by Eric Brown
That day, two hours before the take-off of the Mercury probe, his desk-com had flared and the serene face of Kim Long had smiled out at him.
‘You ready for the download, Hal? I’ve secured the link. Copy this information to file, and guard it with your life, okay?’
‘I’ll do that.’
‘You decided who you’ll sell it to, Hal?’
He had smiled. ‘Wellman has made me an offer I can’t refuse.’
‘Here goes, Hal. Goodbye.’
He had opened his mouth to say something, to ask her if some day they might meet again ... But the image of her face had vanished then, to be replaced by a screenful of meaningless text. One hour later the download had finished, and Halliday got through to Wellman with the news.
Now he watched the auto-probe scuttling over the aluminium-burnished bedrock of the planet Mercury, and considered the future.
Barney had showed himself only once over the past week. He had turned up at the apartment drunk and incoherent. He’d slept the night on the sofa, Halliday remaining with him until the early hours, attempting to come to some understanding of what his friend was going through.
But in the morning, Barney had vanished.
Casey appeared in the doorway to the bedroom, all tousle-haired and sleepy-eyed, and dressed in a long T-shirt. She yawned and tottered across to him, robot-fashion, and hung her arms around his neck.
‘Mornin’, Hal.’
He hugged her to him, reliving the night they’d spent.
‘You still watching the probe?’ She yawned again. ‘Don’t you ever get tired of it? I mean, the pictures aren’t even very clear.’
‘It’s what the pictures mean that’s so fascinating, Casey.’
She shrugged, smiled. ‘Guess so. I’m taking a shower. You had breakfast?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Good. We’ll have something later, okay?’
He kissed her and watched her run back to the bedroom, knowing that, just one week ago, he would have found it hard to believe the degree of affection he would feel towards the scrawny street kid made good.
He was still daydreaming, five minutes later, when his com chimed.
The small screen remained blank. ‘Yes?’
‘It’s me - Barney. I’ve been lying low for a while, Hal. You at the apartment? I need to talk.’
‘Sure. Great. Come on up.’
Barney cut the connection. A minute later the door opened and he walked in.
It was Barney, Halliday told himself. He might not be wearing the Barney chu, or physically look much like his old partner, but the things that made him Barney Kluger were still there - the thoughts and memories, behaviour and mannerisms.
All that was absent was the soul - whatever the hell that was.
He looked rough, as if he’d spent the past week drinking hard and sleeping rough. His shaven head had grown a covering of dark stubble, matching his scrubby beard.
‘Hal, good to see you, buddy.’
‘Sit down. Can I get you something?’
‘Could kill a coffee. You got Colombian roast?’
‘What else?’
Halliday fixed two cups and sat on the armchair across from Barney. ‘It’s good to see you again. I’ve been worried.’
Barney laughed, holding the cup in both hands before his mouth and blowing. ‘Worried? I can handle myself.’
Halliday shrugged. ‘Even so ... Look, you decided what you gonna do yet?’
It was a while before Barney replied. He eyed his coffee for a long time, then looked up. ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said the other day, outside Olga’s.’
‘And?’
He shrugged. ‘You know what I’ve always despised in people, Hal?’ Before Halliday could reply, he went on, ‘I always hated self-pitying bastards who bewailed their fate and did nothing to alter things.’ He shook his head. ‘The past five days, that’s been me. So something’s missing? So what? I might not be complete, might not have a soul, whatever that might be ... But what I have got are my memories, even if they’re really another Barney Kluger’s memories. They’re all I have. I remember working with you, all the cases we took on.’
He paused there, and Halliday wondered whether he should say something. Before he could find the right words, Barney continued.
‘Back when I was imprisoned in the Mantoni HQ and I found out what they planned for you ... You know, I asked myself why I was trying to get out to warn you. I mean, I must’ve felt something, right? I could tell between right and wrong, between what was fair and what was not...’ He shrugged. ‘I had to do something.’
‘I appreciate that, Barney,’ Halliday murmured.
Barney regarded his cup. ‘What I’m trying to say is, maybe feelings can be learned. That was a start, back there in the Mantoni HQ. And over the past few days, I’ve been thinking. What matters to me is what I have in here - the memories of the past. What happened between us. For some reason they’re important. They’re what matter.’
Halliday nodded. He let the silence stretch, then said, ‘So ... what’ve you decided?’
Barney looked up. ‘What you said the other day, about joining you again, starting over. You’re right, we’d make a good team.’
Halliday nodded. ‘So let’s do that. Hey, how about another coffee?’
