Wyrmhole

by Jay Caselberg

  Almost by chance – as if that would ever happen – he had run into an old friend from the military. He was working in security for one of the major corporations that ran the Locality. He put Jack in touch with a couple of other people and from there, things had more or less fallen into place.

  And it had led him to…where?

  In the bathroom, he peered at his face in the mirror as he smoothed the Rapiheal and painkiller patches into place. A touch of graying stubble, face losing its definition, sagging around the jaw line, shadowy puffiness beneath the eyes, fading colors at the temples. His once dark hair was touched by silver. He’d always been thin, angular, but there were hollows there around his deep-set dark and slightly haunted eyes. The thin nose, the slightly curved brows giving him an almost surprised look. All was familiar, but now, the familiarity was going away. He almost didn’t recognize the man he had been.

  For a long time, he just stood there; then he sighed. Okay, so he was getting older. So what? The patches, the drugs, they'd keep him going for a while yet, but there had to come a point, right? And then what? It didn't really matter. He spent too much time putting pieces of the past together to even think about the future. The future was little more than random possibility, and the shreds of fake reality he dealt with in his dream state were nothing more than a vague fog. His whole life was turning into a string of maybes.

  He tore himself away from his reflection and headed back into the living room. Calling the wall display to life, and settling back onto the couch, he scratched at the back of his head. An empty ready-cooked lay on the low table — evidence of Billie's presence. He really should clear it away, but there was more than that. He could feel her, feel she'd been here. He closed his eyes and shook his head, then looked back up at the display. And there was her name, writ large in one of the circles on the wall.

  Sitra Akhar. Darkness and corruption. Seek the darkness. Seek the corruption. He let his gaze wander over the diagram. Darkness and corruption. Everything was darkness and corruption in this place. It had taken him long enough to realize it, but the Locality was nothing more than a hive of poisonous decay. It just manifested itself in Old, the place where everything fell apart. That was the visible end of what lay beneath. He'd known it all along, but had chosen to ignore it. He could sense it now. How was he supposed to find anything that fit the description spelled out in the ancient words, anything that held that taint, when everything was the same? How the hell else had creatures like Pinpin Dan survived for so long? Jack was as guilty as the rest of them, filled with a grudging tolerance, but at the same time fully aware of everything that went on. It was just too easy to let everything happen, to let events slide past him without doing anything about it, merely coasting along. His abilities had made him lazy. His luck shouldn’t make him lose his humanity, but here, somehow, insidiously, that’s what it was doing.

  So what about Billie? Was she any different? Of course she was. She'd just been stained by it all. That was a part of living, no, make that existing, here. You couldn't call it living, really. You got touched by the taint.

  God, he really was getting maudlin — too many patches, not enough sleep, blind alleys one after the other. It all added up, but he couldn't afford to let the mood overtake him. There was work to do. There was always work to do. Maybe he could put some of the pieces together before embarking on a voyage out to the edges of the system. That would put him out of circulation for too long. He had to find some clue to Billie’s presence before that happened. Somehow, the shapes on the wall in front of him held his key. He grunted at the irony. Here he was trying to unlock a key. It made about as much sense as everything else.

  His thoughts flitted back to the last dream he'd had. The tree diagram had been as clear as day. Ten circles. Ten names. But what he had on the wall had more than that. Perhaps he had too many. And why was Pinpin in the primary place at the top of the tree? Was Pinpin the key? No, it didn't make sense. He might be integral to the connections that had been drawn, but there was no way a dead guy could be the key to the current problem.

  Okay, he had a separate circle for Daman and one for Pablo. They were both kids from Old, so completely linked; he needed only one spot for both of them. He could get rid of Pablo's name altogether. On a whim, he removed Louis Ng's name as well. That felt right. So, now he was left with eleven circles containing eleven names.

  It still didn't work. One too many names and besides, the picture was unbalanced. Normally he wouldn't worry about it, but the dream image had been so insistent. The pattern was an icon in his subconscious that was trying to tell him something. Sitra Akhar. A clue — but what? He looked at the left-hand names again. Warburg, Gleeson, Ronschke. But wait, it was right in front of him and he had been refusing to see it. The White-Haired Man was on the left-hand side too. That made sense. But Gleeson? Ronschke? Any of them could be the key that would unlock this puzzle. If the dream was right, he could ignore the other names completely. He could also get rid of one of the names, but he failed to see which one. He just didn't have enough to go on. He let his gaze become unfocused and stared at the wall. After a while he shook his head. It wasn't going to come this time. There was no epiphany, no revelation to spring from the depths of his sensitivity into his conscious mind.

  He stood, stretched and started walking. Sometimes pacing helped him think. As he walked, he let his fingers trail over the back of the couch, along the edges of the shelves, the edge of the chair. Around and around the room he drifted, passing the names over and over in his head, trying to draw the links. Seek the left. Look for the corruption. He spied the small blue bottle Gleeson had given him and crossed to retrieve it. He stretched out to snag it from the shelf and ...

