Walken knew the voice well. Jacinto had given him files on all of Bobbi’s people, or at least those who had been in operation when Scalli had split with her. In the depths of his memory, a face surfaced – pretty, Asian, woman– serving as a ghostly mask over the insectile visage of the being to which it had played host. “You are Sumire Okuda, once known as Spark of A Cunning Thought, I believe. I wish to speak with your mistress.”
For a moment, dead silence. “I’m sorry. Doctor Thompson is not available right now. Who may I ask is calling?”
“I am Thomas Walken.”
Another pause. “I see,” the smooth voice replied, outwardly unruffled. “And do you have another name?”
“I do not,” he replied. “I am intact, if that is a word that can be applied to me. I would speak with your mistress. Is she available?”
“Doctor Thompson is not available right now,” she replied again. “May I call you back?”
“I am afraid not,” he replied. “But may I call again? In, say…thirty minutes?”
An edge appeared in her voice, something Walken knew she must be fighting hard to control. He should not have used the name of her invader. “I cannot guarantee that this office will be open to further calls at that time.” The temperature of her voice had fallen to nearly absolute zero.
“I understand,” Walken replied. “And please, excuse my rudeness, Miss Okuda. I sometimes forget to whom I am speaking.”
When she replied, her voice had lost its edge, though it remained frigid. “Of course, Mister Walken. I will tell the doctor that you called. Perhaps when you call again, she will be available.”
“Thank you.”
The connection terminated. Walken waited quietly, not returning to the conscious world just yet. Five minutes later, his patience was rewarded. The Agincourt’s comms system registered a waiting hail, and Walken answered.
“Good evening.”
“This isn’t the voice I expected coming from that end of the line.” Bobbi’s sounded unlike anything he had known before. Her voice had deepened since he had spoken with her last, or perhaps she’d dropped the hacker affectation she’d previously cultivated. She sounded hard, which he expected, and tired, which he did not. Her war’s toll seemed obvious to him.
“I apologize for taking so long to get back to you,” he said. “I’ve been busy.”
“Said in the way of all men,” Bobbi said flatly. “To whom am I speaking, really?”
“It really is me,” Walken said. “I appreciate that you may not believe this.”
“You’re a ghost,” Bobbi said. “And it’s been six years since I heard that voice. It had slightly more humanity in it then.”
Walken felt the barb more strongly than he expected. Emotionally stunted though the process of resurrection had made him, her words seemed to break straight through the ice and skewer him.
He remained quiet long enough for her to ask, “You there, chief?”
“Yes. I am here. I suppose this is not exactly how I wanted this conversation to go.”
“Well,” Bobbi said, her voice hardening further. “You’ve had plenty of time, as far as I could tell. You certainly weren’t making any telephone calls in Los Angeles.”
That took him by surprise. Suspicion and barbs he expected. Knowledge of his movements not so much. “I suppose that would depend on what you mean. I’ve been extremely busy.”
Bobbi gave a derisive snort. “I know you’ve been busy. We all saw how you took apart those four spider faces. And who was that man they killed? They do the job that you were supposed to do?”
Her words held challenge, strident and angry. The mention of Park made him stiffen beyond his machine trance, fingers clenching the armrests of his chair. “I think that we should meet. There is so much that you need to know about a great many things.”
“About what, in particular?”
“Mother. Cagliostro. Lionel Knightley. Julia Mendelsohn’s organization. How they all tie together.”
A pause from Bobbi’s side. Walken felt the connection mute, and waited quietly for her to return. It gave him time to recover. They had apparently witnessed his killing of the operatives sent to kill Park, but why did they do nothing to stop it? How could they identify him in the first place? Walken replayed the scene in his mind, playing it back frame by frame in seconds, remembered the tearing of his mask. They had to have hacked the hotel cameras, he realized, or were watching through the window of Park’s room. Were they planning an assassination? Or were they simply spying on him? How long had they known about Walken’s existence?
Just as he began to explore the possibilities of this realization, Bobbi’s voice came over the line. “All right. We’ll meet you.”
