by Matt Forbeck
The tire blew, and the man panicked and hit his brakes hard. This catapulted him over his handlebars and into the trees beyond. The bike skidded after him and smashed into him, crushing him between a tree and its unforgiving metal frame.
I leaped out of the fountain and sprinted over to where the wreck of the man lay entangled in the remains of his bike. He'd snapped his neck somewhere in that high-speed mess, and he was dead by the time I reached him.
I cursed and kicked his corpse. He'd nearly killed me and, worse, might have killed a lot of other people with those damned rockets. I sat down on the turf, put my head between my knees, and waited for help to arrive.
I must have done something to drive the Kalis wild if they were hauling out heavy weaponry like this and attacking me in the middle of the afternoon. This wasn't an attack. It was an act of war.
I heard sirens howling off in the distance, growing closer. They almost drowned out the sound coming from the headset dangling from the dead driver's ear. I hadn't noticed the headset in my initial look at the wreck. After I'd seen the man was dead, little else had seemed important. But when I peered over to see where the tinny noise was coming from, I spotted it.
I scrambled over to the man on my hands and knees, grabbed the little silver disc with the hook and fitted it over my ear. It was a miniaturized private radio, a tiny walkie-talkie set to an encrypted channel. Gangs like the Kalis used them for short-range communications because – unlike with regular communications – they made it virtually impossible for someone to tap or track their conversations.
Someone on the other end – a man with a high voice – jabbered at me in Hindi, demanding a report from a man named Meghnad.
"He's dead," I said in English. "They're both dead."
"Who is this?" the voice demanded, still speaking Hindi.
"Tell Patil I know," I said. "Tell him Dooley's coming for him. Tell him not even death can stop me."
The man on the other end of the connection did not speak again.
I pulled the earphone off and tossed it next to its owner's body.
The MPD squad cars arrived a moment later, streaming in from over the river. Although the only way onto the island by land was from the Virginia side of the Potomac, MPD still had jurisdiction here. I was glad of that. There would be less explaining to do. Adamson might not like me much, but I already knew where I stood with her.
The ambulance arrived a minute later. After checking my ID to make sure they'd get paid, the EMTs set to work. They ignored the two dead Kalis, as much for their lack of insurance as the fact they were beyond help.
By the time Querer arrived, the EMTs had fitted me with an Airflex corset for my ribs, and they were gluing together a few tiny lacerations I'd picked up when I landed in the fountain. I'd been too pumped on adrenaline to feel them at the time, but coming down from that now, my entire body felt like one continuous bruise.
"I let you out of my sight for not even an hour, and look what happens," she said.
I didn't bother to smile. "They were waiting for me to come home," I said. "They didn't just send people with guns. They used a rocket launcher and blew up my apartment."
"Someone must have wanted to make a statement." She looked me up and down, appraising the damage.
"Those men were Kalis," I said. "Patil sent them."
She pursed her lips and nodded. "Think he had you killed the other day too?"
I grimaced. I didn't have any proof, nothing that would stand up in a court of law. Lots of people I'd had run-ins with over the years might want me dead – the One Resurrectionists, the Gang of Nine, the Mafia, the Russians, the Monster Crips, half of the firms on Wall Street – but this attack put the Kalis at the top of my list.
That business with the guy looking for change, though, threw a wrench into that smooth-running conspiracy theory. Someone had tried to set me after the Kalis. Would Patil do that? Or one of his lieutenants? Was someone trying to get me to take him down?
Either way, that was what I planned to do. Anyone desperate enough to order a rocket launched into the apartment of an amortal Secret Service agent needed to be brought in. I could worry about the other pieces of the puzzle later.
"I don't know," I said. "But I plan to find out."
The EMTs released me a few minutes later and told me to try to take it easy for a few days. I managed not to laugh out loud at them, mostly because I knew how much it would hurt my ribs.
They offered me some painkillers to take the edge off the aches. I tried to refuse because I wanted to stay sharp. The moment I stood up, though, I realized how much I needed them. Being amortal only meant I could reboot in a new body any time I needed. It didn't do a damned thing to stop my current body from hurting. So they gave me some pills from the onboard prescription dispenser, and a cup of water. The pills didn't do a thing for me at first, but I knew it wouldn't take long for them to kick in.
Then a pair of MPD detectives grabbed me to take a statement. Technically I didn't have to give them anything. I was in charge of this investigation, and I could have just told them I didn't have the time to bother with the local cops. The way I felt, though, I wasn't going anywhere soon, and I always tried to give the MPD folks the respect they deserved.