  Anastasia Van der Stegen. His fingers had barely brushed the glass. He spun, staring at the chart. He knew what was wrong. The names. They were in the wrong boxes. Gleeson was on the wrong side. His name belonged under Van der Stegen. It was Anastasia who belonged under Warburg. And where Gleeson went, Ronschke had to follow. That was it! He didn't know why yet, but that was the way it should be. He spoke the command to rearrange it.

  Stupid, Jack. Taken in by how things seemed. Things were never really as they seemed. And if those connections made sense ... yes! Gleeson worked for Joshua Van der Stegen — he had to. He was some sort of plant inside Warburg's organization. That would explain the easy convenience of his presence, the way he had fed the information to Jack. So, that left Anastasia Van der Stegen. What was her connection to Warburg? He stared at the new configuration. Seek the left. Everything that tied these energies together belonged on the left. The two at Pinpin’s were a minor part of the configuration, compared to some of the others. The only other major player, at least in his dreams, was the White-Haired Man. There had to be another link there.

  Then he saw it. The White-Haired Man belonged beneath Anastasia Van der Stegen and in the left-hand side. Somehow they were connected too. Or were they? It could just as easily be the pair at Pinpin's apartment. For the moment, the two were interchangeable, but if the dream clues were pointing him in the right direction, then it made more sense for it to be the White-Haired Man. Whatever the case, one of those two named boxes was surplus to requirements and probably in the wrong position.

  He’d leave the extra position for the time being, until he worked out the pathways, but took a moment to adjust the diagram so that the oval containing the White-Haired man now lay on the left beneath Anastasia.

  Okay. Likely fact: Anastasia Van der Stegen was linked to Warburg.

  Second: Gleeson, although on the surface working for Warburg, probably worked for Van der Stegen.

  So, where did that leave him? He had to explore the missing links somehow. Pinpin Dan was an obvious candidate, but he was out of the picture — completely. That left Billie, and she was gone too. Gleeson he already knew about.

  He stared at the chart and chewed at his bottom lip. Not enough. If he could find the pair that had been at Pinpin's apartmen
t, then he might be able to find out what had happened to Pinpin. Apart from that, his only other option was Anastasia Van der Stegen.

  The Van der Stegen girl was a problem. Everything he’d seen told him she was a spoiled little rich girl used to getting her own way. From what he could tell, she was the only child, and that only made matters worse. The performance up at the big house in the Residence had showed him that she was fully aware of what she could do, the way she could play men, and maybe women too, but he had no first hand experience to tell him that. Okay, so she was potentially dangerous, but only in the way she impacted his clarity. How could you trust your gut feelings when your guts were in disarray? Well, not quite the guts, but close...

  As for the other pair, he still had no clue who they might be. Pinpin had made a call to someone — unknown — and that pair had showed up. A man and a woman. Had Pinpin called them? Maybe, but unlikely. Billie had described them as big. Long dark hair and short red hair. A big woman and a big man. But anybody could be big to Billie's perception. It was all relative. Hey, stupid again, Stein. She'd slipped out of his awareness as someone on the periphery, but the woman who'd accompanied Van der Stegen to his offices had been a big woman sporting short red hair, and there'd been that flash of recognition, that glimpse of interest. It was possible. Had to be. Billie had said there were two of them. Would Van der Stegen's staff have the capacity and resources to doctor the records at Pinpin Dan's apartment? Probably. He remembered the sense of unease she'd generated with her presence. Time to ask a couple of questions.

  Van der Stegen had left his card, hadn't he? Jack shuffled around the apartment trying to find where he'd left it. He'd collected too many cards over the last couple of weeks. Finally, he found it shoved at the back of a shelf. One of these days he was going to have to get more organized. He slotted in the card and made the call.

  It took some time for the system to answer, and when the display faded into colors and life, it was only pseudo-life. An auto answer program spoke the inevitable words. "The person you are calling is unavailable at the moment. If you'd like to leave a message, do so now. Have a good day."

  Jack grimaced. "Mister Van der Stegen, it's Jack Stein. I have a couple of things I need to verify with you. It’s to do with a couple of your employees. I would prefer not to go into details right now, but if you could call me back as soon as you're free, I'd appreciate it."

  Then he remembered. Shit! Billie's block was still on his home system. Van der Stegen couldn't call him. He ordered up the screen and called again. "Mister Van der Stegen, Jack Stein. I'm sorry to bother you again. There's a problem on my home system. I'm afraid it's out of action right now. You can reach me via my handipad. Thanks."

  So, as far as that lead was concerned, he had little option but to wait for Van der Stegen to get around to calling him. If the pair at Pinpin's apartment were those that Pinpin had actually called, and they also worked for Van der Stegen, then that would likely tie Joshua Van der Stegen to the happenings at Pinpin's apartment. No, he didn't like it. It didn’t feel right. Maybe they just had some sort of intercept on his systems. He could try and work out whom Pinpin had called by cracking through Pinpin's home system, but he didn't have the skills to do it personally. He'd need to use someone else, and with the place under police scrutiny, he didn't like his chances. He'd need someone like Pinpin to do something like that, or Billie, but Billie was gone. He wrinkled his nose and sighed. That left very few options.