“I’m in Seattle.”
“Not here,” she spat. “Are you fucking kidding me, man?”
“There are no Yathi operatives of any weight in the city at the moment,” he said. “The Mother of Systems has moved her court elsewhere. Seattle is not a concern.”
Bobbi sucked in a breath. “Huh? I don’t know what to say to that. How do you know something like that?”
“I know many things,” he said. “I will tell you all of it. I understand that you do not trust me.”
“You’re damned right I don’t.” Bobbi grunted. “Right, here’s the deal. If you’re in town, then we meet in the jungle. The Old City. Back where you saved my ass the one time.”
He almost asked what she meant, but the ghosts of memory surfaced. Towers of junk and dead little girls buried like dubious treasure beneath them. “Yes. I understand.”
“Good. You come by yourself, then. Eleven thirty, tonight.”
“Of course.” He knew Jacinto was just going to love that.
“Anyone else we find will take a round in the skull. Just to make that clear.”
“Of course,” Walken said again. “Will it be acceptable if I inform my transportation where I will be?”
“Only if they keep far the hell away,” she said. “We’re bringing missiles too.”
“That is more than fair.” Again, he expected Jacinto would not agree. However, the stakes were far too high to quibble. “Is there anything else?”
“No,” she said. “Just…don’t turn out to be a fucking alien, Tom. Because I’ll kill you and I won’t feel a goddamned bit bad about it, believe me.” She tried to sound menacing, but the fatigue in her voice showed through. He would have to counsel her about hiding it, unless she’d let it slip simply for his benefit.
Trust…or craft. He could not tell. It made her more dangerous than all the guns and rockets in the world.
He was right about Jacinto’s opinion about the whole thing. “Mother of God. Are you fucking crazy?”
“If I am,” Walken replied, “it is perhaps best that you won’t be around to witness it.”
“You wanna blast yourself to pieces, man,” he said, “I can’t stop you. But don’t think for a moment that I won’t be around if you need me. There’s not a missile made that Aggie can’t get around.”
“No,” Walken said as the plane descended over Renton’s northern reaches, imagining the black bat blazing tongues of alcohol blue from its VTOL engines. “I want to honor her wishes. I doubt that they can harm me, after all, even with explosives.”
Jacinto muttered curses. “Maybe so. But the moment there’s so much as a blip on your radar, man, you let me know. Maybe just having the plane around would calm a situation down.”
“As much as gunships do,” Walken said. “Very well, I promise to let you know, but hopefully it won’t come to that.”
“You never know,” Jacinto said, more to himself than anything. And as the ship slowly descended over the ragged streets of the Old City, a weight made of dread and memory grew inside him, like a stone lodged inside his synthetic heart.
here is no way that you’re going out to meet him, Bobbi. This smells terrible.”
Sitting in the conference room, Bobbi found herself surrounded by the f
rowning images of her fellows, both holographic and in the flesh. She met them with no surprise as she cut the link. She looked at the image of Janelle, which floated like a fierce, scarred ghost in a display window.
“This can’t be a coincidence.”
Bobbi drew a deep breath. “I’m aware that it may not be. But on the other hand, we also have an opportunity to figure out just what the fuck’s going on with him. And, by extension, everything else.”
“If he’s not luring you into a trap.” Mulcahey frowned at her from the other side, floating in his own display.
“If he’s not luring me into a trap,” Bobbi said. “But we’ll be going prepared.”
“Jesus.” Janelle spat the word out in disgust. “I just don’t understand how he knew how to reach us.”
Bobbi smiled grimly. “An excellent question. I honestly can’t tell you. I have no idea what kind of connections he has, or who he’s been running with, or what. I just know what Cagliostro said to me.”
