The Mocking Program

by Alan Dean Foster

  Whoh nodded energetically. "Katla told me that her mama worked on their leaving for over a year. She was ready to die trying rather than live with the homber one more day." He smiled knowingly, the better to impart still one more secret. "'Course, they needed something to live on. So Katla says her mom rotoed some of Mr. Mockerkin's money."

  "How much?" Cardenas prompted.

  The boy shrugged. "Nonada me. I ain't sure Katla knows, either. More than a million, less than a billion. That's todo total she'd tell me, anyway. Just that it was a lot. Enough to make papa Mockerkin even madder than he was gonna be anyway, when he found out his woman and kid had wafted. The way I miro it, this Surtsey chica respirate his home life, his money, an' his respectedness. Hoy, something like that happen to me all at once, I might get a little excessival myself, sabe? One more thing: they didn' do the do alone. Katla says her mama had a friend who helped them. One of her papa's tightest business associates—whatever that business is, man." He shook his head. "If this chingaroon Mockerkin wasn't mad already, bein' horned by a partner with his own woman ought to be enough to push him over the ridge, don' you think?"

  "So Surtsey ran off with one of Mockerkin's partners, and his daughter, and his money. Katla tell you who the partner was? I'm going to bet his name was George Anderson."

  Wild Whoh adopted a momentary but nonetheless welcome air of superiority. "Wrong ese, fedoco! Me, I never met the homber. But Katla, she mentioned him once. Said he was a good friend to her and her mama before they wired in with this Anderson homber.

  Bummer—no, Brummel. Hoy, that was it. Wayne, I think. Wayne Brummel."

  Amazing, Cardenas mused, how hour upon hour of contemplation of a jumbled gram could lead to naught but brain-strain, when all that was necessary to lucidify everything was a word or two from a jumpy subgrub. Thanks to this edgy kid, the Inspector now knew for certain who Wayne Brummel was, as well as George Anderson. They were the same man, two identities, both deceased.

  It explained why Surtsey Anderson-Mockerkin had been so nervous on the vor with Cardenas. It lucidified why she had never shown up at the morgue. It told him why her seemingly ordinary, unremarkable inurban home had been converted into an elaborate, robotized, highly adaptable bomb. She didn't fear the police. She didn't fear burglars, or wandering perverts. She feared, indeed was terrified of, the husband she had left behind.

  Of course, it could be that George Anderson-Brummel had simply taken a wrong turn on a damp night, only to be vaped by a gang of roving ninlocos out in search of an easy target. His death might be coincidental, nothing more than another sorry-sad statistic on the evening's police tally. Obviously, Surtsey did not think that was the case. Daughter in tow, she'd wafted, ambulated, made herself indisposed.

  Which, if George Anderson-Brummel had been confronted by the kind of humanoids someone like this Cleator Mockerkin could put on long-term lease, was probably a most sensible thing to do. It was not Angel Cardenas's job to find out which was the one true truth—but he had entered too far into the circumstancia now to back out with his conscience, far less his sense of professionalism, intact.

  He dug deep inside one of his coat's interior pockets. Fishing out a wafer, he passed it through his spinner, performing a single perfunctory operation. Then he handed it to the subgrub.

  "Take this down to Nogales Central. Or if you, um, have reasons not to want to go there yourself, have someone else take it for you.

  Get it to Contraband Operations, third level. Tell them I gave this to you—it's ident stamped—and hand it to the officer on duty. They'll fetch you your Seventh Node from Property." When the staring, uncomprehending kid failed to respond, Cardenas added helpfully, "For your belt. I keep my promises." With that, he turned to go.

  "Hoy!" Looking back, the Inspector saw the still-dazed subgrub staring after him. "You sure you a fedoco, homber?"

  Cardenas smiled pleasantly. "We don't all of us look down on your kind as trash-wash, Wild. Me, I'm stuck with this conviction that there's a salvageable human being inside every corpus." His smile widened slightly. "No matter how many miragoos they think they have to wear to look vacan." He resumed his stride.

