Tek Kill (23 page)

“Rebecca's a friend of my father. I met her a few times at parties the twins gave,” she went on. “I've never—so far, anyway—had a vision about someone I didn't know.”

Molly knelt next to the chair. “What exactly did you see?”

Susan frowned. “It was strange, really. Rebecca's down on San Peligro, that island in the Caribbean,” she said. “But they've got her locked away in a suite inside the NewTown facility. What I saw—well, she was trying to get out, shouting, pounding on the door of her living room. Sort of like me at Dr. Stolzer's. Two bots came in, grabbed Rebecca, and gave her some kind of injection. They were very rough with her, and after she passed out they dragged her into the bedroom and tossed her on the bed. Her head was hanging over the side and her clothes were all messed up. The whole damn suite, by the way, is very well furnished. It's no prison cell, but Rebecca Burdon is sure as hell a prisoner.”

“I'd better let somebody at Cosmos know about this—in case they don't already,” said Molly thoughtfully. “Would her twin brother let them treat her like that?”

Susan said, “Rowland Burdon's a real shit, Molly. If she disappears for good and all, I wouldn't be surprised.”

Molly said, rising up, “My Uncle Anthony says to tell you he's just about got a hearing for you arranged. It'll only take a few more days and he's certain he can get you declared competent and independent. Your father will no longer be able to commit you anyplace, and you can live by yourself. You'll be free.”

“Free,” Susan said softly. “I wonder if I can manage that.”

40

IN his dream Hank was someplace distant from Camp 30. It was warm there and the morning sun was bright. He was walking along the beach, feeling good, and a man was coming toward him, grinning, waving. He almost remembered the man's name, but then it slipped away. The man called out something to him, but Hank couldn't catch what he said.

Then an intense pain started in his hip and went racing down his left leg. The leg jerked, he cried out, and sat up wide awake.

“Off your ox, Weiner!”

Two gunmetal robots loomed over his gray cot. The one was slapping the shockstik he'd just used on Hank in the metallic palm of his hand. Stenciled across his broad chest in white was
GUARD
11 A.

The other bot was GUARD 14B.

14B said, “Get up, Hank. Get your ass dressed.”

Rubbing his eyes, Hank stood. His left leg gave out on him and he stumbled. He bumped into 11A and held on to maintain his balance.

“None of that.” 11A prodded him with the shockstik again.

Hank doubled up, swayed, and then fell back onto the cot.

Ogden Whitney awakened on the next cot. He got up and pulled Hank to his feet. “What are you guys doing to him?”

“Stay out of this, Ogden,” warned 14B.

“Hank's got a new assignment,” explained 11A as he gave the black youth a prod with the shockstik.

Ogden grimaced, fisted his hands, and dropped to his knees.

“I'm supposed to be on the roadwork gang,” said Hank, his voice dry and rusty sounding.

“Not anymore, kid,” 14B told him. “Come on, get your clothes on. The landvan is here to take you to the sewer project.”

A SHARP MORNING WIND was blowing through the forest area along the rutted Mississippi back road. Across the way in a small roadside clearing stood a ramshackle little neowood-and-plastiglass restaurant. Its weathered litesign proclaimed it
THE
BREAKFAST NOOK, and through its dusty windows you could see a half dozen or so customers scattered at its small tables. Parked in front of the place were a dented skycar, a rickety old landtruck, and two aging electrocars.

Menken, crouched beside Jake in the brush, was using his hand voxphone to talk to Shawna, who was in the landtruck with Kipling. “Okay, the camp landvan should be rolling by at about 8:17,” he was saying. “Is everybody in place on your side of the road?”

“Sure, I just checked them.”

“After Kip uses the disabler on the van, Jake and I will move out and take care of the driver and the guard. Gomez and Petway will disable the follow-up car and incapacitate the two camp guards riding in that.”

“How's the old gent making out?” she inquired.

Grinning, Jake borrowed the phone. “Glad you asked,” he said. “Will you have time to pop across the road and help me get to my feet just as the action starts? My back's been acting up and—”

“You're not even as funny as that long-winded Latino pal of yours.” She ended the call.

