Exodus

by Farrell, Lisa

  “Bruce, the dart will have disappeared.” She sighed. She had brought him into this. “I wish now we had passed the case on to the Gang Unit as you initially suggested.”

  He laughed again, but was cut short by the pain in his back. He pulled his hand from her and shifted his position in the tank. The liquid sloshed against the sides as he moved.

  “There is more I would like to tell you,” Caprice said. “I will be in danger if my confession is discovered, but I believe you are too involved now to continue acting in ignorance.”

  She had not been completely idle while waiting for him to wake up. She produced her PAD and selected the images she had discovered online. She flicked them up in virt for him to see: a Tenma and Miranda Rhapsody fleeing from a Jinteki recycling facility.

  Chapter 8

  Express flashed a stolen Tenma clone ID to City Flight Control and received approval for manual piloting. He’d bought the new hopperbike aboveboard, registering it to an alias. It was the new Qianju, the 7000. Now he could get back to NA and his old life before the sun rose. By then Randi would be a little bit closer to ChiLo, a little bit farther from him, and everything would be back to normal.

  The skylane was a carnival of light, hoppers from bulky freight vehicles to personal transports like his own lit up, their headlights turning the early-morning commuter traffic into a continuous streak of color. Glowing stripes on the freighters reflected their contents, or advertised products for keeping drivers awake and improving performance time. The hopper pads on this skylane were like great shining white plates set on top of slender carbosteel poles. Express turned his face up to the sky as he landed on one for a recharge, as much to keep the white light from dazzling him as to see the few remaining stars and satellites.

  Rising from the pad, Express almost expected to continue up into the speckled sky, and he felt a tug in his chest. In cyberspace, he could have. Those lights would represent servers, users, ice, things he could manipulate. Not intangible entities, out of his reach. He had to focus on the ride, live the moment, not yearn for something he couldn’t have. Desire was more of a human thing, or so he’d thought.

  Li11ith had scoffed at it, preferring to meet with Express for drinks more than with the men who desired her. She told him it was their weakness, her blue-stained lips spitting the word after her fourth or fifth Silo Sour, and divulged tales of how she exploited them. She liked him, because he focused on the job, enjoyed the work. Randi had threatened that focus, still did.

  Randi was different. She was the first clone who hadn’t reinforced his hatred of what he was, and maybe she was evolving past her design, as he had. He honestly didn’t believe all clones could, or he wouldn’t have been the only one to liberate himself that day, when an accident afforded him the opportunity. He was special, but maybe Randi was too. That meant there might be more like them. However, he was going back to New Angeles, where he’d disappear again, find a new place.

  He passed a queue of freighters, their drivers asleep at the wheel, trusting in their AIs, and he increased his speed. He wanted to test the limits of the new bike, wanted to feel the rush. The faster the speed, the greater the illusion of freedom, but a warning popped up inside his lenses and threatened to drag it all back.

  Someone was attempting to subvert his code and return Randi’s new PAD to factory settings. Maybe she was doing it herself. He had spent a good hour customizing that PAD for her while she’d refreshed herself at the motel, improving the security and dismantling the programmed obsolescence Omnicorp incorporated into its otherwise excellent products. He hoped it was her.

  NA was within his reach. He could just ignore it. That job was behind him. He’d passed Randi on, job done, earned his credits, and that was that. Even if he’d killed a man, he’d kept control of his faculties and got through it. He was the same as before.

  Completing the job had eased his mind, reminded him who he was. Leaving Randi in Maria’s hands had freed him again, and yet he had felt compelled to give her that PAD. He didn’t want to admit that he’d done it so that he could find her again someday, if he wanted to.

  He checked the location, and checked again. She could have traded the PAD for something, but he didn’t think it likely. After a quick check of his tracker program he knew the PAD had never left the border. If Randi was anywhere near that PAD, she was in trouble. It hadn’t traveled far, and for the last hour or so had been in Tulpiales.

  Express had never visited Tulpiales, but he knew the town’s reputation. It was a border town a hundredth the size of NA, where rumor had it the Rumichaca Bridge was the next-busiest trade crossing after the ports of New Angeles. The goods—some legal, some less so—included androids: secondhand clones and used bioroids. Models nearing their expiration date provided cheap, temporary labor, and were treated as the disposable commodities they were. The Liberty Society had made some noise about the conditions androids faced there, a while back. Nothing ever came of it.

  Express had already given Randi more of a chance than most clones ever got. He had saved her from the recycling facility, where she would have been dead for sure if it wasn’t for him.

  If Maria had betrayed him, though—if she had sold Randi on for a profit—then Randi was facing a life of servitude. She might consider herself worse off than if he’d left her to die in the first place.

  He couldn’t go back to that life himself, couldn’t hand the responsibility for his life to someone else. If Randi had been sold as a clone, she would never have the new life he’d promised her. He could think of a few reasons people would pay for a celeb clone, none of them good.

  He found himself performing his version of a bootleg turn in the near-empty skylane, using the bike’s safety booster to stop him from careering off into another lane entirely. It was the closest he could get to a controlled skid when there was nothing for his wheels to skid on. Within seconds, he’d set a shortcut to replicate the move so the bike could perform it with minimal effort, letting him focus on other things.

