The Resurrected Man (31 page)

And she had personally requested that he be in the group to go to Quebec…

“Hey. I'm sorry.” Whatever was showing on her face, Jonah's voice was genuinely contrite. “I didn't mean it like that.”

“No, it's okay.” She quickly gathered herself together. “We were cocky. We thought we could handle anything. The shock will do us wonders in the long-term.”

“And the short-term?”

“I'd rather not talk about it.”

“Exactly, and that's—” He stopped, seemed to reconsider, then said: “If our positions were reversed, you'd tell me to stop talking shit and say what was really on my mind.”

“I would. And you were about to say, ‘That's what you always do,' weren't you?”

He was silent. She looked at him. The light above cast deep shadows into the lines on his long face, which was tilted forward to stare at his folded hands. The hair growing back on his scalp was gold-white in the light, and made his skin look darker, almost flushed. His eyes were invisible, but she remembered their ice-blue colour well, and the way they avoided hers whenever she succeeded in calling his bluff.

“I don't know anything about the last three years,” he said, speaking slowly and distinctly, obviously choosing his words with
great care. “I don't know what you've been doing, how you've been feeling, where you've been going, who you've been seeing—or why—but I still know
you. You
haven't changed a bit. Through it all, you're the same person who walked out on me a few days ago—and I find that fact profoundly disturbing.”

He glanced up at her, and it was her turn to look away.

“I'm sorry if I disturb you,” she said.

“That's not what I said.”

“I know, but, in some ways, that might have been easier.”

If he had anything to say to that, he kept it to himself.

The van took another corner, accelerated sharply up a steep rise, then began to brake. Their captors chattered in French too fast for her to translate a single word. One of them stretched his legs and tapped her boot at the same time.

“Up,” he said. “Sit.”

“We've arrived?” she asked, raising herself carefully to an upright position.

“What do you think?” The van stopped with a jerk.

“Turn around,” said the woman, bringing a strip of black cloth out of her coat pocket and rising to loom over Marylin.

She backed away. “What's that?”

“A blindfold. Turn around!”

“No.” She kicked out as the woman grabbed at her shoulder. “Don't touch me!”

The woman backed away and produced the pistol from another pocket. With a click of annoyance she raised it and pointed it at Marylin's head.

“Go ahead and shoot.” Marylin straightened her shoulders and did her best not to look at Jonah's shocked expression. “We have Resurrection, right? See what your boss thinks of that.”

The woman's eyes were like cold, glass marbles through the ski
mask. For a moment, Marylin was sure she would shoot, then the gun came down and the woman turned away.

Another high-speed burst of French followed. Someone banged on the outside of the van. The door opened and the interior light went out. In the sudden gloom, Marylin was grabbed by each arm and lifted out of the van. A bag went over her head before she realised what was happening.

“Jonah?”

“Right behind you. Oof.” There was a creak of aged suspension and a clatter of feet on concrete. The sound echoed oddly. “Rough landing.”

“You're walking?”

“Yes. Doing my best, anyway.”

“Can you see anything?”

“Looks like an aircraft hangar. We're inside. It's dark, and shielded of course. They wouldn't want us calling for help or being traced here.”

“People?”

“Fifteen, including the ones from the van. Some aren't masked, which is sloppy. Haven't seen Mancheff yet. Hang on.” He was silent for a second, while she fumed to herself. “There's an enclosed structure down one end of the hangar. Looks like a big freezer or demountable home. That's where they're taking us.”

“Exit?”

“Somewhere behind us, I assume. If you're thinking about escape—”

Muted voices interrupted him. “What? Who's there?”

“Here he comes.”

The voices came from ahead, inasmuch as she could tell through the bag. They grew louder until she could pick one standing out from the others: the lush baritone of Karoly Mancheff. When he switched from French to English it was like hearing an antique fossil-fuel Porsche change gears.

