Robot Blues (2 page)

Xris pulled his
vehic over to the curb, shut down the air cushions. The vehic dropped to street
level. The gray two-door stopped as well. It had moved up on him, due to the fact
that the streets in the residential neighborhood were only a block to two
blocks long.

Xris sat in the
driver’s seat, glared at the car through the rearview cam.

“I might have
known,” he said to the car. “Didn’t take you long, did it? Who? And how much?”

He wasn’t going to
get answers sitting here. He had parked in front of a nice little brick house
with a two-vehic garage, a dog slumbering in the Argasian sun, and a toddler on
a tricycle. Xris climbed out of the vehic. The dog woke up, began barking at
him.

Xris made it clear
to the dog that he had no designs upon either the house or the toddler and
strolled down the sidewalk. He allowed himself the thought, in passing, that
this was the sort of neighborhood, the sort of life, he and Marjorie had always
talked about buying into— complete with dog, kid, and trike. He allowed himself
the thought, allowed himself the pain. It had been going to come anyhow. This
way, he could control it.

That done, he
could focus on this little problem.

The gray two-door
remained where it was, parked in front of a house similar in design to the
brick, except that it was built with stone and had a cat in the driveway.

Xris walked up to
the gray two-door, leaned down to peer through the tinted steelglass.
Recognizing the man inside, Xris stood up straight, drew in a breath, then
tapped on the window. The man inside touched a button.

“I’m going to the
Space and Aeronautics Museum,” Xris informed the man politely. “It’s about ten
kilometers north on the boulevard, to your right. I’ll wait for you at the
lights.”

“Good to see you
haven’t lost your sense of humor, Xris,” said the man inside, his voice coming
through the speaker hidden in the blastproof door. “I wouldn’t want to spoil an
educational outing. Why don’t you step inside? We need to have a little talk.”

The door clicked,
swung open.

Xris entered, sat
down in the passenger’s seat, shut the door, which was soundproof as well as
blastproof. Relaxed, making certain he kept both hands in plain sight—and also
making certain the driver kept both his hands in plain sight—Xris pulled out a
twist, put it in his mouth.

“You know I can’t
tolerate cigarette smoke, Xris,” said the man.

“I’ll chew it,”
Xris said. “So, Amadi. It’s been a lot of years. I heard you had retired.”

“I did. I was.
They brought me back.”

“Once a Fed,
always a Fed, huh, Amadi?”

“Something like
that.” Amadi smiled.

He must be pushing
seventy now. His black hair was gray, his swarthy complexion seamed with
wrinkles. He’d kept himself in shape and he was doing fine financially—if Xris
could judge by the well-cut suit and the designer silk tie. The bureau must be
keeping him on retainer. Not surprising. Jafar el Amadi was the foremost
authority on the Hung—one of the richest, most powerful criminal organizations
operating in the central part of the galaxy.

Amadi had also
been Xris’s super on his last job with the Feds. The job that had gone very,
very bad.

Xris settled back
into the cushy seat. A series of small beeps came from his left arm. Shoving
back the sleeve of his own well-cut and expensive suit coat, Xris rolled up his
shirt cuff, revealing a mass of gleaming steel, LED lights, complex wiring. He
made a few necessary adjustments.

He noted Amadi
watching, saw that the man’s smile was a bit strained.

Xris wiggled the
fingers of his left hand. “It’s the temperature of the skin that’s the problem.
Hard to maintain. You don’t want the plastiskin too cold—you touch someone and
they think they’re being grabbed by a hand from the grave. You don’t want it
too hot, either, although turning up the heat sometimes comes in handy. I can
soft-boil an egg—”

“Cut the crap,
Xris,” Amadi said, the smile gone. “I was at the hospital when they brought you
in. You’re damn lucky you’re alive.”

Xris shrugged. The
matter was open to debate. “I’m going to be late for my meeting at the museum.
Let’s make this short. How’s the wife and kids, Amadi? Oh, and don’t bother
asking me about mine.”

Amadi’s dark eyes
flickered. “I guess I can’t blame you for being bitter—”

“No! Really?” Xris
was shocked. “How long had the bureau known Armstrong was a traitor? Before or
after Ito and I walked into that goddamn munitions plant and got ourselves
blown to hell and back?”