“Don't mind Shawna,” advised Menken as he retrieved the phone. “She's often nastiest to the people she likes the best.”

“Then I must be the love of her life.”

The day was gradually brightening and the wind felt a bit warmer now.

Glancing at Jake, the leader of the Marauders said, “We do this sort of thing very well.”

“So I've heard,” said Jake. “If this involved simply a Cosmos client, I wouldn't be uneasy. When it's my son—”

“Hold it—call coming in.” The phone had commenced vibrating faintly in his hand. “Yeah?”

A voice unfamiliar to Jake said, “A snag.”

“Explain.”

“Boy won't be on the truck.”

“Shit, where is he?” asked Menken.

“Reassigned to Work Crew 7. Sewer project.”

“Has that landvan left 30 yet?”

“Six minutes ago. You owe me another $250.”

Menken let the phone drop to his side for a few seconds. Then he made a call. “Shawna, we've got to get over to Route 57 quick. Dan Cardigan is in the camp van heading for the old Marsh Plantation.”

“What went wrong?”

“Nothing, except they put him in a new work gang. Move.” He was up and running to where they'd hidden their skycar.

“Can you guys bring this off?” Jake was close behind him.

“I think we sure as hell better try, don't you?”

“Yep.”

41

REBECCA Burdon didn't bother to turn toward the door when it opened behind her. She remained sitting, arms folded, in the hard white armchair, absently looking at the endlessly repeating beach view on the wallscreen. The same five gulls had drifted across the screen ninety-four times since she'd seated herself.

“Have your medical toadies arrived, Rollo?”

A hand tapped her gently on the shoulder.

Looking up, Rebecca saw a young woman standing there dressed in dark slax and a white medical tunic. Frowning, she said, “Aren't you—”

Kacey made a “don't talk” gesture. Then she hurried over to the nearest wall, slipped a bug-disabler disk out of her pocket, and stuck it against a panel. “That'll give us a few unobserved minutes,” she said. “Yes, I'm Kacey Bascom.”

“Do you know what my brother's trying to do to your father?”

“Got a pretty good notion, yes,” she answered. “Are you willing to talk to the SoCal cops about what you know?”

“I'll talk to anybody who'll listen.” She stood up. “I can't abide what's going on.”

“I can get you clear of here. But we have to go right now.”

“I've no reason to linger, Kacey.”

“I came in on a Foodz skyvan. We can, with luck, get out that way, too.”

“And why the medical outfit?”

“Oh, I acquired a fake ID packet that implies I'm an assistant to Dr. Stolzer.”

“That bastard,” observed Rebecca. “My brother's hired him to arrange some memory loss for me.”

“He hasn't started working on you yet?”

“Not yet, but soon.” She moved to the door. “Would we have time—and can you get us there—to visit the Tek wing?”

“We've got exactly seventeen minutes. Why?”

“There might be a way to throw a spanner into Rowland's whole clandestine Tek operation here,” she answered. “When the plant was built, down in the bowels of this place, they included a destruction switch. In the case of a raid, you know. I know where it is and how to activate it.”

Kacey smiled. “That would make a nice farewell gesture, wouldn't it?” She reached toward the door.

But the door came sliding open before she touched it.

A large, wide man, dark and wearing a loose gray suit, entered the room. “I understand you work for Dr. Stolzer, young lady.”

“I do and Miss Burdon is one of our patients.”

The large man took another step toward Kacey, still smiling. “Odd that I don't have any idea who you are,” he told her. “Especially since I'm Dr. Stolzer.”

HANK WAS SITTING on the bench that ran along the left side of the Camp 30 landvan. He shared it with three other young men, and there were four more JWA boys in the other side of the chugging, rattling landvan.

“What'd you do now?” asked the pale blond youth next to him.

“Hum?”

“To get yourself put on this shit detail.”

Hank shrugged. “Don't know. I tell you, Burt, I'm not even sure why I'm at Camp 30 at all.”

“Yeah, Ogden told me. They mindwiped you, more than likely,” said Burt as he scratched his side and looked out at the dusty road and the woodlands they were rolling through. “They do that with the tough cases.”