  Everything seemed to be coming back to Joshua Van der Stegen. And now he was working for the man.

  Joshua Van der Stegen.

  The guy had interest in lots of things, but he doubted that he could be implicated in the disappearance of his own handipad. That just didn't make sense. If Gleeson knew that the handipad belonged to Van der Stegen, why wouldn't he just return it?

  Gleeson.

  Maybe he could get something more out of the little clerk. Unifying threads, and at the moment, Gleeson was starting to look like he was sitting firmly at one of the connecting nodes.

  Jack grabbed his coat, set the system on divert and shoved his handipad in his pocket. It was pointless to sit here and wait around going nowhere. If Van der Stegen called in the meantime, he could start down that path of enquiry, but otherwise the inactivity was getting to him. He could call, but this sort of thing he preferred to handle in person, just in case his senses told him something that wouldn't be apparent over a wall screen. Time to pay someone another visit.

  THIRTEEN

  He was still deep in thought during the elevator ride down to the street. Gleeson. Everything kept leading him back to Gleeson, yet the innocuous little man couldn't be a major player. He just didn’t strike Jack as the type, unless the flighty, nervous demeanor was just an act. No, that just didn’t wash either.

  Gleeson was probably working for Van der Stegen, but there was nothing to verify it. Maybe he was working for both sides. But there were definite links to the wrong side. Or maybe just the other side. How did he know which was the right side and which was the wrong side? All he had to go on was the clue left for him in his dream. The left-hand side. But he could hardly believe that when it came down to it, Gleeson was key. His guts were telling him that didn’t make sense either. He let out a growl of frustration.

  He'd barely stepped from the front door, heading for the nearest shuttle stop, when a shadow loomed up on either side of him. Jack considered making a dash, and then the uniforms swam into view. Police. Shit, he didn't have time for this. On either side of him, they took a firm grip on his arms, banishing any thought of escape.

  "Jack Stein?"

  "Yeah, all right. You know who I am. What do you want?" It was hard for him to take these ineffectual functionaries seriously, and he struggled to keep it out of his voice. The Locality really policed itself when it came down to it, more or less. These guys were just errand boys.

  "We need you to come with us."

  "Look, friends, can't this wait till later? I was on my way to see someone."

  They didn't even bother to respond, just motioned him forward to the special shuttle waiting at the curbside. The police vehicles, long, low and squat, colored an innocuous white, were about the only non-public transport that ran in the Locality, apart from one or two delivery transports. Everything else moved back and forth via the shuttles, or simply grew in place. They bundled in beside him, one on each side and issued a command. Jack, sitting between the two burly uniforms, decided it would have been stupid to try and put up a fight. These guys were big, and in his current state, they would have been all over him in seconds. He'd sustained far too many bruises in too short a time already. Okay, then, he'd play along, but there had to be a reason they wanted him.

  "So what's the story?" he asked, looking from face to face. Both stared impassively ahead, not even registering that they'd heard. "I hope this isn't likely to take too long. I have an appointment to meet a client."

  One of the uniforms snorted. "Well your client will have to wait, Mister Stein, Psychic Investigator."

  Jack could hear the contempt in the way the man said his title. Fine. It was clear he wasn't going to get any favors from them, so he shut up and watched the way ahead. It just wasn't worth the energy trying to get through their thick skulls. He didn't have too long to wait. The vehicle whisked rapidly up the main avenue, overtaking a shuttle, then veered into a turn that took it deep into the heart of Central Park where the police buildings were buried away from view. No need to see the police in a perfect society, was there?

  They traversed the edges of the lake, passed through a shielding wall of trees and then they were there, sitting in front of square, squat featureless buildings that housed that which passed for a police force in this place. He was bundled out of the vehicle as silently and unceremoniously as he'd been herded in. Still no word of an explanation.

  He'd been inside this place once or twice before. In his line of work, it was inevitable, but usually he'd been there by his own
design, rather than being casually carted off in a police transport. Why had they been waiting for him outside his apartment building, rather than coming in? That question would wait until he worked out why he was here, but it was yet another question to add to the growing number all the same.

  He was escorted past more uniforms lounging against walls and sitting with their feet up, down a corridor and into a small room with a table and two chairs. His chaperones left him there, closing the door behind him. This was classic stuff. He'd seen it all before. Clearly, he was about to be 'interviewed,' but they wanted him to sweat a while first. Well, Jack was used to waiting. If they thought they could faze him that way, they had a thing or two to learn. Would there be two of them? He'd lost count of the number of times he'd seen this old vid. Sometimes he might just as well be living his life in black and white with a gravely voiceover.

  They didn't keep him waiting too long.

  Louis Ng. He wandered into the room, quietly closing the door behind him. Jack almost didn’t realize he was there for a moment. Ng pulled out the chair opposite, sliding his slight frame between the chair and the table, and sat.