I told them everything, starting from when I arrived at the Watergate. I gave them as much detail as I could. I even told them the bit about threatening Patil over the walkie-talkie. They just nodded at that and wished me luck.
I started to slur my words together once the painkiller finally took hold. Querer stepped in and made my excuses to the detectives. They understood. Before they left, though, one of them asked me for an autograph, and I gave it to him with a pained smile.
"I've been reading about you since I was a little kid," he said, a bashful smile on his face. "Never thought I'd get to work with you on a case."
"Take it from me," Querer said, "it's not as glamorous as you might think. This is just my second day with him, and I'm already wondering how healthy it is to stand near him."
I gave her a half-hearted snarl. When she offered me an arm to lean on as I limped to her Service-pool hovercar, I admit I wasn't too proud to take it.
She helped me into my seat, then climbed in next to me.
"Where to?" I asked. "I'd ask you to bring me home, but I don't think I have one at the moment."
That pained me more than I could say. Colleen and I had moved into the Watergate after I became amortal. I'd lived there ever since. I'd been there with her, holding her hand, when she died. And now that place was gone.
I wondered about my neighbors. I didn't see much of them these days. Back when Colleen had been alive, we'd known everyone on our hall and been acquainted with half the building, but over the years everyone from those days had died. I'd never gotten that close to any of the newer tenants.
Still, I knew them well enough to greet them by name when we rode in the elevator or passed in the hall. To think that the Kalis might have hurt or even killed some of them made me angrier than the attack on myself. I could always come back, but only a few of my neighbors could say that for themselves.
"Believe it or not," said Querer, "Patrón called in a favor for you. He wants the world to see the President treating you with the utmost respect. No sleazy motels for you."
My head started to swim from the medicine, and I leaned back in my seat as the edges of the pain began to melt away. "Off to the Lincoln Bedroom again?"
"No," Querer said. "It's occupied tonight. Some big-money contributor to the Oberon campaign. I'm taking you to Blair House instead."
Normally, I wouldn't have smiled at being blown out of my condo and made to stay at the Presidential guest house, but the drugs helped spread a wide grin on my face. "Awesome," I said.
Querer giggled at that, and I marveled at the sound. It seemed so girlish I couldn't believe it had come from her.
"Who says things like that anymore?" she said. She mimicked me speaking the word. "'Awesome.' Really?"
<
br /> I smiled as more of the pain drifted away from me. "Been using it all my life," I said. "Don't see any reason to stop now."
"You ancient." She stressed the last word, making it a label. That's what the mortals called us these days: "the ancients."
"Whippersnapper. Keep the hell off my lawn."
"You don't have a lawn."
"Well, not anymore. Those bastards blew it up."
She stared at me, her face scrunched up in disbelief. "Are we talking about the same thing here?"
I just grinned. "We never are, kid. We never are."
Querer ordered the hovercar to take us to Blair House. "And take the scenic route!" I added.
I gazed out the window as we rose into the air and skated out over the Potomac. The sun was low in the sky behind us, and it bathed the entire city in a golden, nostalgic light. The hole where my condo had been still smoldered, but the fire had been put out. A team of firefighters in hovercars and safety harnesses were still poking around the place, making sure it was still structurally sound. A crowd had gathered out on the lawn below, people huddled together for comfort in the face of such a shocking, devastating event.
From there, we slipped south and then curved around the Lincoln Memorial, moving at a tourist's speed. The entire Mall was restricted airspace, so we had it to ourselves. We floated over the reflecting pool, heading toward the Capitol until we reached the Washington Monument. The hovercar took us in a slow circle around the massive obelisk, and I saw the two seams in it. The first had come about when construction on the monument had to be halted during the Civil War. The stone they used after the war didn't quite match the original material, and you can see the change as a clear line if you bother to look.
The second seam came about for the same basic reason, after that pro-death suicide bomber protesting the Amortals Project blew the top off the structure a few decades back. Despite making a sincere effort, the government couldn't quite match the stone again this time either.
From there, we turned north, toward the White House. As we cut between the somber Eisenhower Executive Office Building and the West Wing, I wondered if the President might look up at us and know what had happened and where we were going. If she saw our lone craft buzzing overhead and bothered to ask about it, I knew the agents on her protection detail would fill her in.
The hovercar climbed into the air as it approached Blair House, just kitty-corner from the White House, to the northwest. It slipped up over the roof and then brought us down to land inside the high-walled courtyard. The team of staffers who normally greeted visiting heads of state came out to meet us with a hoverchair, the kind you see in private hospitals. I reluctantly agreed to let them bring me to my suite in it. Querer followed me up and watched over me until they had me resting in my bedroom.
