by Eric Brown
He felt a sudden reluctance to let Barney out of his sight. ‘We should stick together—’
Barney grunted. ‘You know the routine, bud. We being trailed, and what’s the safest ploy? Right. We split up.’
‘But they haven’t got a trace on me,’ Halliday pointed out. ‘So once I get outta here, I’m free.’
Barney glanced across at him. ‘What the hell you trying to say?’
‘I’m saying your logic’s flawed. Splitting up won’t divert their attention or their forces, because they’re after you right now, not me.’
‘Okay, so maybe I don’t want you to get yourself shot dead. I don’t want to be responsible for the death of my partner just when we’ve teamed up again.’
‘You’ve either got no faith in me, or the people who’re tailing us are damned good—’
‘It’s just that we’ll find it hard to shake the bastards, buddy.’
‘We’ll stand a better chance of getting away if we stick together. Think this through.’
Barney glanced up, into the rear-view. ‘Christ! We’re in it together now, Hal. The bastards’ve found me..’
Halliday screwed around in his seat and peered through the rear window. In the twilight he made out a car about a hundred metres behind.
He recognised the car - the blue Chrysler coupé belonging to the couple who’d attacked him in the office.
‘I lost ‘em a while back, Hal. But they stick like limpets. There’ll be others around, too. That’s the hell of it. We just don’t know where the enemy is.’
He revved, took a left, then a sharp right on First Avenue, heading south.
Halliday slipped his automatic from its holster and turned in his seat, staring through the rear window for any sign of the coupé.
‘Looks like we’ve given it the slip.’
‘Yeah, but for how long? See, thing is that they know where we are. They don’t have to follow us, just find us by another route.’
‘How’re they tailing you?’ Halliday asked, eyes on the road behind.
Barney tapped his head and smiled. ‘Nano-cerebral interface, you remember those?’
How could he forget? The Sissi Nigeria case, eighteen months ago, which had led directly to Barney’s death.
‘You’re implanted with a unit, Barney?’ He glanced at his partner’s receding hairline, but the light in the car was too low for him to make out any sign of spars or circuitry.
Barney nodded. ‘How’d you think I came back to life, Hal?’
It made a kind of ludicrous sense. The NCI somehow contained Barney’s identity, his personality ... and the body? The body was a little taller than Barney’s original, not as big around the gut.
‘The people at Mantoni’s, they installed a tracer in the unit. I’m a valuable possession to ‘em, Hal. They didn’t want me straying.’
‘You any idea what kind of tracer’s in there?’
‘Search me, bud.’
‘If we can get it out, Barney - or stop the signal...’
‘Then I’m home free and laughing. Trouble is, Hal, that’s a big if.’
Halliday thought of Kat Kosinski. If there was one person who might have the technical expertise to check out the NCI, and the desire to help the cause, it was Kat.
Halliday pulled out his com and entered her code.
Barney glanced at him. ‘Who you calling?’
‘A contact.’ He glanced across at Barney. ‘How’d you feel about someone digging about in your NCI?’
Barney opened his palms on the apex of the steering wheel. ‘If it gets rid of the Mantoni mob, I’ll love ‘em for ever.’
The screen flared. A thin white face glared out at him with a good imitation of hostility. Her cheek twitched and her eyes were wide with the effects of spin.
‘Oh, it’s you, Halliday. I just talked to your friend.’
He stared. ‘Friend?’
Kat sighed. ‘Don’t play the fool, Halliday. You got a friend in the world, no?’
‘Kat, just hold on. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘This guy called. Said he was a buddy of yours, a private eye working on the Charlesworth case. Said he wanted to talk to me about what I know of the Methuselah Project, their restricted site. So I arranged to meet him in an hour.’
Understanding hit him. He’d told the Wellman construct about Kat and the Methuselah site. He’d even given the Wellman construct her com code.
‘Kat, did you tell him where you are?’
‘Do I look like a dummy, Halliday? Only trusted folk get to know where I’m based.’
‘Okay, great. Look, don’t meet that guy, okay? Don’t go anywhere near him, and don’t answer any more of his calls.’
Kat screwed her face up and stared at him. ‘Halliday, what’s going on?’
‘Long story. Look, what do you know about NCIs?’
‘Nano-cerebral interfaces? A bit. Girl in my line of work needs to keep up with the technology.’
‘Okay. Listen, I’ve got someone with me who’s on our side. Thing is, his NCI’s implanted with a tracer, and we need to get it out, fast. You think you can help?’
Kat stared out at him, suddenly serious. ‘A tracer in an NCI? Could be two or three things. If it’s a deep implant, like sub-cortical, then no way, José. But if it’s a needle plant or a simple tracking program ... Then maybe I can help.’
‘I hope so. Where are you? We’ll pick you up.’
‘I’ll meet you on the corner of Canal Street and Bowery. Where’re you?’
