Robert Charrette - Arthur 03 - A Knight Among Knaves

by Robert N. Charrette

  The bastards got what they deserved.

  Pankhurst is loyal. Linkwater is loyal.

  Pankhurst pulled the gun! Pankhurst shot first.

  Pankhurst is loyal.

  Pankhurst turned on him.

  Report!

  Maybe he ought to. Wouldn't that be the easiest course? They would sort everything out. He could say that he had become confused, which was true. That he hadn't intended to kill Linkwater, to shoot Pankhurst. A mistake. Maybe even a malfunction with the implants. Such things were possible. Hadn't he demonstrated that he was capable of extreme violence motivated by reflexive response? The report had said that. Reflexive response. He had responded reflexively, hadn't he? He did that when provoked unexpectedly. The incident with Barkins had proven that.

  Bar—

  The troll. He remembered its hairy, horrible face. He remembered that it hadn't been one of the more terrible things, one of the untouchable ones. He remembered how good it had felt proving that it wasn't one of the untouchable ones. He—

  He was crying.

  Why in hell was he crying?

  God help him, he was on the edge. Over it more likely.

  Report!

  No, there was no need to report. He was done with the Department. Having killed Department agents, he was more of a renegade than Spae. How long did he have before they came after him? They would, he was sure of that. They couldn't afford to let him run loose, with who-knew-what secrets implanted in him, knowing as much as he did about their operations. They had already shown how much they trusted him; they wouldn't believe that he would not trade on such secrets.

  No trust.

  Where was the loyalty when there was no trust?

  He was loyal to the Department.

  But was the Department loyal to him?

  Loyalty is the greatest virtue.

  He wasn't feeling virtuous.

  Loyalty to the Department sometimes demands sacrifice, he would sacrifice himself if needed.

  He had believed that. Mannheim had taught him that.

  But his sacrifice hadn't been self-sacrifice. Pankhurst had decided to sacrifice him. That wasn't part of the contract. The contract was broken, but the voices wouldn't admit to that. They still urged him on as if nothing had happened. Maybe it was him. Maybe nothing had happened. He had bad dreams sometimes, very bad dreams that felt real. Maybe this was one of those dreams.

  Pankhurst's eye, behind the Arisaka's sight, was very clear. His face was calm, committed.

  Pankhurst. Familiarity training. On a firing range.

  No! That was not the view Holger would have seen on a firing range.

  Except maybe in a dream.

  He was confused.

  On the firing range.

  No, not a dream, not a faulty memory. Real. He was sure.

  Wasn't he?

  Report!

  He had to go somewhere.

  The voices told him otherwise. Could they be trusted? He realized that he'd only heard them so clearly here in Providence. Were they a part of the place, some kind of magical perversion of the city, an arcane pollution that affected his mind? He knew that creatures of the otherworld could play odious games with his mind. They had in another place. Another place...

  Somewhere else—anywhere else—he'd be able to think more clearly. That's what he needed. He needed to think more clearly. He needed to be somewhere else. Soon.

  Afoot he wouldn't get very far, very fast. He had abandoned the car. The cabs waiting for business folk to depart

  the downtown were long gone. But there was a train, and it had service to the airport. That was the answer! From the airport he could go anywhere, somewhere where the miasma of magic wouldn't be rotting his brain.

  He found the train station deserted. That was fine. He didn't need anyone observing his departure. The third ticketing terminal he tried was working, and he checked the schedule of commuter runs. Twenty minutes till the next one with a stop at the airport. He could afford twenty minutes. He went out to the platform and sat on one of the benches. It had a good view, commanding both the entrances to the platform and the track in the direction from which the train would come.

  The train did come, late, but he didn't mind. No one had troubled him. His departure plan was undisturbed.

  The train clacked to a stop, sighing like a weary beast as it halted. As he prepared to rise, he saw that his plan was undone. The confidence he'd begun to feel was a joke. His plans to leave had clearly been compromised.