“Officer Blaylock, Jonah McEwen. Bring them through, this way.”
Doors opened ahead of them. She felt herself being taken along a corridor and into a more enclosed, but still large, space. “In here. Yes, thank you. Sit.”

She was forced into a chair. Jonah landed heavily next to her. Something cold and hard slipped between her wrists and cut her bindings. An instant later, the bag was pulled off her head and she could see again. She rubbed her forearms and looked around.

The first thing she noticed was Mancheff himself. He was much smaller in real life than she had expected, barely as tall as she was in bare feet. His face was just as ruddy and wide, though, and his hair lost none of its dignified grey. He sat opposite them, dressed in an amber-coloured suit, with his hands resting over the back of a wooden kitchen chair. He was smiling pleasantly.

The second thing she saw, behind Mancheff, was the sealed double-door of a mass-freighter at least three metres high and four wide.

“That's what we're here for,” said Jonah via prevocals.

“It'd better be worth it,” she sent back.

“Here we are,” said the leader of WHOLE. “Five hours and thirty-seven minutes from alert to arrival. That's not bad, not bad at all. You don't look any the worse for having your atoms scrambled—but you never can tell, eh?”

She didn't smile back. “Your psychos murdered two EJC officers.”

“Yes. I hear the pickup didn't go as smoothly as I would've liked.”

“There was no justification,” she said, barely able to contain her anger. “They weren't threatened in any way. My agents were shot down in cold blood.”

“It might seem that way, Officer Blaylock, but there are always extenuating circumstances. My ‘psychos,' as you call them, have good reasons for seeking violence against those who defend such abominable processes as d-mat.”

“I'm not interested in hearing your arguments.”

“No? Perhaps a visual demonstration will be effective, then. Kuei?”

The woman who had killed Fassini and Kellow stepped forward.

“Kuei, remove your mask so Officer Blaylock can see.”

The woman turned to face Marylin and, raising her left hand, removed the mask with one smooth motion. Underneath was a mess of what looked like badly healed scar tissue, as though someone had made a face out of yellow-pink plasticine and rearranged it with a fork. Her nose and ears were twisted lumps, and she had no hair at all. The scarring continued down her neck and under her black windcheater. It was hard to tell, given that the woman wore gloves and was clothed from head to foot, but Marylin guessed that the scarring spread across her entire body.

If she was in any way impaired, it didn't show. The pistol in her other hand didn't waver, and her eyes regarded the room impassively.

Glassily
, Marylin remembered thinking earlier. The woman's eyes were almost certainly artificial. She concentrated on them, not on the horror of the ravaged face.

“You—Kuei, was it?—you're going to tell me that d-mat did this to you?”

“Yes.” The woman's bitter contralto was all the more remarkable when heard in conjunction with her appearance. “Something went very wrong, don't you think?”

“But you—” Marylin sought to find the right words, decided in the end that bluntness would probably be best. “You've been burned. D-mat doesn't do that.”

The woman's chin lifted, as though daring Marylin to deny her appearance. “Are you suggesting I'm a fake?”

“No.”

“Good, because I'm real—and it
was
d-mat that made me the way I am.
Tordu chienne.
Exhibit A in Karoly Mancheff's travelling freakshow.”

Marylin forced herself to confront the vitriol in the woman's stare. “No one should have to endure what you've been through, Kuei, no matter how it was caused. But that's no excuse for murder.”

“At least murder gives me a reputation to match the way I look.”

“What about the murder of one of your own?” Jonah said, speaking for the first time. “Can you justify that, too?”

There might have been a frown on the scarred face, but Marylin couldn't tell. “
Que
?”

Mancheff broke back in. “And who might you be referring to?”

“Lindsay, of course.”

“You know full well we had nothing to do with that. Why are you dredging it up now?”

“You're saying you
didn't
sabotage the SciCon complex?”

“Of course we didn't.”

“So who killed my father?”

“If you're trying to provoke me, it won't work.” Mancheff stood, his body language conveying impatience. “I refuse to go through this again. It is dealt with, forgotten.”

