The Resurrected Man

by Sean Williams

  “Yes. There's not much point creating friction at this time.”

  “That's very civilised of you.”

  “Just let me piggyback when you make the call. That'll convince them we mean business.” His gaze flickered elsewhere for a moment, then returned. “And do me a favour. Ask Herold Verstegen to listen in.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to know what he'll think of this.”

  “I can tell you that right now. He'll support it. It was he who put you through d-med—that's what made you better so quickly—and who encouraged Whitesmith to put us together on the case. He won't let Trevaskis get in the way if he can help it.”

  Jonah blinked, then frowned. Then he blinked again and averted his eyes. “Whatever. Make the call. Let's get this over with.”

  She, too, turned away to concentrate and scanned the flashing windows, unwilling to pick one at random. They needed someone at least marginally sympathetic to argue the case with Trevaskis for her.

  One incoming call was indeed from the Director of the MIU, ranked higher in importance than those from Odi Whitesmith, QUALIA and Jason Fassini. There was also one listed from Herold Verstegen, but she wasn't going to take that first.

  There was only one person she felt comfortable approaching—which was ironic because, in some people's eyes, e hardly qualified as a person at all.

  “QUALIA?”

  The reply was instantaneous and significantly less distorted than before: “Marylin? I'm relieved you've called. There's a very important—”

  “I can imagine. It can wait. I need to talk to Odi Whitesmith on a private line. This is not for general viewing, and it is urgent. Can you arrange that?”

  “Of course, Marylin—”

  “Jonah McEwen will be a witness. And invite Directors Verstegen and Trevaskis to sit in on it too, if they have time. Passive, please.”

  “They will make time.” QUALIA paused for a split-second. “I am opening connections now. Please proceed.”

  “Marylin!” Whitesmith's face burst out of a window at her. “What the hell do you think you're doing in there?”

  “Giving Jonah the file on Lindsay Carlaw, that's what.” She squared up to his image with all the defiance she could muster. “You have to call off the goon squad. If you don't, I'll—”

  “Calm down, Marylin.” He raised a hand. “Calm down. The goons aren't there. It was all cancelled when Verstegen called to give us the news.”

  “What news?”

  “KTI recorded another swing in the nett mass/energy budget. That's what I've been trying to tell you for the last ten minutes. We're putting out an alert as we speak.”

  She rocked back on her heels. “Already?”

  “It would seem so.”

  “While Jonah was here.”

  “Yes.”

  “Hits on his UGI?”

  “None.”

  “What about ACHERON?”

  “We missed it again. The site's inactive now.”

  “Shit.” She breathed in once to collect her thoughts. “This is very strange.”

  “You're telling me. But the pattern's broken. We're onto something.”

  “Or something's onto us.” She caught Jonah's puzzled expression out of the corner of her eye. “There's been another Twinmaker murder,” she said aloud to him. “Fluctuations in KTI's mass/energy budget tell us when there's another body on the way.”

  “How?”

  “It's complicated.” She shushed him. Whitesmith was talking.

  “We need you up here with the squad, ready to move when we get the word. Can you leave Jonah with Fassini?”

  “I could, but—” She was reluctant to leave only seconds after finally making some progress. “You could send the armour and equipment to me and I'll suit up here. When the word comes, I'll join you at the site from this booth. How does that sound?”

  “Fair enough.” Whitesmith nodded. “It could be a while yet before someone comes across the body. I'll have your gear sent down right away. By priority if the Pool's still slow. Don't go anywhere.”

  “I won't. In fact, I can't. Trevaskis locked the door and the out feeds from the unit—”

  “Taken care of. You're both free to come and go as you please, now. Fassini is outside, waiting for your word.”

  “Keep him there. We'll need some privacy in here, for a while. Let's just maintain things as they are. Call me when the word comes, or I'll call you. Can you swing that for me?”