“Think that's what I am?”

“Figure it out, Hank. You must be or they wouldn't treat you like this.”

“Guess that's right.”

“You've been switched to the worst work detail you can get,” continued Burt. “And they used a shockstik on you this morning. They don't do that with everybody.”

Hank said, “You know, I've been having dreams. About someplace else—not Mississippi or Rhode Island, where they say I come from.”

Laughing, the blond boy said, “Hell, everybody dreams about a better place than Camp 30.”

“No, but I mean I—”

“What the hell!” exclaimed the cyborg driver and hit the brakes.

As the landvan came to a lurching, rattling halt, the robot guard who was sitting next to the driver started to swing up the arm that had a lazgun built into it.

A skycar had come swooping down out of the morning sky and landed directly in the path of the van.

“Another one!” Burt was pointing at the back window.

Another skycar was setting down back there, directly in the path of the backup car.

And a third skycar was skimming in across the weedy field on their right.

“Trouble?” asked Hank.

“For these bastards, sure,” said Burt, laughing. “But maybe not for us.”

MENKEN SET DOWN the skycar at the edge of the road. “Going fine so far,” he observed while getting clear of his safety gear. “Kip and Shawna stopped the landvan and, looks like from here, took out the driver and the guardbot.”

“Let's hope so.” Jake went out of the car, stungun drawn, and ran to the backside of the halted Camp 30 landvan.

Up on the road, Gomez and the husky black Petway were using stunguns to take care of the three guards who'd come diving out of the backup car.

Sprinting, Jake grabbed the rear door of the van and yanked it open. He jumped inside, ducked low.

And there was Dan, sitting between a blond boy and a hefty Chinese youth. “Okay, fellas,” announced Jake. “Everybody out.”

“You springing us or is this a hijacking?” asked the blond boy.

“You're on your own. Get over to the crimson skyvan that's just landing and you'll get transported to safe ground.”

Seven of them, laughing and shouting, went stumbling out into the morning.

But Dan remained seated.

Jake, grinning, approached him. “Dan, are you okay?”

He stared up at Jake. “My name—well, at least that's what they tell me—my name is Hank, sir.”

“No, you're Dan Cardigan,” Jake told him. “I'm your father.”

He studied Jake's face. “That would be great, but …” He shook his head sadly. “I just don't remember you, sir.”

“Then just trust me, Dan. We've got to get the hell out of here.” He took his son's arm, guided him out onto the dusty road.

Gomez met them. “
Bueno
,” he reported. “We coldcocked all three of those
pendejos
back there. Hi, Daniel.”

Dan asked, “Am I supposed to know you, too, sir?”

“Mindwiped,” said Jake quietly.

“You used to,” Gomez informed him. “I'm the incomparable Sid Gomez. Friend and partner of your dad and a first-class sleuth by trade.”

“Biography later,” said Jake impatiently. “Sid, Dan and I will share your skycar. Petway'll switch to Menken's. Let's go.”

“
Sí
, a change of venue is definitely what's called for.”

The three of them ran to Gomez's skycar.

As they were climbing in Dan said, “Thanks for helping me, sir.”

42

IT was midday and the two skycars were parked near each other in a small clearing of woods in a Mississippi town that was neither Yazoo nor McClennan.

Menken said, “Everything went damn well, Cardigan.”

“Yeah, your Marauders were great. Even Shawna.”

The thin woman was leaning against the door of one of the cars.

“You hobbled around pretty well yourself,” she conceded. “What of me,
chiquita?
” inquired Gomez.

“You're nearly impossible, but at least you didn't foul us up too much.”

Jake put his hand on his son's shoulder. “You understand what's going to happen now, Dan?”

“Yes, but I still don't believe I'm going to turn out to be anybody named Dan Cardigan, sir,” he said. “Still it sounds like a better deal than being Hank Weiner.”

“Involves you with fewer sewers,” Gomez pointed out.

“Maggie Pennoyer is a friend of mine back in New England—in Connecticut,” he explained to his son. “Her specialty is working with people who've been mindwiped or otherwise had their memories and identities futzed up.”