  An elf in a long dark overcoat emerged from one of the cars. He knew at once what it was. He'd seen others like it. A sardonic elven face flashed in his memory. He felt as paralyzed as he had then. As helpless. The elf walked toward him along the platform. Holger didn't move, sure that he couldn't, but not remembering why. No other passengers got off the train, just the elf.

  There were implications in that.

  Holger didn't want to attract the elf's attention. He tried to pretend that he was unaware of the elf's presence, hoping it would ignore him. He was rewarded. The elf walked past, leaving the platform by way of the ladder to the rail bed.

  It was gone, and Holger could move again.

  The train was gone, too, long gone. That was for the best. The train, infested as it was by creatures from the other side, was not the way to leave this city.

  He needed another course.

  Report!

  No, no. Whatever he did next, reporting to the Department was not going to be it.

  CHAPTER

  19

  Benton left the bed without disturbing the whore. She'd deny the label if he ever spoke it aloud, but he knew what she was. He also knew how to honor a contract, and part of the one between the two of them was not mentioning the true nature of their transaction. Looking the other way and pre-lending things weren't what you knew them to be was a big part of Benton's business. In his experience secrets were best kept when you knew what that secret was and from whom it was important to be kept secret—the latter point being the most important, certainly most valuable part. He was good at it, and that's why he got the big bucks. Enough to pay for women like the one who slept on, unaware that he was no longer with her.

  He padded on bare, silent feet out of the bedroom, across the sitting room, and into the second bedroom of his suite. The perscomp on the table by the bed was a stripped-down model with only the most basic capabilities. That was fine by him. He only wanted the most basic of the basic, the line connection. He distrusted broadcast connections. He hooked the perscomp to the portable he'd brought up from the truck, and made a couple of inconsequential calls while running a diagnostic. There was a flutter on the line but well below the threshold that suggested a tap. Satisfactory.

  He'd chosen this hotel because it offered recharge for electric vehicles. His truck itself didn't run on charge, but it carried a backup system for the electronics, which should be completely topped by now. Such a system offered another advantage to those, like him, with the knowledge and equipment to use it. He sent a coded signal—broadcast, but there was no other option—to the truck's on-board comp. Under the guidance of a dedicated agent, the comp invaded the monitor link on the recharge connection, following it back to the comp controlling the power outflow. From there it jumped into the hotel's main system, connected to the phone net, and opened a link with his portable. The truck and the portable talked to each other, and when they were satisfied that the handshake protocols were all nominal, the portable's screen lit.

  "Good morning, sir," the comp said. "What do you require?"

  "Review offers, by start date. Now."

  "There are no new offers. However, you have seven outstanding contracts. Do you wish to review the seven contracts?"

  Seven? He only remembered six. "Yes. By date. Now."

  He scanned the list as it came up and saw the anomaly at once: case 71822. That was the hunt for the Wisteria killer.

  "Query: why is 71822 still open?"

  "Client ha
s refused payment on expense invoice."

  Most likely a glitch. Using putative begging letters from bogus charities as screens for payments occasionally ran into categorical refusals from corporate accounting departments. "Resubmit. Now. Contingency: if refused, activate collector program three."

  "Affirmative."

  Then again, maybe there was more to it. "Recover file on contract 71822. Search public databases for similar deaths. Three point correlation. Confine search to New England Cooperative geographical area. Do it now."

  "Affirmative."

  He knew he'd have to wait. "Secure."

  "Affirmative."

  He took a shower. When he was done, the comp was still working, but it had uncovered at least one more probable hit by the Wisteria killer. Yesterday, in New Hampshire.

  "Query: is client Anton Van Dieman still alive?"

  "Affirmative."

  Interesting. "Query: where was he yesterday?"

  "The only public information available reports him present at a conference in Nashua, New Hampshire. Do you wish a more extensive probe?"

  "No." Same place as the killer. Very interesting. "Referent resubmission of expenses on contract 71822, change contingency. New contingency: notify of response."