  “Done. The armour will be there in record time. Suit up and be ready.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Whitesmith's image disapeared, and moments later the lights indicating that Trevaskis and Verstegen were listening also died. Only Jonah's remained alive for a few seconds longer, then it too winked out.

  That easy, she thought in the sudden silence. She had what she'd wanted. No recriminations, no threats, no cost. In thirty minutes—it seemed like the blink of an eye to her—so much had changed that she felt like she'd stepped into an alternate reality.

  Another murder, and so soon after the last one. The difference was barely days between disposals. Of course, the killer could have kidnapped this woman some time ago and kept her alive until now. But he had never behaved like this before. Marylin—like Whitesmith—knew that change had to be significant. Either the Twinmaker was trying to provoke a response, perhaps itself in response to the MIU's recent activities, or he was sinking even deeper into psychosis. If the latter was the case, soon he'd start making mistakes. Marylin didn't let herself hope that he may already have made one, but she didn't rule out the possibility, either.

  In the blink of an eye…

  Her overseer worked overtime to process the data Whitesmith was feeding her: KTI mass/energy reserve histories, distribution profiles, peak-use spikes, and more. She would look at it in a moment, after she explained to Jonah what had happened. He was watching her closely, respecting her need to think, maybe believing that she was making a private call. It was good that they would be able to work together. She kept that thought firmly in her mind. He wasn't the killer; she didn't have to be afraid of him. As soon as the case was solved, she could walk away and get on with her life without him, as she had tried to do three years before. It was downhill from here on. She had what she wanted. Things would be all right.

  She shook her head. Who was she kidding? The timing was too fortuitous.

  “We've been set up,” she said, half to herself, her cheeks flushed with anger.

  Jonah cocked his head. “Who? How?”

  “All of us. He's never done this before, so why now? Because things were about to blow apart, that's why. He wants us to work together. He's enjoying it. He thinks we're going to screw up.”

  “Now you're being paranoid. Seems more likely that he would want to keep us apart—especially if he's me.”

  “Maybe. I simply can't believe that the body just happened to come while I was in transit. And with the body on its way, Trevaskis had no choice but to let things go as they are. For the time being, anyway.”

  “Pretty tenuous reasoning.”

  “Call it a hunch, then. Supported by us being led to you in the first place.”

  “The KTI-MIU link gets stronger.” Jonah ran a shaking hand across his emerging stubble. “If he isn't high up in either, he has access to the data of someone who is.”

  “Not Schumacher,” she snapped.

  “If you say so.” He shrugged. “What about Herold Verstegen? He seems pretty keen to keep us together. Have you got an alibi file on him, too?”

  “Of course. It's—” She stopped, sensing more behind the inquiry than casual interest. “Do you know something you haven't told me?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You've remembered something!”

  “Perhaps. Look—” He shied away from her stare. “I don't know. It could be a memory. I might have concocted it. Either way, it's hard to be sure.”

  “Tell me anyway. I can get you the alibi file if that's
what you want.”

  “No. What I really want is time to look at the file on Lindsay.”

  She sat back on her haunches and studied him. His eyes were red and sunken, his cheeks hollow. He was barely moving, and when he did the tremors were obvious. He must have been continuing on sheer willpower alone.

  He wanted to know what happened to his father; she wanted to solve the Twinmaker case. Together they could do both.

  “Will half an hour be enough?” she asked.

  “For starters.” He sighed, possibly in relief. “Give me a chance to look at some hard facts and I'll tell you everything I know.”

  “How about letting QUALIA take a look at you as well? I don't want you passing out on me.”

  “Lindsay's bedroom has basic medical scanners set into the ceiling.”

  “I'll take that as a yes, shall I?”

  He half-smiled and extended a hand. “Deal.”

  She hesitated, then returned the handshake. His skin was hot and moist; his grip barely tightened around her palm. She didn't let herself hold too long.

  “Deal.”