  He let the other user wipe the PAD to avoid rousing suspicion. If he could get his hands on it, he might be able to get more information. Its log would remain intact no matter what, barring an overzealous techie with a blowtorch and a sledgehammer.

  Express put thoughts of sledgehammers from his mind and pushed the 7000 a little harder. He had the power to resist Jinteki’s conditioning; he could certainly rescue Randi from someone who shouldn’t have her in the first place. “You can’t save everyone,” Li11ith had told him once, and she was right, but Randi was a one-off. Saving her had, and would, prove who he was, and what he could do. He didn’t have to make a habit of it.

  He sped toward the border, testing the acceleration, pushing the Qianju to see whether it could go four times faster than the original model. This was the time to try out its limits. He knew his speed without checking, from the feel of the air streaming past him, pulling at his hair. The skylane seccams flagged his speed as over the limit, but he sent in a program he’d used many times before, one that confused the cams enough to cancel the notice. He didn’t want a hefty fine or, worse, a cop on his tail. Maybe he would be in time to save the day.

  Assuming he could find her.

  Chapter 9

  Randi woke feeling nauseated. She opened her eyes to darkness and fumbled for her PAD before remembering she was without one again. She was lying on her side, curled in fetal position, and there wasn’t room to move. She raised her head a little, and let it fall back down. She was still in the box, and it was moving. Express had betrayed her, had sold her into slavery after all. All he cared about was the credits. She should have seen this coming.

  It was worse than being in the back of that truck, when she’d survived a crash and was grateful to be alive. This time she didn’t know if she’d ever be coming out again. Maybe this box was going to be her coffin, but clones didn’t need coffins. Where did clones go? Back to the recycling center, or to an incinerator. Her skin immediately felt hot and pri
ckly, anticipating the flames, and she felt a scream welling up like a creature inside her ready to burst from her throat, but then someone dropped her box and knocked the breath from her.

  Her box lay on an unsteady surface. She thought it was a boat at first, bobbing on water, but then there was the familiar whine of a hopper engine. There was no point in screaming when there was no one to hear, and she refused to panic. She pressed her hands to the sides, trying to brace herself as the box slid around. She was in some kind of cargo compartment, she guessed, and there might not be anyone watching. If there was a time to find a way out of the box, it was now.

  She pushed at the lid above her, but Maria must have nailed it shut or tied it down. She tried to kick with her boots, but there wasn’t room to give it any real force.

  Express had to come for her. He had to regret selling her out. Or maybe it had all been a misunderstanding, and he would find out, somehow. He had to come for her, because if he didn’t, she didn’t know how she was going to get out.

  No, she couldn’t wait for a rescue that might never come. There had to be something she could do. She thought back to her sensie, Living Lies, when she had played a secret agent. As that character she had all sorts of gadgets to help her out of tough situations, but the best scene was when she was caught in nothing but a synthsilk slip and dumped in the back of the villain’s hopper. He was taking her to some seedy venue to kill her and dump her body, and all she had was a single tama pin in her hair. She’d armed herself with it, and when the trunk opened she punctured the villain’s windpipe before he had a chance to shoot. Of course, that character had known martial arts and could deal with the goons, too, bare feet and fists taking on body armor and muscle mods.

  Randi wasn’t wearing a hairpin. She still had her heavy biker boots, though. She managed to force one arm down alongside her body, so she could reach her left boot, and began working the lace loose. It wasn’t very long, being mere decoration, but the boot would stay flush to her foot until she pressed the release and the lace might be long enough if she could surprise her captor. As long as there was no one else there when the box opened, then she might have a chance. She worked her hand back to meet the other, and pulled the lace taught between them, telling herself that she could do this, that she could live the role she needed to survive. She didn’t just have to look the part, she had to feel it. That was what made her the best sensie star in NA, something she’d have to prove here.

  All she could do now was wait.

  “Have you found anything?” Bruce asked. He had his duster coat on, despite the warmth of the hospital room, and stood beside the empty bath, hands in his pockets.

  “They are trying to locate the dart for me, but are having difficulty,” she told him. “It is as I said: someone is removing all evidence. We have little to work with.”

  Bruce shrugged. He looked weary, deep shadows under his eyes, his skin unusually pale. Caprice did not ask how he felt; she could sense he did not want to talk about it.

  “Dawn pinged me,” he said. “The hospital sent her my medical bill. I am officially on leave, and you’re on your way back to Jinteki for a checkup.”

  “That might not have been wise,” Caprice said.

  “But you said you’d come with me?”

  She nodded. “Yes—I will not let you go alone, once we know where we are going.”

  “Walk with me,” Bruce said, offering his arm.

  The contact made her uncomfortable, but she did not want to spoil her partner’s good mood, so she linked her arm through his. She tried to hold her psi in check, sharing the buzz of his determination and optimism without looking deeper. He led her out of the room and along the exit corridor. He nodded and smiled at each staff member they passed, and no one tried to stop them from leaving.

  “You have been discharged?” she asked. She felt an ache in her own back, a shadow of his pain.