Marylin glanced at Jonah. His eyes were narrowed.

“Dealt with by whom?” he asked.

“By you, of course! Don't you remember?”

“No, I—”

“
Zut!
Enough!” Mancheff chopped the air with a hand and looked away. “Lindsay was my friend. I will not hear you slander him again.”

“Slander
how
?” Jonah also stood. His fists were clenched rock-tight. “We have never met. How could I have said
anything
to you?”

Mancheff stared at him as though he had gone mad. “It was three years ago.”

“After Lindsay died?”

“Yes.”

“I came
here
?”

“Not here. Our old head office. You tracked me down from information in Lindsay's private records. We moved afterwards.” Mancheff stopped, calculating. “You really don't remember?”

“No. I've lost that week. What did I say to you?”

“
Marde.
” Mancheff walked around the chair, then turned to face them again. “I'll tell you what you said, McEwen. You warned me that something was going on, something big. Bigger than d-mat, bigger than any battle we had ever fought before. You told me that we would have no choice but to become involved, whether we wanted to or not. That there were people who would ensure our complicity when the time came. You said we were just pawns in someone else's game, and if that game resulted in our sacrifice there would be nothing we could do to prevent it.”

“I said that?” Jonah's expression was one of utter disbelief.

“You did, and more along the same lines.”

“And what did
you
say?”

“I laughed in your face.”

“I'm not sure I blame you.” Marylin shook her head. “Look, Jonah, sit down. This isn't getting us anywhere. It has no bearing whatsoever on why we're here—”

“But it has a bearing on Lindsay!” He turned on her, his face red with frustration. “It has to. I know it. If I could only
remember
.”

“You said we would be contacted,” Mancheff said.
“Tempted.
But the gift would not come without a price, and that price would not be immediately apparent.” To Marylin he continued: “I believe that we have received the offer. It's sitting in the mass-freighter behind me. So it
does
have a bearing. But on no account will I prostitute myself or my people without knowing who I'm bargaining with.” His voice became more forceful as he turned back to Jonah. “Will you tell me, Jonah McEwen? Do you have any intention of explaining yourself, or are you going to play mind-games with me all night?”

“I'm not playing games,” Jonah sighed. “I really don't know.”

Mancheff snorted in disgust, but whether because he thought Jonah was lying or telling the truth, Marylin couldn't tell.

“By
the offer
, I presume you mean the body.” She leaned forward, keen to press on. “What makes you believe it's connected to something Jonah said three years ago?”

“Not the body, Officer Blaylock. What came with it.” He gestured behind him with one hand, and the mass-freighter's double doors began to slide open. “The connection was tenuous until I contacted your superiors and received such an immediate response. If it wasn't for my firm grip on reality, I would almost believe that you were expecting my call.”

“Someone might have been,” she said, joining the two men in standing upright. “It's that person we're both trying to find.”

The doors of the mass-freighter reached their maximum extension and emitted a shrill beep.

“Take a look,” said the leader of WHOLE.

Marylin stepped forward, acutely conscious of Jonah, but no one else, following her.

The naked body lay more or less face down on the floor of the oversized d-mat booth. She stored snapshots of its positioning into her overseer until she ran out of free memory. It had been cut into four unequal pieces: the legs, hips and part of the abdomen; the rest of the torso, with a diagonal slice across the stomach trailing internal organs; left arm and head; and the right arm, severed just above the shoulder. How the body had been sliced up was not immediately apparent. There seemed to be no ragged edges or burns. There were burns elsewhere, however, that might have been caused by acid, vivid marks that stood out strikingly from the pale, dead flesh. There were also signs of an intense and prolonged beating with some kind of rod. Long, yellow-purple stripes stretched across the back, buttocks and thighs. The blows had been inflicted with enough force to leave marks, but not enough to break the skin. The face was invisible. Hair matted with blood lay plastered like seaweed to the scalp and neck. It looked black. Marylin felt safe assuming it had once been blonde.