  He had hardly blinked and he was in ACHERON, dressed in a sheer black bodysuit, floating breathless and impatient in a cruciform shape at the precise geometric centre of the cylindrical space. He glanced once around the chamber to ensure that everything was as it should be. Each end of the cylinder was in darkness, presenting the illusion of a perfectly straight tunnel ten metres across. The ends were actually “capped” with impenetrable boundaries; the lit area between comprised the sole space within ACHERON. The walls were off-white in colour and smooth, broken by the occasional handhold or strap. Anything he required could be extruded by the walls or produced from an impromptu cupboard—or even conjured from thin air, if he felt inclined to be dramatic. The only thing he preferred to keep constant was the Rack.

  A black mock-wood structure two metres by three, the Rack was secured by wires in position along the axis of ACHERON. It had been painstakingly modelled on a genuine centuries-old instrument of torture, minus the wheels and chains. The “wood” was heavily stained, a testimony to the grim past of the original, but its manacles shone. It was a beautiful piece of work and he was proud of it. He had received a splinter from it once, its verisimilitude was so precise. It thrilled him even when it was empty.

  “How long?” he asked, even though he knew the answer. His voice resonated in the echoing space of ACHERON, sounding much stronger than it did in the outside world.

  The answer came to him silently, voiceless: one minute.

  He nodded. For all his eagerness to begin, the minute would give him time to adjust. No matter how thoroughly he prepared, the transition still left him slightly unnerved. It wasn't the free-fall. He was well used to that. The discomfort manifested in his primitive senses: smell, taste and touch. The air was faintly electric and his tongue felt as though it was covered in oil. The walls of ACHERON seemed to vibrate if pressed too hard.

  Still, he had to admire his handiwork. If the structure seemed unstable at times, that was only to be expected, given its location.

  He smiled. If only those fools in the MIU knew. Not to mention the morons in KTI. Little did anyone suspect what they had in their midst.

  The light seemed to flicker once, then suddenly he had company.

  The woman arrived in the same position she had left Europe: upright, hands folded across her stomach, eyes still grazing upon infinity. His assistant had arranged her so that her back and legs were parallel to the flat of the Rack and given her pattern a slight tweak to make her groggy. The effects of the incoherence would last a moment or two, long enough for him to approach.

  He kicked himself to the end of the Rack and hooked a toe under its lip, not far from her sneakers. She was staring, breathing heavily, beginning to move. In the flesh she was even more exquisite than he had imagined. Her blonde hair blossomed in zero-g, forming a halo around her head. Her scent—Calvin Klein One, another retro touch—filled ACHERON within seconds. He resisted the impulse to reach out and touch her.

  Her eyes cleared and she stiffened. He could tell what she was thinking. First she looked up, around her. Wherever she had expected to be, this clearly wasn't it. She lost her balance, and reached for something to hold onto. In her head she was falling, not floating. Her movements were jerky, panicked.

  Before she could hurt herself on the Rack, he grabbed her wrist and steadied her, She clutched at his hand, noticing him for the first time.

  “Hello,” he said.

  She made a small sound, half of relief, half of fear. Her eyes pleaded with him to tell her where she was, to explain what had happened, to reassure her that nothing had gone wrong with the jump.

  He didn't respond. Letting momentum roll her over, he twisted the arm up her back and pushed her face-forward into the wooden surface of the Rack.

  She gasped and wriggled in his grip. Alarmed but still groggy, she tried to push herself away from the Rack. He kept her pinned, pressing a shin into her thighs and using his free arm to obtain leverage. When he had the measure of her strength and was certain he could manage it, he flipped her over and thrust her wrist into a manacle. It tightened automatically, hard enough to cause pain.

  Her eyes widened and she kicked up at him, momentarily knocking him away. He let himself float backwards until he reached the nearest wall, then kicked forward. His rapid return startled her. He was on her again before she could even think of defending herself. He punched her twice, hard across the face, and, while she was distracted by the blows, locked her other arm in its corresponding restraint.

  Then he pulled back to look at her.

  Her eyes followed him, filled with the beginning of terror. Her nose was bleeding.

  “Say something,” he said.