‘About five minutes away. See you then.’
‘Over and out, Halliday.’ She cut the connection.
Barney glanced at him. ‘Who was that?’
He told Barney about Kat.
‘Sounds some kid. You think she can debug me?’
‘If anyone can, she’s the girl. Corner of Canal and Bowery.’
Barney glanced up at the rear-view. ‘Might be a little longer than five minutes, Hal. We got company.’
Halliday turned in his seat. The electric blue coupé, as relentless as a scavenging shark, kept pace about two hundred metres behind.
‘What now?’
‘Let’s try a few diversionary tactics, and if that doesn’t shake ‘em long enough so we can pick up the kid, we’ll think again.’
Halliday peered out and raised his automatic as Barney hit the accelerator.
They turned left, heading towards the Lower East Side. Seconds later the lights of the coupé swept around the corner, tracking them. Barney turned a sharp right and accelerated. Halliday swayed in his seat as the Ford careered around the bend. The coupé would not be put off; each time Halliday thought that they might have given the following car the slip, its dazzling headlights appeared in the distance.
‘Find a quiet street, warehouses or whatever. Lose the coupé and drop me off.’
Barney glanced at him. ‘What’s the plan?’
‘I get out and conceal myself in a doorway. When the coupé passes, I take out its tyres. Then I get outta there and head for the corner. You drive around the block and pick me up. It’ll slow ‘em down for a time.’
‘And if they start firing?’
‘Then I’ll return fire - and I won’t be going for their tyres.’
Barney nodded. He headed into the Lower East Side, making for Two Bridges. He turned left down a quiet street between looming factory buildings, the coupé turning with them and keeping pace. Barney accelerated, then made a quick right turn and slowed. ‘Tell me when, Hal.’
Halliday made to open the door. The coupé was nowhere in sight. ‘Okay, here!’
Barney stepped on the brakes. ‘See you in two minutes.’
Halliday dived out, rolled across the tarmac and sprinted into the shadowed recess of a factory’s loading bay. Barney sped off down the quiet street and Halliday waited, struggling to regain his breath.
He heard an engine, and seconds later the searchlight beam of its headlights swept around the corne
r. He dropped into a crouch and held his automatic at arm’s length. The coupé was speeding now, attempting to gain on Barney’s Ford. A second later it flashed past and Halliday aimed low and opened fire, a dozen bullets smacking into the tyres and hubcaps. The car swerved, wallowing on dead rubber for fifty metres before smacking into the side of a building.
The second he quit firing, he was up and running towards the end of the street. He slowed, exhaustion like two fists gripping his lungs and squeezing. He looked over his shoulder. The guy was staggering from the smashed coupé, hauling open the passenger door and dragging the woman out.
Ahead, headlights showed. Halliday slowed his pace. In seconds they’d be on their way, safe for a while at least. The ambush had bought them time enough to pick Kat up, see if she could work her magic on Barney’s NCI.
The car up ahead was turning the corner, and Halliday wondered what the hell Barney was thinking about. He came to a halt, dazzled by the headlights as the car sped towards him. Barney should have stopped on the main drag and waited for him there. The way up ahead was blocked by the coupé and the vengeful Mantoni duo.
He wondered if Barney was being pursued by another car, and no sooner had this struck him than he realised, in a second of surging panic, that the car bearing down on him was not the Ford. A white Mercedes came to a halt ten metres from him with a squeal of brakes and the doors flew open, upwards like the wing-cases of a beetle. Two dark figures jumped out and began firing, and Halliday fell flat, rolled and returned fire. He caught one of the men in the chest, sending him sliding across the hood of the Merc in a syrupy slick of blood.
He dived into the partial cover of a doorway and heard shots rain around him like metallic hail. The second guy was kneeling in the cover of the Merc, loosing the odd round to keep Halliday pinned down. He wondered how long it would be before the man and woman from the coupé decided to join in the turkey shoot.
He heard a cry, and the firing stopped.
A sudden silence fell over the scene. Then he heard a quiet hiss: ‘Hal, where the hell are you?’
‘Barney?’
‘Over here. Let’s get the hell out!’
Someone appeared from behind the Merc, recognisably the taller, slimmer figure of the resurrected Barney Kluger.
Halliday stood and moved past the Merc, glancing at the guy he’d hit and the one Barney had accounted for. The second guy lay face down on the tarmac, arms parenthesising the place where his head had been in an accidental gesture of protection.
Halliday stared at the guy on the hood of the Merc, a sick feeling in his gut. Barney grabbed his arm. ‘It was him or us, Hal.’
Halliday nodded, silent. Barney put two bullets through the rear tyres of the Merc and led Halliday to where he’d left the Ford on the main drag.
Halliday drove in silence. He made for Canal Street. At last he said, ‘You think that’s it, or they’ll be sending more cars after us?’