“It wasn’t until
after, Xris, I swear—”

“Then why didn’t
you tell me the truth? Why didn’t you tell me it was Armstrong who set us up,
not Dalin Rowan? You let me go for years thinking that my best friend had
betrayed me. You let me go for years carrying that hatred inside me. God knows
what I would have done if—” Xris stopped, clamped down hard on the twist, so
hard his jaw started to ache. He hadn’t meant to say that much. Looking at
Amadi brought back a lot, a helluva lot.

The arm beeped
again. Xris ignored it. He could have hard-boiled an egg about now.

Amadi was watching
him carefully. “So—you found Dalin Rowan.”

Xris chewed. The
tobacco juice slid down his throat, erasing, for the moment, the faint metallic
taste that never seemed to leave his mouth, always reminded him that he was
more metal than man. He had to be careful here, very careful.

Xris grimaced,
stared at the windshield. “How’d you find out?”

Amadi shrugged. “Someone
hacked his way into our computer system a couple of months ago. Neat, sweet,
clean. The job had Dalin Rowan’s footprints all over it. He was searching for
files on the Knights of the Black Earth. Imagine my surprise when, a few days
later, you and your team manage to stop the knights from turning His Majesty
the King into the universe’s largest carbonated soft drink.”

Xris looked blank.
“Gosh, I’m sorry, Amadi. You got the wrong information. I heard about that
incident on the GNN news. Their anchorman was the would-be assassin, wasn’t he?
Warden, that was his name. I’d love to take credit for saving the king’s life,
but we were light-years away at the time.”

“You were a lot
closer than that.” Amadi tapped a finger on the steering wheel. “You were the
one who shot up that hotel, destroyed one of the regicide devices. That
poisoner of yours—what’s his name, the Adonian Loti—he and the character in the
raincoat took out Warden, who was the knights’ backup assassin.

“Oh, I can’t prove
any of this—Olefsky’s Wolf Brigade whisked you and your team away before anyone
could spot you. The Lord Admiral concealed the Loti— or should I say the
Honorable Ambassador from Andonia? All handled very neatly. His Majesty is
safe, the Knights of the Black Earth are destroyed. We’ve been told from the
highest level that the case is closed. Fine.” Amadi shrugged. “Case closed. But
there’s another case that’s wide open.”

“Which is?” Xris swallowed
the remainder of the twist.

“The break-in of a
top-secret naval installation.”

“The Navy called
in the bureau on that one, did they?”

“You know damn
well the Navy didn’t call us in. They’ve shut the lid so tight you couldn’t pry
it loose with a concussion grenade. They won’t even admit the damn base exists,
much less that someone actually managed to crash their security and waltz right
in.”

“Well, that’s the
military for you,” Xris said. “Always got to have their little secrets.”

“That’s where you found
Dalin Rowan, wasn’t it, Xris?” Amadi said. “That’s where he was hiding. You
found him and you were going to kill him, weren’t you? But he talked his way
out of it. He was the one told you about Armstrong.”

Xris had to phrase
this next question carefully. Deep inside, he was doing a little exulting, but
he needed to make sure he was right. He took out another twist, took it out of
a golden cigarette case that had the Royal Seal embossed on it. A gift, from
His Majesty, from the first time Xris had done the king a favor.

“You got it all
wrong, Amadi. I heard about Armstrong from a gypsy fortune-teller. She saw it
in my cards. As to Dalin Rowan, you guys gave him his new identity. I would
have thought you would have kept tabs on him.”

“We gave him a new
identity to protect him from the Hung. After he testified at the trial, he was
supposed to take his new ID and disappear.”

Xris leaned back
in the seat, folded his arms. “Let me guess what happened after that—Dalin
Rowan took a new ID, all right, only it wasn’t the one you had fixed up for
him. His disappearing act was for real. Hell, you can’t blame him, Amadi. You
know the Hung. Dalin Rowan all but destroyed them. He put their top men in
prison. He bankrupted their operations. If there’s one person in the universe
the Hung—or what’s left of them—would like to see hanging in a Corasian meat
locker, it’s Dalin Rowan. And yes, the Hung leaders are stashed away on some
penal planet, and yes, they don’t have any cash, but that won’t stop them—”

“It isn’t stopping
them, Xris,” Amadi said quietly.