  She shook her head, sending droplets of blood spinning across the room. They vanished as they hit the walls.

  “Don't be impolite,” he chided. “At least say ‘hello.’”

  “Fuck you.”

  He struck her again. This time she tried to bite his hand, but he didn't let that deter him. As she flailed desperately at him, he slipped his legs through holes in the Rack, encircled her waist, and squeezed, pressing her hard against the wood. She gasped for breath, spat, cursed. Her knees pummelled his back, but he held on tightly. His hands tore at her halter, exposed her breasts. She shut her eyes at that and rolled her head back. He grabbed her chin and twisted her face towards him. Her teeth were clenched.

  “Yes,” he breathed. The resemblance was good. He didn't know if she had noticed his erection, but it was there. She was beautiful and he had complete power over her: the perfect relationship, as far as he was concerned.

  He released the grip of his legs and moved away to pin her ankles. She moaned and sobbed with all her newfound breath as he did so, but she didn't have the strength to stop him. The battle was already over.

  Part of him regretted the fact that it had been so easy. But he had her, and that was the main thing. The rest was just a bonus.

  He had her.

  “Don't you want to know who I am?” he asked.

  “No.” She shook her head, flicking tears at him.

  “Why I'm doing this? What I'm going to do to you?”

  “No!”

  “You are already dead, you know. Nothing you say can change that, so there's no point fighting it. In twenty-four hours your body will make a nice little present for a friend of mine—a friend who doesn't like surprises, if you know what I mean. But I can make it easier for you. I can keep you sedated while I work and erase the evidence afterwards. I can ensure you feel no pain. I could even kill your brain so you won't have to think—”

  “You're insane!” She pressed flat against the Rack, as far away from him as she could get. He couldn't tell if she was listening to him at all, or whether she was simply too frightened to believe.

  “No.” His voice betrayed a slight wince. “I'm merely sociopathic. Do you know what that means? It means
I don't care about right or wrong. You can't appeal to my moral code because I don't have one. I have my own sense of fair play and my own logic. I am my own boss. You have to reason with me on that level if you want to ease your suffering.”

  She looked confused, and he couldn't really blame her. At least he knew, now, that she was listening. Two minutes ago she had been happily shopping in Europe. Now she was arguing the ethics of pain control with a dangerous maniac. The thought amused him, although he kept the feeling from showing.

  “Why?” she sobbed.

  “Ah.” He nodded. “Now you ask. What sort of answer do you want? Because I enjoy it? Because it concurs with my vengeful agenda? Because my mother hurt me as a child?” Now he shook his head. Her eyes followed him. “The truthful answer is that I need your body, and I enjoy torture. I like hurting. But I've learned to keep that urge under control. These days I only hurt people when they're unconscious—or when they make me angry. If you don't make me angry, I'll let you sleep. You won't feel any pain, except in your dreams. No one's ever complained about that before—but that might be because no one's woken from sleep in here.”

  He stopped to see if she was following him. Her eyes were wide, but again he couldn't tell if they had glazed over in shock or were watching him closely. “Do you understand what I'm telling you? I don't have to do this at all to get the result I want. I could design a corpse from nothing and put it where I need it. But that wouldn't be satisfying. I want to hurt your body. If you make it easier for me, I'll make it easier for you.”

  “I don't want to die,” she whispered.

  He felt a tickle of annoyance. They all said that. “But isn't that what you pay for every time you step into a d-mat booth? To be taken apart and killed? Am I not just fulfilling that contract more literally in this case?”

  “What?” She frowned, and he wondered if she was remembering the WHOLE pamphlet she had discarded earlier that day.

  “The Murdering Twinmaker.” He smiled down at her half-naked, squirming body. “Welcome to my parlour, pretty victim.”

  Something touched the back of his head, and he batted at it, startled by the unexpected contact. A flash of colour rocketed away from him: one of her sneakers had become dislodged while they scuffled and returned to bother him. He caught it when it bounced off a wall and passed by a second time.