

“UP
. We have to climb,” said Dominic.