Tom’s little check-in in had given her the excuse she had needed to spill the beans on that one. She called an emergency meeting of her people an hour after he had hung up. Mulcahey had returned to Chicago, rounding up materiel, and Janelle oversaw the pack up of all those tanklets so they could sell them off to a PMC for funds. Pierre nearly broke his ass in half jumping to broker that deal. And then…Tom had called her. Tom, who she had not seen or heard from in six years, glimpsed by Scalli in their flight from the drone facility four years ago, and just two weeks previously had been seen taking apart Yathi agents with a body that could not possibly be human. It had only been a few months since the assassination of Anderson, the Yathi engineer. Somehow, Bobbi had the feeling this act started off a chain of events she had only the most tenuous grasp on, something that Tom – or whatever he’d become – promised to improve.
Well, she liked puzzles, didn’t she? Whether or not they got her killed didn’t seem to matter.
“Is this what you scanned yourself for?” Mulcahey squinted at Bobbi from across the table. “Surely you didn’t think you were bugged.”
Bobbi threw up her hands. “I told you both I didn’t know if there even was something to look for. I just…wanted to be sure.”
Janelle grunted. “I don’t like it, but I’m not putting that on you, Bobbi. You didn’t have to tell us that you were going to start scanning again. Or the rest of it.” She looked to Mulcahey. “I think we can agree that she’s been forthcoming.”
Mulcahey shrugged. “I’m not saying that she’s not. Don’t worry, I’m not questioning you, Bobbi. I just wanted to know.”
“Okay.” Bobbi took a deep breath. “Here’s the deal. We’re going to take a little war party down to the Old City. Tom’s bound to be there before we are, so we won’t be able to set up a reception. That being the case, we’ll have to set up a hunting party, and make for damned sure that nobody can get the drop on us when we meet him. I’ll take some of the Reclaimed, some of your people, Janelle, and Shaper. Trent, I’m going to take Camilla with us also if you don’t mind.”
“That’s fine with me.” Mulcahey nodded. “But you really don’t need my approval.”
“They’re your people, Jim,” Bobbi said. “They just signed on with me, and I’m preparing to go do something thoroughly crazy. Janelle, you’re all right with it too, I hope?”
Janelle made a dark sound in the back of her throat. “I don’t like it. I know you think you know what you’re doing, Bobbi, but…”
Her hesitation did not surprise Bobbi, nor did it anger her. Not the best show of confidence, of course, but she understood that. They had gone through a lot, especially if Mendelsohn’s suicide squad was any indication. “I understand. Could you poll your people for volunteers, at least?”
Janelle nodded. “I’ll check, sure, but I’m telling you, Bobbi, this is a bad idea.”
It would be something to be sorted out later, assuming they came back. Bobbi couldn’t focus on it now. “Thanks.” She pursed her lips. “All right, we’ll get our shit together and head over there now. You’ll have full access to comms and telemetry of course.”
A grumbling of assent came from Janelle, while Mulcahey seemed much more accepting – which did not surprise her, after all, because of his military background. Janelle had always been a civilian, as were all her people. Civilians tended to ask questions like “why.” She couldn’t get angry about that, nor did she intend to fight Janelle on her resistance, or if she decided she didn’t want her people to come out. It had not been long at all since they had gotten back together.
Once the comms windows winked out, Bobbi got to her feet. Violet, Shaper, and Sumire sat at the table on her. Sumire, for her part, did not look quite the picture of serene logic since she had taken Tom’s call. Now she looked…glacial, Bobbi decided, like still ice and not porcelain at all.
“Well,” Bobbi said. “Opinions?”
“I think that either he is well and truly coopted by the enemy, or he is entirely clean,” said Sumire, the words rushing out of her like a leaking valve. “I think that we should be very careful, and that we should take all best measures to analyze him before bringing him back here. Otherwise we must destroy him on the spot.”
Sumire’s vehemence stilled them all for a moment.
Violet ended the silence. “I don’t believe that I will have any trouble detecting his true nature, my lady. The consciousness isn’t able to be buried. There will be signs.”
Bobbi nodded. “I understand.” She brushed at her arms, trying to take in exactly what she was going to walk her and her people into. An ambush? A massacre? “Shaper, what do you have to say about it?”