  "Affirmative."

  He'd want more evidence to be sure, but what he had was suggestive. He'd been suspicious when Van Dieman had pulled him off the contract; the move had suggested that the client had another game running. He had long suspected that Van Dieman knew more about the killer than he'd let on to Benton. Hadn't he supplied that whatever-it-was—resonator, that's what he called it-—that could sense the beast?

  Lots of possibilities, little data. Too little, to speculate effectively. He'd have to keep his eye on it. He'd seen what the Wisteria killer could do, and didn't like the idea that he might encounter it from the other side of the hunt. His ordinary caution in keeping Van Dieman's resonator until the accounts were settled was looking like a foresightful decision. Dealing with these extraordinary situations was stil! relatively new to him and any edge, even if not fully understood, was welcome as long as it worked.

  Le pragmatisms, toujours le pragmatisme.

  And, practically speaking, he needed work. He reviewed the other six open contracts. One called itself to his attention, not just because it was the longest outstanding op but because it too was for Van Dieman. Not directly, of course, but Benton had done his homework. He knew who had placed the order to put the strong-arm on the squatters in the Pick-man Building.

  Working on another of Van Dieman's ops might give Benton the chance to learn whether he needed to watch his back.

  He reviewed the file. The op had been a minor one, with Benton serving as a cut-out for his corp client. A test, really, a way for him to prove his reliability and to demonstrate how he handled things. Well, he had managed to sufficiently establish his employability even though the actual op hadn't been completed. The op stayed open in his files because he had never received a final payment, which had been contingent on the corp acquiring the property it desired.

  Either they hadn't made the acquisition, or they weren't telling him they had. He had the comp query the records office for any transfers of title on the Pickman Building and got "Last change of title recorded in 1999." So Van Dieman and his people didn't have it.

  The failed acquisition wasn't his fault. The streetlife he'd employed had gone missing after going in for the clean-out, but he had gone in the next day and found the place empty. There had been a few signs of violence, but no bodies. The result had been clean enough that the client had been satisfied. Benton had gotten paid, but the streetlife had never shown up to collect her cut. Not Ms problem.

  Now Benton found himself wondering if there might not be something to that disappearance, something extraordinary. At the time nothing had seemed unusual, and it still might be nothing. Street people were notoriously unreliable, that made them expendable, and that—considering that he hadn't been sure that the corp hadn't been setting him up— was why he had chosen to use a local zip artist as an opening move for the op. Had she disappeared—if, so, how and why—or had she just flaked out?

  Or maybe Van Dieman and Ms corp hadn't been after the building at all, but whoever had been squatting there. Benton's prelim survey of the place had only turned up one squatter. He hadn't worried about the guy's identity at the time. Had he made a mistake? No, that was a bit too paranoid. If they'd really wanted the guy, they'd have said so;

  they knew that he did that sort of thing. Unless all they had wanted was to flush the guy out of hiding.

  Too much speculation, too little data.

  He needed a place to start, and he couldn't think of a better one than where he had left off.

  "Computer, search the following Providence databases: police, welfare, medical; also check private file: fixer offerings. Recover any records referent Spillway Sue. Also recover any records concerning Unregistereds matching file description of referent Spillway Sue. Do it now."

  "Affirmative."

  He didn't need much to start a hunt.

  CHAPTER 20

  The southbound commuter platform was nearly empty, just a handful of nightshifters all being careful not to notice their soon-to-be fellow passengers just in case one of them might be a crim planning on working the train. That attitude would work to John's advantage once he got up there. In the past when he'd had no money and needed the public tranz, he'd nicked his way aboard when there were crowds. Crowds covered a multitude of illegal activities on the tranz. There were no crowds to hide in at this hour, but the late hour had its own benefits. The guard in the kiosk looked tired, not very watchful unless you counted how he studied the vid screen throwing lurid glare up onto his face. A small glamour—an apparent fritz on reception—to hold his attention and John was past the gate and on his way up the stairs to the platform.