“They have cash,
apparently. Reserve funds we didn’t know about. Their people are still on those
penal colonies, but you and I both know that guards and supply ship captains
can be bribed, that orders and money and drugs and God knows what all flow in
and out of those places. And you know something else, Xris.” Amadi eyed him. “If
we know you have access to Dalin Rowan, the Hung know it, too.”

“How?” Xris’s lip
curled around the twist. “Got a few more traitors left in the department?”

“Damn it, Xris!”
Amadi slammed his hand on the steering mechanism with enough force to rock the
vehic. “We need to talk to Dalin Rowan! He’s got information we can use. He’s
bound to know where the Hung kept those reserve accounts. Either that or he can
go through the old files, track the information down. It’s there. It
has
to be there. We just missed it the first time around.”

“Sorry, Amadi,”
Xris said coolly. “It’s been years since I’ve seen Dalin Rowan. I guess you’ll
have to crack the Hung on your own.”

Amadi was grim. “You
think you can protect him, Xris? Think again. You’re good. But you’re not as
good as the Hung. They have the money, the manpower, the resources. Bear
Olefsky’s Wolf Brigade won’t be there to rescue you the next time. Rowan’ll
never know what hit him.
We’re
his only hope.”

Xris glanced at
his watch. “Been nice seeing you again, Amadi, but I’ve got to go. I’m going to
be late for my appointment as it is. Are you going to keep following me? If so,
I can make it easy for you. I’ll mail you my itinerary for the next few weeks.”

He put his hand on
the latch, found it was locked. “Open the door, Amadi. Unless you want me to
kick it open.” Reaching down, Xris pulled up his pants leg, revealed gleaming
steel. “If I use this leg to kick open that door, you won’t have much of a
door.”

Amadi pushed a
button. The latch clicked.

“I could make
things tough for you, Xris.”

“You could,” Xris
conceded, “but you won’t. I just might happen to bump into Dalin Rowan on the
sidewalk one day.” He opened the door, climbed out. “If I were you, I’d go back
to collecting my pension.”

He slammed the
door shut, waited on the sidewalk for Amadi to drive away.

Amadi didn’t move.
He had his hand on the speaker controls. He was going to say something, make
another appeal, a final offer.

The cat in the
driveway yawned, stood up, stretched, came over to Xris and rubbed around his
legs. Xris knelt down, petted the cat, all the while watching Amadi, who
decided he wasn’t saying anything, after all.

The gray two-door
rose on its air cushions, floated off down the street.

The cat rolled
over on its stomach and purred. Xris knew how the animal felt. He could have
very easily done the same.

Men! The only
animal in the world to fear!

D. H. Lawrence, “The Mountain Lion”

Xris’s euphoria
had evaporated by the time he reached his own vehicle. The bureau was barking
up the wrong tree, but that was small comfort. The fact that they were giving
chase was disheartening. And Amadi had been right about one thing ... well,
okay, he’d been right about a lot of things, but one was most critical. If the
bureau dogs were on to the scent, Xris could be damn sure that the Hung would
be panting along behind.

That crack about
traitors had been a cheap shot. The bureau was a good organization, but it
was
an organization, employing millions of people spread out all across the
galaxy. Not surprising to find those whose credit had gone critical, who would
be willing to sell a name, a number. The Hung were very good at finding
desperate people, very good at using them.

“The one advantage
we have,” Xris said to himself, as he climbed into the car under the watchful
eyes of the dog and the interested eyes of the toddler, “is that everyone is
looking for
Dalin
Rowan. Nobody’s looking for Darlene.”

That had been the
whole point in talking to Amadi— to ascertain if the bureau knew that the
female Xris had abducted at gunpoint from the top-secret naval base had once
been his former partner and best friend. He had also once been a male.

“The ultimate
disguise,” was how the detective who had tracked Darlene down had put it.

Years ago Federal
Agent Dalin Rowan had infiltrated the crime syndicate known as the Hung. A
genius with computers, Rowan had managed to worm his way into their systems,
had not only gained evidence against them, but had also sent their financial
empire into a nosedive. The leaders were jailed, the small fish fled to calmer
waters.

The Fed protected
Rowan; he testified at the trial behind an opaque bulletproof screen, using a
voice scrambler. (The defense had successfully challenged holographic
testimony). When the trial was over, the bureau had a new identity all prepared
for Dalin Rowan. But Rowan had already taken steps on his own.