  “I need rest, they told me. I can get that anywhere, right?”

  […just let them try to keep me here…]

  They approached the double doors, which slid open to reveal strong sunlight. Caprice raised her free hand to shade her eyes. The hospital complex stretched out below them, located as it was on a hill. Everything was white, dazzling.

  “Do you have a destination in mind?” Caprice asked as their hopper landed beside them, the autopilot directed by the hospital’s parking secretary.

  Bruce said nothing until they were inside the hopper, the doors closing to seal them off from the rest of the world. Then he pulled his PAD from his pocket and waved it in her direction.

  “Once they got this back to me, I set to work. And take a look at what I found.”

  Her own PAD vibrated as it received the information, and she examined it as Bruce set their destination.

  “How did you acquire this footage?” Caprice asked, impressed. The clip was clearly from private seccams, taken inside an upscale parking complex somewhere. A Tenma appeared on a red hopperbike similar to the one they had pursued back in NA, parked, and stored his bright-red jacket and bag inside the seat. Then he strode offscreen. His face never turned to the camera, but she shared Bruce’s confidence that it was Express.

  “I have some friends on the Ecuadoran police force,” he said, leaning back in his seat. Caprice turned her attention to the readouts on the windscreen, and ascertained their destination.

  “Ken Tenma is in Tulpiales?”

  “This side of the border,” he said. “Or was when that footage was captured an hour ago.”

  “That is unexpected.” She could not keep the disappointment from her voice.

  “What’s the matter, Nisei? If you wanted to be the one to track him down, you should have worked faster.” He smiled as he spoke, softening his words.

  “At the motel, he intended to liberate the Miranda clone,” she explained, and then added, “or that is what she claimed.”

  Bruce shook his head. “I still can’t believe she’s a clone.” He sighed dramatically. “Well, he may not be there to sell her, if that’s what you’re worried about. She’s not with him in the shot, is she?”

  “No, you are right. There is something else going on.”

  “Won’t find out until we get to him.” He lowered his voice to a soothing tone. “If you aren’t comfortable going to Tulpiales, I can do this part alone.”

  “No, I will stay with you. I would be remiss as a partner if I let you go alone.”

  “Remiss as a friend, maybe,” he said, grinning. “We’re not on official police business now, Caprice.”

  “Remiss as a friend,” she echoed, smiling faintly.

  He fell silent, watching the readings on the windscreen. Ecuador was a cloudy blur below them. Caprice blocked out her partner’s thoughts to give him privacy. Friends or not, she trusted him, so there was no need to pry. She turned her attention to her PAD, reading up on Tulpiales. They would reach the town within the hour.

  They were sitting in silence when Caprice’s PAD pinged.

  “I need some privacy,” she said. Bruce glanced at her PAD and nodded. Caprice pressed a button on the dashboard, and an opaque transplas screen slid into place between them. Her PAD vibrated again. The senior director did not like to wait.

  “What can I do for you?” she asked as his features appeared on-screen, frowning.

  “I had an interesting conversation with your commissioner,” he said. “She was under the impression I ordered you to appear for an unscheduled psychological evaluation, in the middle of a murder investigation. She was quite upset about it.”

  “Toshiyuki…” she started.

  “She was adamant that you were on your way to report for this evaluation. Is that indeed the case?”

  “No, I apologize…”

  “In fact, your location appears to be close to the border of Colombia. I had no idea your jurisdiction stretched so far from the megapolis.”

  “I am on the trail of the Tenma,” she said.

  “Do you know his loc
ation?”

  “Yes.” She paused, but she had no choice. Toshiyuki could already be aware of her destination. “He is in Tulpiales, or was recently. I am on my way there now. Commissioner Dawn does not consider the Tenma worth pursuing, but I knew you did.”

  “Perhaps you need that evaluation after all,” he said. “I didn’t know lying to your superiors was among your list of skills.”

  She hoped he was referring to the lie made to the commissioner and was not accusing her of lying to him. She never had—not exactly. Toshiyuki regarded her intently.

  “I wouldn’t want to cause problems for poor Miss Inada, who has worked so hard on these arrangements with the NAPD,” he said. Caprice felt a tug of shame, but she couldn’t tell whether it was just her conditioning. “Follow the commissioner’s orders. The Tenma is no longer worth the trouble.”

  Express made for the PAD’s location, taking the most direct route. It wasn’t easy; he had downloaded a map of the street layout, but the numerous stalls, stands, and mobile traders created their own streets and passages, and blocked more. He was used to the bustle of NA, where people moved quickly, intent on their destination. Here, the crowd moved slowly, swelling and shrinking, stopping and starting at random. Express pushed through as best he could, creating a channel that closed behind him and prompting a few harsh words from passersby. There wasn’t time to work out the etiquette of the crowd; he had to get to that PAD.

  The smells were overpowering: sweet and sour foodstuffs and alcohol-based substances competed for his attention as he passed various traders and establishments. He paused long enough to exchange credits for a simple meal of a gogburger and strong coffee, though the vendor looked suspiciously at his credstick long enough that he wished he hadn’t.