  FIVE

  OF MORE SIGNIFICANCE EVEN THAN THE information he had gleaned from the street nin was that Fredoso Hyaki was awake, alert, and had been shunted out of IC. Cardenas found him floating in a gel bath, looking for all the world like a paralyzed gerbil trapped in the middle of a giant pudding. While the medicated gel would slowly permeate his flesh and help his entire body to heal, its real job was to accelerate the regrowth of his normal epidermis beneath the filmy protective coating of artificial skin. It was cool, and soothing to the point where the injured sergeant looked almost comfortable.

  Almost.

  An attached web of tubes still cycled food and its afterproducts, though one positioned near his head provided ice water and fruit juice he could actually take by mouth. As Cardenas entered, Hyaki murmured a command and one of the feeders entered his mouth. The Inspector waited until his friend and partner had finished sipping before moving into the sergeant s field of vision.

  "Always room for Jell-O, I see."

  Prevented by subtle, flexible supports from slowly sinking to the bottom of the burn tank, Hyaki was still able to turn his head far enough to focus on the speaker. "I like it better with some fruit, though I guess if you're swimming in it instead of eating it, you're better off with the pure stuff." He smiled, though not as readily as usual. "I'll never look at the La Brea Tar Pits again with quite the same detachment." The smile faded. "What happened?"

  "The Anderson residence was jig-timed. You ended up wearing a lot of it."

  "Let me guess." The wide body stirred ever so slightly within the gelatin bath. "You intuited what was going to happen, and that's why you're still walking around flashing that hangdog grin of yours while I'm stuck in this bowl of antiseptic-flavored flan with the mother of all sunburns."

  "Yeah, that's it," Cardenas shot back. "I like getting blown up so much I thought I'd wait until the last minute so I could get a good whiff of cordite." His expression turned serious. "You doing all right?"

  Hyaki's expression reflected his distaste. "Two thousand three hundred and sixty-two channels, and not a damn thing worth watching. You find mother and daughter Anderson yet?"

  "No, but I found out some other things." He proceeded to enlighten the sergeant on the results of his investigating. When he had finished, the big man started to nod, winced, and lay still.

  "Sounds like the motivation was something more than your standard-issue case of domestic abuse."

  "No mierde," the Inspector agreed. "If this mama Surtsey is as experienced at hiding from her husband as it would appear, she's not going to be easy to find. It's not hard to lose oneself in the Strip. Especially if you've got enough cred—and are frightened enough."

  "She won't put the girl back in a soche. Not for a while, anyway. After the business with the house, they'll go even further underground than they were before." Hyaki went quiet for a moment. "I hope you find 'em before her ex-husband does."

  Cardenas nodded gravely. He felt very strongly that if they did not, the discovery-recovery might prove even more disconcerting than it had been for a certain George Anderson-Brummel.

  "I wish they'd let me out of here. I'd really like to help on this one." Hyaki flashed the wonderful faux Buddha smile that enchanted children and reassured women. "I don't hold anything against the mother and daughter. It was the house that did this to me—not them."

  The Inspector leaned over the tank. "You're not going anywhere until you get your back back. I'll keep you posted." He turned to go.

  "Hoy, Angel!" Cardenas looked back. "You know the worst thing about being stuck here like this?" The Inspector shook his head, and his partner explained mournfully, "I hate Jell-O."

  It did not take a lot of crunch nor require the services of a box tunneler to access information on Cleator Mockerkin. There was more in the restricted macrol
ice file than Cardenas cared to know.

  The man's present whereabouts were uncertain, although he was known to frequent residences in Greater Miami, Lala, Nawlins, and Harlingen. That was hardly surprising. A man like Mockerkin would have many enemies and no friends beyond those bought and paid for. By all accounts he was a thoroughly unpleasant character: his rap sheet comprised a copious and detailed catalog of antisoc activities ranging from petty theft as a subgrub to embezzlement, arson-for-hire, assault with and without a deadly weapon, extortion, sexual abuse, up to and including no less than three arrests for murder—one direct and two for hire. Although he had done three separate stints in stir, none had been for any of the significant felonies with which he had been charged.

  Interestingly, he was also charged with illegal weapons procurement. This indictment stemmed from his involvement in the Paraguayan Rebellions of '69 and '71. Principally through numerous contacts in Central and South America, he had grown wealthy enough to buy off or dispose of his most serious rivals. Worse still, he was able to afford that bane of all hard-working, honest cops: lawyers whose courtroom skills were inversely proportional to their moral sense. If his sheet was to be believed, he should be in jail right now.