‘I’ll be surprised if they give up that easily.’ Barney was quiet for a while, then said, ‘Tell me how I died, Hal.’
Halliday glanced across at his partner. He was staring through the windshield, something unreadable in his expression, blank in his eyes.
‘It was January, ‘40, Barney. Eighteen months ago. We were working on the Sissi Nigeria case, you recall?’
Barney narrowed his eyes, as if trying to see that far back. ‘I remember taking the case on, doing a bit of leg-work.’
‘You’ve no memory of finding the dead woman? You recall the rogue AI, LINx?’
Barney shook his head. ‘That’s impossible, Hal. I must have been downloaded before any of that.’
Halliday suppressed a shiver. ‘Downloaded?’
Barney ignored him. ‘So, January . . . What happened?’
‘We were working on the Nigeria case with Wellman. A rogue AI had uploaded itself into the NCI of a Mantoni technician. It came after you. It shot you in an alley off Christopher Street, left you for dead.’
‘I didn’t die immediately?’
Halliday shook his head. ‘You managed to call me. I found you, pretty near dead, and got you over to St Vincent’s. You died about thirty minutes later.’ He stopped, hearing the words he’d just spoken, recalling the time in the emergency unit.
They turned onto Canal Street and approached the corner with Bowery. Halliday saw a fidgety figure striding up and down the sidewalk. She wore her customary black leggings and the same colour T-shirt, a small backpack lodged between her thin shoulder blades.
Barney said, ‘That the kid?’
‘That’s Kat.’
Barney reached into his hair, and as Halliday watched he seemed to grasp his scalp and lift it from his skull. His receding hair came away, along with his fleshy face. The expression on the chu became one of elasticated surprise as it elongated, then snapped off to reveal a stranger’s face beneath.
Halliday stared at the man in the passenger seat. He was in his mid-thirties, swarthy and handsome in a hard kind of way. His head was shaven, and his domed skull was traversed by the spars and input sockets of a nano-cerebral interface.
The stranger looked at Halliday. ‘Don’t be alarmed, Hal. It’s me, Barney, okay? Only a little changed, is all.’
Halliday nodded, wordless. He pulled into the kerb and sounded his horn.
Kat turned, saw the car and hurried over.
She hauled open the back door. ‘Christ! What the hell kept you guys? I’ve been propositioned three times. Could’ve made a fortune.’
‘We had a bit of a hold-up, Kat.’ He started the Ford and pulled into the street. ‘Kat, this is Barney.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Barney. You the guy with the bug in your brain?’
She shrugged the pack from her back and pulled it open. Halliday glanced over his shoulder. She was taking glittery things from the backpack and laying them on the seat beside her.
‘You can do this on the move, or should we stop?’
‘Hey, I’m not responsible if I poke his brains out while you’re speeding, okay? We’d better stop.’
Barney said, ‘Head over the bridge. We’ll make for beyond the airport. There’s some quiet stretches out on the coast. If anyone’s following us we’ll see ‘em coming.’
Halliday glanced at the stranger and nodded, turned the bend and headed for Manhattan Bridge. It was disconcerting to hear Barney’s speech patterns issue from the unfamiliar face of the stranger beside him.
‘Hey, Barney,’ Kat said, ‘lean your head back on the rest so’s I can get a good look at the hardware.’
Barney obeyed. As Halliday accelerated on the fast lane of Interstate 278, Kat hummed a tune to herself and examined Barney’s NCI.
She stopped humming and said, ‘Hey, this is a real neat piece of hardware, Barney. Must’ve cost you an arm and a leg.’
He smiled. ‘More like an entire body, in a manner of speaking.’
Kat kept up a running commentary from then on. Halliday caught only the occasional fragment, and it meant little to him. ‘Latest VR interface, Hal. Multi-parallel programming. Some great formatting...Enough ports to run a fucking spaceship.’
‘You think you can debug the thing, Kat?’ Halliday asked.
‘Don’t rush me, Halliday. I’m getting to that. These things take time.’
He turned off the highway and took a quiet road north of the airport. High above, the lights of arriving planes spiralled through the night-time darkness like Christmas baubles in a whirlwind.
Halliday heard clunking and whirring sounds from the direction of Barney’s head, and when he glanced at Kat she was inserting what looked like knitting needles into the NCI.
‘I thought you wanted me to stop?’
‘It’s okay. I’m just playing about in here for now.’ She whistled. ‘Christ, Halliday. The things I could do with this kind of augmentation. This is state-of-the-art stuff.’
They passed the airport and approached the coast around Valley Stream. Halliday turned off the road,
taking a track through dunes and marram grass. The area reminded him of the long walks he’d taken further along the coast as a kid.
Ahead he made out a concrete jetty extending arrow-straight into the ocean.
‘How about the end of the jetty, Barney? If anyone approaches we’ll be able to see them coming for miles.’
