Street Freaks

by Terry Brooks

  There is an immediate drop in the temperature. All noise stops. Everyone looks away from the man crossing the room. The man doesn’t waste even the briefest glance at the benches. Those who sit upon them are beneath his notice. Ash shrinks into his seat, dipping his head so that he is looking at the floor. He will be seen, he thinks. He will be discovered and taken away before his uncle even knows he is there.

  But the black-clad policeman goes past him without reacting, stopping at the reception desk. “Lieutenant Cray,” he announces in a bold, clear voice. As if everyone needs to know. “To see Commander Collins.”

  Ash knows that voice. He has heard it before. Where? His memory kicks in, the memory that never forgets. At Street Freaks, the first time Achilles Pod tried to gain entry, when Jenny Cruz stood up to them with her writ of exception and sent them packing. He was the squad leader.

  The coward who beat Jenny when he finally did get into Street Freaks because he didn’t find what he was looking for.

  The receptionist has made contact with whomever grants or denies admission to the offices of Cyrus Collins and looks up at Cray. “You can go right up, Lieutenant.”

  Cray moves off. Ash feels his anger surface anew. No delay in admitting Achilles Pod officers to see his uncle, it seems. Easier than if you’re a relative. He almost gets up and leaves. Everything about this suddenly feels wrong. He has put himself out here on a wing and a prayer, and all of a sudden it feels like the dumbest decision he has ever made. He should abandon his efforts to see his uncle now and get the hell out of there.

  But he doesn’t. He sits and waits because this is his one chance to turn things around. Going back now will feel like another failure, and he doesn’t think he can handle any more of those.

  Even so, he has almost decided he has no choice but to leave when his uncle abruptly appears, striding across the room from the elevators, the great man come down to the level of the common people. He goes directly to the reception desk, speaks to the man Ash talked with earlier, looks around as the man points at Ash, and stares. Clearly he does not recognize his nephew. Belatedly Ash realizes it’s not only because it has been so long since they’ve seen each other but also because he no longer looks even remotely like his old self.

  He stands, giving his uncle a better look at him, and without further hesitation, Cyrus Collins comes over and grips his shoulders. It feels as if he is being seized rather than embraced.

  “Where have you been?” his uncle snaps, not quite shaking Ash but coming close. “I’ve looked everywhere! What were you thinking, not coming here? I’ve been frantic with worry. Don’t you know what’s happened?”

  Cyrus Collins is a big man, powerfully built and rough-faced, his stern expression and harsh voice unsettling. His head is shaved, and his face is all angles and planes. There is no hint of softness in him, no suggestion of weakness or vulnerability. He is the sort of man that if you were asked to guess his profession, you would immediately think soldier or criminal. At this moment in time, Ash sees something of both.

  “I know what’s happened,” Ash manages, trying not to look paralyzed. “That’s why I’ve been hiding out, trying to decide what to do.”

  His uncle suddenly seems to realize he has overstepped himself and exhales sharply, some of the emotion draining from his eyes as he eases up on his grip.

  “And you didn’t think it was a good idea to come to me right then and there? You didn’t think you would be safer with me than being . . . well, wherever you’ve been? Where were you, anyway?”

  Ash doesn’t want to tell him the truth. “On the streets, staying with people here and there, people who didn’t know me. I got by the best I could. I was scared, you know.”

  “I can imagine you were. But you should have come to me! I could have helped!”

  “Does this mean you won’t help me now? That I lost my chance?” Ash throws it out in challenge.

  Cyrus Collins looks furious all over again. “You’re like an attack dog, aren’t you? No, of course it doesn’t mean that! What’s wrong with you?” He pauses, a puzzled look on his face. “What’s happened to you, anyway?” He lowers his voice to a whisper, conscious of people glancing over. “What’s with all the piercings? I don’t remember your father saying anything about that when last time we talked. When did this happen?”

  Ash straightens, angry himself now. “After Hazmats raided our home and destroyed our bots and looked like they had every intention of killing me!”

  “All right, settle down.” His uncle releases his grip on the boy’s shoulders and drapes his arm around them instead. “We’ve been sifting through the evidence they left behind. But we still don’t know enough.” He glances around at the crowded room. “Let’s continue this conversation in private. Come upstairs with me.”

  Without waiting for a response, he steers Ash past the reception staff, all of whom look down at their vidviews as if they have never seen anything so fascinating in their lives. Still coupled, Ash and his uncle board one of the elevators on the far side of the room, neither speaking. The trip up is swift and silent, and Ash cannot help feeling he has chosen a path from which there is no turning back. All he can hope is that it leads to something good.

  On the eighteenth floor, they exit into a broad reception area. This space is also lit by corelights and decorated in chrome, leather, and slate. Paintings of exotic places Ash has never seen hang from the walls. Polymer furniture offers seating. Lieutenant Cray of Achilles Pod glances up from the chair in which he is waiting, then down again. Without a word either to him or to the several office clerks or functionaries or whatever they are that sit at various desks around the room, his uncle guides Ash down a hallway and into a conference room.

  “Sit there,” he orders, pointing at a broad table with a dozen chairs situated around it.