  In addition to the long stat list, there were some vit clips. In the privacy of his office cubicle, Cardenas played them back over and over. In surveillance and courtroom recordings, they showed a tall, well-tanned individual slightly younger than the Inspector, with very blond hair cut short, a muscular upper torso, and a small, tight mouth that opened only to talk, never to smile or to frown or show expression of any kind. The courtroom vits were especially interesting. Mockerkin had one of those voices that was traditionally referred to as an "acid tongue." Even his casual asides to his lawyers or supporters were tinged with venom. Surprisingly literate, his performance on the stand was characterized by a highly developed sense of sarcasm that would have done justice to a right-wing political pundit. The source of his sobriquet, among law enforcement and underworld representatives alike, was instantly apparent.

  In the course of his career Cardenas had personally made the acquaintance of more than one skew-level antisoc. There was Little Napoleon, and Tipo Repo. There was Fregado Freddy and Azina the Legs, Marianne Molto and Johnni Half-Face, The Zipper and Gordo Carlos. To this long litany of antisocs could now be added Cleator Mockerkin—alias The Mocker. The Mock, for convenience. It suited the man, the Inspector decided as he reran the vit file. An antisoc as personally unpleasant as he was successful, and dangerously smart. Not the sort of individual you would want to cross. In running off with his woman, his daughter, and his money, his former associate Wayne Brummel had shown considerable huevos.

  Or exceptional stupidity.

  How much of it had been Brummel-Anderson's idea, Cardenas wondered, and how much Surtsey Anderson-Mockerkin's? Successfully eluding the attention of someone like Mockerkin would take time and planning. By all accounts, Mockerkin's ex-wife was sufficiently attractive, and clever, to have carried off the flight without help. Had she wanted a little extra protection around, for herself and her daughter, or had she really been in love with the unfortunate Brummel? There were only two people who could answer that question. One of them was dead, vacced and drac'd, and the other was on a serioso waft.

  Avoiding The Mock's skills and reach would likely entail a good deal of moving around. Cardenas suspected that if he checked the Assessor's records, he would find that the Anderson family had not occupied their recently annihilated habitation for very long. How long, exactly, the three of them had been on the run he did not yet know. But he would find out. Doubtless their change of residence coincided with a corresponding alteration of identity.

  One thing he was able to infer, if not technically intuit, from the available information was the nature of the deceased Anderson-Brummel's occupation. He was a promoter, all right. He had promoted himself into Surtsey Mockerkin's confidence, promoted himself into The Mock's missing money, and promoted himself into at least half a dozen illicit meat banks in this segment of the Strip, where his assorted hastily appropriated body parts would fetch a good price. His death would not be enough to satisfy someone like Mockerkin, Cardenas knew. The Mock would not be content until the absent components of his runaway family were returned to him. In that event, Katla Mockerkin would probably survive unharmed. Physically, anyway.

  The Inspector did not dwell on what such a resolution might mean for Surtsey Mockerkin. He had dealt with too many men like Cleator Mockerkin to hold any illusions about how they treated women who betrayed them. The Namerican Federal Police needed to find her, and her daughter, fast, before they were run down by The Mock's minions. It was too bad, he reflected, that those as yet unknown and unidentified individuals had not entered the abandoned Anderson house ahead of himself and Hyaki.

  Now mother and daughter were on the run again. Presumably by themselves this time. He doubted someone as adroit as Surtsey Mockerkin would let more than one outsider into her confidence. With their male buffer gone, she would have to do everything by herself. As for Katla, in addition to those talents Cardenas had already learned she possessed, he now added the quality of resilience.

  As he was pondering the shimmering depths of the box tunnel hovering over the far side of his desk, a note popped up in the lower right-hand corner. The Captain wanted to see him. Cardenas smiled inwardly. Very little got past Pangborn. The higher-profile the case, the more the Inspector's superior's ass itched. If he was following this one, Cardenas knew he must be scratching like mad.