"We need to get after the Kalis now," I said, protesting the cushy treatment. "We don't have any time to waste. They're not going to sit around and wait for me to come to them."
"You're not going anywhere tonight, Dooley," Querer said. "The rest of us are on the job. Patil can wait for you until the morning."
"Maybe," I said, "but I don't think I can."
Even so, just minutes after she left, I fell asleep.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I probably would have slept all the way until the next morning if I hadn't received a wake-up ping from Blair House's manager a couple of hours later. It flashed in my lenses, starting slowly and then rising in urgency until I finally opened my eyes and responded to it. It's impossible to ignore a light that appears underneath your eyelids, much as you might want to try.
I saw that there was a message attached to the ping, and I opened it. I had a guest waiting for me at the front desk. His name was Ronan Dooley VI.
I checked the time and saw that it was just after 6pm. I sat up and groaned at the aching stiffness that seemed to have seeped into every joint in my body. Despite having been reborn in a fresh body just yesterday, I felt like an old man, and I knew from long experience what that meant.
I responded to the ping and asked the front desk to send Six up in five minutes. I got up, stretched, hit the head, and poured myself a glass of water. Then I moved into the parlor to wait.
A knock came at the door a little while later, and I opened it to see Six and a Secret Service chaperone who'd escorted him to my suite. When I'd started with the Service, we didn't cover Blair House all the time, just when a visiting head of state stayed there. After the assassination of Russian Finance Minister Dmitri Pushkin here during a G40 summit back in 2099, though, the Service took over Blair House security on a permanent basis.
"Come on in," I said to Six. He slid past me into the parlor.
"Thanks for bringing him," I said to the agent. I didn't recognize him, but his ID tagged him as Bryce Hereford.
"Any time, Mr Dooley. We weren't sure if we should disturb you, but since you hadn't left orders against it, we decided to take the chance."
"I'm glad you did."
The agent stuck out his hand. "An honor to meet you, sir."
I returned his smile and shook his hand. I never know how to respond in situations like that. As far as I was concerned, we were just fellow agents, but I could see that he felt differently about it.
That, I realized, was one of the things I liked about Querer. She wasn't impressed with my reputation at all.
I shut the door and turned to see Six already slouched in one of the parlor's overstuffed chairs. He had a hand stretched over his eyes, shading them from me, and he let loose a deep, frustrated sigh.
"What's up, Six?" I asked.
"Nothing." He said it in a way that meant "Everything."
I walked over and sat down in a chair across from him. There were no windows in the room. They'd been sealed off as a security measure and replaced with window-sized wallscreens that looked almost like the real thing. They showed images of the street outside and projected simulated late-evening sunlight that slanted down at us, bringing illumination without the heat.
"How did you find me here?" This wasn't my apartment after all.
"The feeds had it."
"Ah." My movements weren't normally enough to make the news, but I supposed having my apartment blown up might change that.
"I told you we could catch up with each other after this murder investigation is over." I spoke softly, as if he was a rabbit I didn't want to spook.
"I know." His voice was thick and hoarse.
"What's wrong?" I asked again.
Six dropped his hand and looked up at me with red and puffy eyes. "It's my father," he said. "He kicked me out."
I sat back to absorb that bit of news. "What did you do?"
He shot me a hurt look. "What makes you think it was my fault?"
"All right. What did he do – besides kick you out?"
"I broke some of his damned rules."
I nodded, hoping that I was starting to understand. One thing hadn't changed much over all my years, it seemed. Teenagers and their parents still didn't get along.
"Is this something that happens a lot?"
"No!" Six sat up now, indignant. "What kind of person do you think I am?"
I shrugged. "I – I don't know. I don't know you all that well. I don't know your father at all."
"And whose fault is that?"
I knew he was upset and just lashing out because of that. The words still stung, but I tried to ignore it.
"I'm just trying to figure out why your father kicked you out."
"It was because of you, all right?"
I sat back in my chair and nodded. "He found out that you came to see me at the cemetery."
"I don't know how he did it," Six said. "He doesn't track my movements like some of the other parents I know. He's always going on about privacy and how we need to respect each other's rights."
"What about your mother?"
"She's worse about it than he is, always off protesting one thing or another. Sometimes I think that's why we still l
ive in DC. They call the place a cesspool, but they like the easy drive down to the Capitol to lodge their complaints."
"It's all part of the democratic process," I said. "At least they're involved citizens. Most people can't be bothered."
"Yeah, but…" He hunted through his frustration for the right words to express it. "Doesn't that get you mad?"
"They're not my parents."
He waved that off. "No, not that. I mean, don't all those protesters make you mad? Aren't they dangerous? Don't they get in the way of you doing your job?"