  Ash does, feeling diminished with every moment that passes but growing determined too. He doesn’t know where things are going, but whatever else happens, he is going to get enough information to make up his mind about his uncle. If not, he can always get word to T.J. and tell him he needs help. Although when he thinks about it, he cannot imagine what T.J. could do for him deep inside the bowels of ORACLE.

  His uncle is saying something into a speaker on a communications pad set into the wall, but Ash doesn’t catch his words. Finished, his uncle walks over and sits down beside him.

  “You’ve been through a lot,” he says. “Most kids wouldn’t last out there on their own without help. Someone must have taken a liking to you. Or was this someone you already knew?”

  The same question, phrased a different way, asked a second time. Ash is immediately suspicious. “I just wandered around the Metro, looking for food and shelter. I had some credits in my pocket. I made them last.”

  “The word I got was that you were down in the Red Zone.” His uncle tosses it off casually.

  Ash pulls a face. “Why would I go there? Someone’s mistaken.”

  “Records from your father’s vidview, retrieved after his death, had a message sent to you right before he died. What did he tell you?”

  Ash has already decided how he would handle this question. He shakes his head. “I never got that message. I was probably running by then. The Hazmats broke into my house and chased me. I turned off the vidview in case they were tracking me. I barely got out as it was.”

  “But later? You must have thought to retrieve your vidview messages at some point.”

  “There was no message from my father. Maybe he never completed it. Maybe it got damaged in transit. I don’t know. Is this important?”

  “Just curious. Something’s not right. Are you telling me everything?”

  Now Ash is mad. “Look, Uncle Cyrus, I didn’t get any message. Why are we even talking about this? They’re calling his death a suicide, and you and I both know that’s not so. He was killed. What are you doing about it?”

  He goes on the offensive to deflect further interrogation, which is what all these questio
ns from his uncle feel like. Let the commander in chief of ORACLE answer a few.

  His uncle leans back. “You’re right, of course. Your father didn’t kill himself. Someone pushed him. I’m looking into it, but that takes time. What might help is if your father made any notes that would reveal who might want him dead. He was an important man working on secret projects for BioGen. He might have made enemies.”

  “What sort of secret project?”

  His uncle shakes his head. “I don’t know that. I only know he was working on something he considered very important. I was hoping you could tell me. Or at least tell me where to find his notes. There don’t seem to be any at BioGen.”

  Ash has no idea about any notes, and just at the moment he isn’t sure he would tell his uncle even if he did. This conversation has taken an unexpectedly wicked turn. He had come here hoping to find sanctuary but instead has run into something decidedly less welcoming.

  He has had enough.

  “I never saw any notes, and he never talked about the projects he was working on. BioGen was pretty strict about that sort of thing. My father wasn’t the kind to break the rules. Why don’t you know what he was working on? You’re the head of ORACLE. Can’t you make them tell you?”

  “You have a misconception about what I can and can’t do, Ash.” A rueful chuckle. “I can’t go breaking into private records and forcing public corporate officers into revealing company secrets. I can make them talk about the circumstances surrounding someone’s death, but in this case they claim to know nothing at all about what happened. I could ask for a search order, but a Juris Mentis wouldn’t give it to me without evidence. So I am reduced to trying to find out if they lied before tossing them in prison and beating them with rubber truncheons.”

  Ha-ha. Rubber truncheons. Uncle Cyrus is making an attempt at being humorous. Ash is irritated anew. “So no one saw this happen?”

  “No one who wants to admit it.”

  “Did he ever say anything to you about being in danger? You’re his brother.”

  Cyrus Collins shakes his head as if Ash just doesn’t get it. “Oh, yes. We were brothers. But we were never close. You never saw much of me growing up, did you? Nor I of you. Your father and I thought differently about many things, and some of those things kept us apart. Which means he kept you away from me. I regretted this forced separation. But he was always more the dreamer and I the pragmatist, and sometimes the two don’t mix so well.” He pauses. “Which one are you, Ash?”

  Ash thinks this is a dumb question. “I don’t know. I guess I’m still trying to find out.”

  “Well, you should know by now. Everyone your age should. We live in complicated, challenging times, but we have the means to overcome those challenges and move into the next century with some assurance that we can manage our future in the correct manner. Your father was trying to do that, but he kept getting in his own way. He was a brilliant man, a genius without equal in the field of biogenetics. He had such dreams, but he was afraid of following through. His worldview was always so cautious, so constricted . . .”

  He stops abruptly, apparently having gone further than he intended in his assessment of his brother.

  Ash pretends not to notice. “Am I allowed to stay here or not?” he asked.

  His uncle nods. “You can stay as long as you like. Certainly until we sort this matter out. My personal quarters are on the top floor of this building. There is plenty of room for you there. But you are not to leave the building without permission. I need to keep close watch on you while I try to find out who’s behind your father’s death.”

  Ash shakes his head, frustrated by the idea of being housebound. “How am I supposed to help if I’m stuck in here?”

  “It’s just for a while, and it’s for your own good. Everything will be provided for you.” He pauses. “I could even offer safe haven to any friends who might have helped you while you were on the streets. In case they are in danger too. I don’t want anybody hurt.”