  He saved the augmented macrolice, shut down the vit, and headed upstairs.

  Shaun Pangborn had an office. Not a cubicle, not a subdiv sec of multiuse floor: a real office. From its location on the next-to-the-top floor of the Federal Police Headquarters, Nogales Division (the top floor being armored and reserved for ballistics and rapid-reaction deployment via chopter and vertiprop), a visitor could see halfway across the Strip, past office towers and green-garbed codos, past humming maquiladoras and malls, and dream of the distant cool waters of the Golfo California.

  The Inspector settled into a chair opposite. He liked Pangborn, and the Captain liked him. They had a lot in common besides age and experience. For one thing, neither was wholly original. Both men sported replacement parts: Cardenas his eyes, Pangborn part of an ear—and other more sensitive areas everyone knew about but were careful not to allude to in his presence. They were senior federales, with a shared sense of right, wrong, and what maybe perhaps possibly sometimes could be done about it.

  Neither, however, was an innocent. They knew they could not eliminate evil, only mitigate it. In the Strip, sometimes that was enough.

  "Got a traba-job for you, Angel." Pangborn was studying a heads-up suspended to his right. From where he was sitting, Cardenas could not make out the details. "Over in Sanjuana. Branch of Macrovendi EU, Milan—you know that outfit?—is screaming because somebody's spazzing half their new mollyspheres before they can be inserted in their new senseware. Since their organic burrowers have come up with nothing, they've come hat in hand begging the help of the lowly federales." He waved a hand through the heads-up, temporarily distorting the carefully collated aura. "I thought maybe you'd like a few days at the beach. Do a little burrowing for Macrovendi, locus their compromise, issue a couple of warrants. The Department can always use some good PR."

  Cardenas smiled diffidently. "If it's all the same to you, Shaun, I'd just as soon stay here and follow through on what I'm working on right now."

  Frowning, Pangborn ablaed the heads-up away. In response to his verbal command, the informational wraith vanished from above the desk. "Chinga, Angel. Half the people in the Department know about the Macrovendi assignment, and for the last couple of days it seems like every one of them has been kissing my nacha trying to get it." He gestured expansively. "I offer it to you on a plate, and you come back at me with a no-thanks."

  Cardenas shrugged. He could be as parsimonious with word
s as with his salary.

  "That's neither answer nor explanation." Irritated, Pangborn summoned forth the heads-up on the other side of the desk. Commanding it, he examined the results intently, squinting at the display. After a couple of minutes, with the call-up still occupying virtual space on the side of his desk, he turned back to his visitor.

  "Tell me, Angel: what's so special about this affair? I grant you there are some interesting characters involved, but the details suggest that the explanations are rote. Wife runs off with a big chunk of the husband's money, one of his partners, and their kid." He glanced briefly back at the heads-up. "Sure, given his record, it'd be a nice little coup to pin some pintatime on this Mockerkin culo. But this is scut work and track, follow-up and simple addition. Any junior officer can handle it."

  "There's a homicide involved," Cardenas pointed out.

  Pangborn rolled his eyes. "Ordinary revenge killing. Nothing out of the ordinary. From the particulars on the deceased Anderson-Brummel, I doubt that soche-at-grande has suffered any great loss. Let somebody else handle it. Go to Sanjuana, take a week burrowing for Macrovendi, spend some time on the beach miraing the chicas." He lowered his voice conspiratorially. "There's room in Accounting for a little drift. I think we can get you into the Coronado. As for this standard-issue sorryness"—he indicated the read-only that gleamed within the heads-up—"I'll put Gonzalez or Rutland on it."

  Cardenas did not like to argue with Pangborn. The Captain was one of the very few in the Department who could almost understand what it was like to be an intuit. Almost.

  "I really want to see this case through to conclusion, Shaun. As Senior Inspector, I can cogit some fluence."

  Pangborn looked sad. "I guess it's true what happens when people start to get old. They suffer these attacks of dementia; mild at first, slowly evolving into episodes of insanity that eventually start to opaque their thinking." He sat back in his chair, which sighed appreciatively. "Either that, or you're being more than typically pig-headed. But then, you know that I'm just slagging you, and that I'm going to let you swim in your chosen slime. Don't you?"