Five minutes later Casey breezed in from the bedroom, covered in nothing but a towel knotted beneath her right armpit. ‘Oh, you gotta guest, Hal. Aren’t you going to introduce us?’
‘Sure.’ He smiled. ‘Ah, Casey, this is Barney. Barney, Casey.’
‘Good to meet you, Barney. Hey, I knew a Barney once. Isn’t that a coincidence?’
Barney laughed. ‘Big coincidence, sweetheart.’
She perched herself on the arm of the chair next to Halliday. ‘So how do you know Hal, Barney?’
He smiled. ‘Hell, that’s a long story, Casey.’
Halliday’s com chimed. ‘Halliday here.’
A familiar face, which he could not at first place, stared up at him. Then he had it. Roberts, one of Wellman’s heavies.
‘Halliday, Roberts here. Ah ... Wellman died today at nine,’ he said. He hesitated. ‘He wants to talk to you. I’ll put him on, okay?’
Halliday patched the call through the wallscreen, and a second later the inflated image of Wellman’s face replaced the Mercury landscape. He appeared much younger, fitter, than the dying man Hal had met up at Nyack. Behind the executive, he made out the sear plains of the Serengeti.
‘Halliday,’ Wellman said. ‘It’s good to see you.’
Halliday smiled. ‘I’m glad to see it worked, Wellman. How’s things?’
Wellman laughed. ‘Never better, my friend. You don’t know how wonderful it is to be reborn. I want to thank you for everything you did.’
Halliday shrugged. ‘It was a team effort, Wellman. Barney, Kat...’
‘The money should be safely in your account by now. Have you decided what you’re going to do?’
He looked across at Barney, and then up at Casey. ‘Matter of fact we’re about to discuss that right now...’
‘Then I’ll leave you to it. Thanks again. I’ll be in touch.’
The executive’s image vanished, replaced by the scene of planetary exploration relayed from Mercury. Halliday killed the sound.
Casey was staring at him. ‘Discuss what?’ she said. ‘What we gonna discuss, Hal?’
To Casey he said, ‘Barney’s my new partner, Casey. You’ll be seeing a lot of him in future.’
‘Neat,’ she said. ‘Say, that’s another coincidence. You know, Barney, Hal’s last sidekick was a guy called Barney, too.’
‘Ain’t that something, sweetheart,’ Barney laughed.
Halliday said, ‘Wellman’s just transferred five million dollars into my account.’ He looked from Casey to Barney. ‘And that’s just the start, the first down payment. Thing is...’ He shrugged. ‘What’re we gonna do with it?’
Casey was staring at
him. ‘Five million dollars? You joking me, right?’
‘No joke, Casey. Five million.’
Barney said, ‘What you want to do, Hal?’
Halliday considered. He’d been dreaming of late of moving out west, over to Seattle. He’d been looking at real estate on the Net, checking up on the reforestation projects going on over there.
He looked across the room to where his bonsai oak stood, alone and aloof, on the table.
‘We need to talk this over,’ he said. ‘I mean, we could stay here, in New York ...’ Casey was shaking her head. ‘Or we could try Washington State. I’ve heard great things about Seattle.’
Casey was wide-eyed. ‘Seattle?’ she said. ‘Sounds good to me.’
‘And then of course there’s always the problem of what we’re gonna do when we get out there, if Seattle is where we decide to go.’
Barney shrugged. ‘Why don’t we talk about that when we get there, Hal?’
‘Seattle okay with you?’
‘Sure, why not? People go missing in Seattle.’
Halliday smiled. ‘You keen on continuing in this line of business, Barney?’
The thought, as he considered it, appealed. Part-time, with breaks to enjoy life out there, get fit again ...
‘Hey,’ Casey said, ‘what do you mean, “continuing”? You worked in missing persons before, Barney?’
Barney laughed. ‘You could say that.’ He looked across at Halliday, as if to say, ‘You tell her...’
‘It’s a long story, Casey,’ Halliday said.
She shrugged. ‘So we’ll have breakfast and you can tell me all about it. I know a great little diner on Fifth. I’ll hand in my notice while I’m there.’
Barney said, ‘Sounds great, Casey. I’m starving.’
Halliday considered the future, life in Seattle ... and then he tried to think about life beyond Seattle, and what that might hold.
Virtual immortality in the Net, a life among the stars.
The future, he thought, begins here.
He reached out and took Casey’s hand.
Outside, for the first time in weeks, the sun broke through the low cloud cover.