  The glamour was a trick he couldn't have pulled before his training under Shahotain and Loreneth. He was grateful for the ability, but it annoyed him to remember whom he had to thank for it. Everything would have been a lot easier if the hideaway trick that Faye had shown him could be used while he was moving, but it couldn't. He needed other tricks to stay "invisible."

  A few more nightshifters plodded up onto the platform, but no guards. John's ruse had succeeded. He boarded the train along with the legitimate users, snatching a discarded faxpaper from the platform as he did. He chose the least filled car and used the faxpaper to put a screen between him and the other passengers; the cars were better lit than the platform, making him all too easy to see. There wasn't much of interest in the paper, whoever had pulled the selection of articles had the most mundane of tastes, but John read it all anyway. It had been a long time since he'd read anything.

  He got out at the State House station. The platform was empty save for a single old wonkhead or drunk sitting on one of the benches and having a conversation with himself. John ignored him; after all, who would listen to such a man telling them about an elf getting off a train. John watched as the train left him in a clattering, rattling shower of sparks. Walking to the end of the platform, he found the maintenance ladder, climbed down to the track level, and set out along the right-of-way. Following the tracks was the shortest, safest way back to his old neighborhood.

  While he was making his way up to the street from the railroad right-of-way, he got the oddest sense that something had changed in the area. That puzzled him. The skyline looked the same, none of the buildings had been demolished or burned down, and nothing new was going up nearby. The streets didn't look any more or less trashy and there weren't any new symbols among the graffiti on the walls, but he still felt something was different. Then he noticed the sold signs on several of the buildings he passed. Most of the signs had several layers of graffiti, so they weren't new. He didn't remember seeing them the last time he'd passed this way.

  Trudging up Acorn Street, he got lots of complaints from his back about the steady exertion
. Soon, he'd rest.

  He got his first look at the tower. The weathered concrete and brick exterior looked unchanged. As more of the building came into sight, he knew he was ready for a rest. Just a little farther.

  So far as he could see, his slump hadn't acquired one of the sold signs. He'd been afraid that it might have.

  As he walked through the door, he knew he was home, and he knew even more. Feelings that he had not understood when he had moved into the building made sense to him now. He understood what had attracted him here. This place was one of those close to the otherworld. The magic was brighter here. He liked that. It made him feel more secure.

  He hadn't gotten ten feet into the building before Kesh, Metch, and Lep came bounding out of the shadows. They danced around him, babbling excited and incoherent greetings like loyal dogs upon their master's return.

  "It's not like I've come back from the dead," he said. "I haven't even been gone all that long."

  "Too long for us," Kesh said.

  "And how long is that?" John asked.

  The bogies exchanged blank looks. As one, they turned to him and shrugged.

  "We're just glad you're back, Great Jack," said Kesh.

  "We are indeed," Metch echoed. "Most glad."

  "Kept this place safe for you, we did," Lep added. "Safe, safe indeed."

  "As if you had a part, sluggard," Kesh admonished him.

  They began to wrangle over just how much each had contributed to what they hyperbolically called the Defense of the Domain. John listened patiently—more accurately, tiredly. He didn't have the energy to put down the squabble. Soon enough they'd blow out their own fires. He started to doze, coming to attention when the three bogies silenced themselves of a sudden. Gorshin crouched atop a stack of crates, watching, his wings slowly unfurling and furling.

  "Smelll blood on yuuu," the gargoyle said.

  "Well, hello to you too." John didn't like the avidity with which Gorshin watched him. "Aren't you going to welcome me back?"

  The gargoyle ignored John's question. "Hurrtt?"

  "As a matter of fact, yes."

  The bogies reacted to John's statement with a hubbub of concern, shock, and apologies for their lack of prompt attention to his needs. They insisted he retire to his bed where they would tend his wounds. It sounded like a good idea to