Shaper’s long, lean arms lifted in a shrug, black chrome and dark skin sweeping outward from his body. “I say that whatever’s going to happen is going to happen. He knows we’re in Seattle, or at least suspects it. Not much of a leap, sure, but why would he come out here, knowing what reaction he’s likely to get, if he wasn’t at least a little real?”
Sumire made a soft sound. “He knew the name of my possessor.” The words sounded almost filthy coming out of her mouth.
“We know a lot of names,” Shaper said gently, and reached out to touch Sumire’s shoulder. “Come on now, love. It’s not like you to be spooked by something like a name.”
Names have power to those who believe. “I want to make this happen, but I don’t want to put anyone in danger. This is an entirely volunteer effort, do you understand?”
“All of the Reclaimed follow where you point,” Violet said. “We are all volunteers already.”
Bobbi drew a deep breath. “Fine. Shaper, go through the numbers. Find out which of our personnel will be proper for a visit, and talk to Green and Mulcahey’s people, see who wants to go. Make sure you get Camilla.”
Shaper nodded once. “Right.” He took Sumire’s hand. “Come on, love. You’ll help me, won’t you?”
Sumire frowned slightly, but nodded. “I will assist with any and all logistical tasks required.”
He led her out of the room, leaving Bobbi and Violet alone.
“I wonder,” Violet said, “if you’re ever going to just tell these people that they’re going to do what you tell them.”
“I’m not Mother,” Bobbi said. “I don’t make demands.”
“Perhaps you should.” Violet perched on the edge of the table. She took a deep breath, and looked Bobbi straight in the face. “Tell me how you’re doing, please.”
Bobbi frowned.” About as well as you’d think. Tom showing up like a conjured devil, right on time. I don’t trust a goddamned bit of it. And it all seems entirely too convenient.”
Violet nodded. She took Bobbi’s hands in hers. “I know what you mean. It’s as if all these things are unfolding like the last time you had anything to do with that man. His plan, someone else’s plan, perhaps, but certainly not yours.”
The warmth of Violet’s hands made Bobbi sigh a little. “Yeah, but we haven’t had much of a plan be
yond ‘kill alien whitey’ since Scalli split with us. He was the military strategist.”
“And you were the intelligence officer.” Violet nodded. “Which means we operate along your lines, and we have done rather well with it, don’t you think?”
“Only Scalli’s missing, dead probably, and our last op turned into a complete shitshow.”
Violet scrunched up her nose. “Not without a lot of help.”
She was right, of course. “Well, let’s hope nobody from Genefex or Julia’s crew shows up in the middle of this.” She groaned, and rose to her feet. “Come on. Let’s get into character.”
They arrived in the Old City at eleven o’clock, well before the time agreed upon, because Bobbi expected someone to either already be there or for scouts to come ahead. They took two vans, nondescript electrics used as throwaway vehicles when working operations in the city. One contained Bobbi’s squad. The other was empty, meant to be the containment vessel for Tom. Dead or alive, Bobbi had decided they would take him back with them. The corpse alone might yield a number of technological advantages.
She had to think about it that way. She was no squealing novice now. She sat in the back and imagined what the Yathi had done to him, what he had in mind to do to her people, and to her – and pushed back all the feelings of terror, the uncertainty, the hunger that lay deep inside of her. The Yathi were beasts, and most of the Reclaimed were not much better. She may have to send him on even if he wasn’t an active alien after all, just to be merciful. This in many ways feltno better than a Reclaiming op. That’s what she had to say.
Because really, she wished to God that he had been dead, or still comatose, and not calling her over the Network in some godforsaken new body, a bulletproof cyborg wraith, asking her to come and see him. She did not need this oracle. Or rather, she did not want it. She knew that meeting with him would galvanize her into action beyond anything her normal efforts would produce, and this certainty generated the most fear within her. Floundering in the dark was fine; having a direction, knowing where that direction would most likely lead, truly terrified her.
Gathering Ashes (The Wonderland Cycle Book 3) Page 41