  He leans over and gives Ash a friendly squeeze on his shoulder. “Look, I have to go talk to that Achilles Pod soldier. But I won’t be long. You just wait here for me. Remember, you’re a guest. Anything you want, just ask for it.”

  He rises and departs the room. As he closes the door behind him, Ash hears it lock.

  Guess he’s really serious about keeping close watch on me, Ash thinks. Can’t get into much trouble if I can’t get out.

  But getting out, and getting out now, is exactly what he intends to do.

  - 15 -

  One thing about being a teen, assuming you aren’t brain dead: you pretty much always know when adults are making something up. Or just plain lying to you. Uncle Cyrus is doing one or the other right now, of that much Ash is certain. He might not know how much is truth and how much lie, but the extent of the duplicity isn’t the issue. His uncle is entirely too eager to find out about Ash’s friends. He must have brought the subject up at least three times. Even more to the point, his uncle knows more than he is saying. Ash can sense it in his sketchy explanation of what has happened to his brother. No one in the position of power Cyrus Collins holds can be that clueless.

  Ash’s mind is made up. Things are being kept from him, and that’s enough to persuade him he has made a mistake. Stick around longer, and he will find out the hard way what those things are. He’s not going to allow his uncle to lock him up, whether it’s for his own good or not. Best to get out while he still can. Better out there on the streets than locked up in here, no matter how dangerous it might be.

  Getting out of ORACLE Central might be a challenge, however. Even getting out of the conference room presents a problem.

  He walks over to the door and tests the handle. Frozen. The lock is a magnetic seal triggered by a laser beam that passes from the door to the frame when the door closes. To open the door, you have to turn off the beam and release the lock.

  But there must be a way to release the lock from within the room as well. They wouldn’t install a lock in a conference room that only worked from the outside. The trick is in discovering where it is.

  Ash spent much of his youth studying how things worked, mostly out of curiosity, tracking the information down and using his memory to store the knowledge he gained. Locks are among the devices he has researched, a common enough undertaking among teens, and he knows something about this one. The

  trigger to the lock is usually installed as a part of another function. He goes over to the communications pad and studies it.

  Nothing he sees suggests a path to what he is looking for. Five minutes have already elapsed. His uncle could be back at any moment. He needs a better, quicker answer to his problem.

  As if in response, the lock releases and the door opens. One of the office staff enters carrying a tray of bottled water and glasses. He sets it on the table and turns to leave.

  Ash is already on his feet and running after him. “Wait! Just a minute! My uncle . . .”

  The man holds up his hands in warning, then pulls out a stinger, ready to defend himself. Against the commander’s valued guest? Ash would laugh if he weren’t so scared.

  “Whoa, I’m not going to cause trouble,” he says quickly. “I just wanted to know how long my uncle is going to be tied up.”

  “Until he’s finished with whatever he’s doing,” the man says, backing away.

  Ash catches up to him as he reaches the door. “But there’s nothing to do in here! This isn’t right!”

  The man is opening the door and stepping through. Ash comes after him, leaning on the frame. “Hey, wait!”

  But the man turns away, and the door closes behind him.

  Ash gives it two minutes, just to be sure, and then he tries the handle. It opens easily. One thing about these laser locks. Get any sort of substance on the lens of the reader, and it stops registering the seal. A spitwad, say—like the one he slapped on the doorframe’s lens.

  He eases the door open a tiny fraction and looks out. There is no
one in sight. A hallway runs from the reception area past his doorway and disappears from view. He looks over at the windows in the conference room and notes the release that allows for them to open several inches each. He hurries over, cranks one open as far as it will go—which isn’t far—and uses his backpack as a wedge to hold it in place.

  Nothing in it but his K-bar and the breathing mask T.J. gave him. Nothing he can’t give up.

  He returns to the door, cracks it slightly, and looks toward the reception area once more. All clear. He slips through the doorway, removing the spitwad from the reader lens as he does so, and closes the door behind him, listening as the locks snap into place.

  The way back to the elevators that brought him up goes right past all those people in the reception area and seems a poor choice. So he goes the other way. At the end of the hall, he turns the corner cautiously. No one in sight, but there are sounds of sudden activity behind him. He continues on, going deeper into the warren of offices. The corridor makes another turn, and abruptly he encounters a service bot exiting a solitary service elevator. He is quick enough to block the door open as the bot continues on his way; he slips inside.

  He presses the button for the main floor.

  He has been extraordinarily lucky so far, and he is aware that he has to be even luckier to get out of the building without being stopped. He has to hope his uncle remains tied up elsewhere until he is clear. He triggers his vidview to read the time. Five minutes have lapsed since his escape.

  He touches his vidview and connects to T.J.

  A disgruntled face stares at him. “What? Bored already?”

  “No. Scared. I’m coming back. I need to get out of here, T.J. Really fast. Things have gone way wrong.”

  He can hear panic in his voice. The other’s expression changes instantly. “Okay, can you get clear of the building?”

  Ash nods. “I think so.”

  “Do so. Get down the steps to the street. I’ll meet you there.”