The nurse looked up at me, finally, and then let out a weighty sigh. “You have five minutes,” he said.
“I—Thanks.” His quick capitulation caught me off guard. I’d expected the argument to continue until after visiting hours had ended.
The nurse nodded wordlessly and slapped a glowing russet tag on my wrist. A matching glow appeared in lines on both wall and floor, pulsing gently in the direction I needed to go. I hustled along before the nurse changed his mind.
I entered, but stopped on discovering he wasn’t in a private room. The other patient was undergoing some kind of regenerative therapy. I couldn’t even tell the species for all the machinery and connections. Briefly wondering what kind of injury or illness would require so much technology to treat, I stepped inside and considered whether to proceed. A moment’s observation made it clear the other patient was unconscious, or at least unable to hear what I had to say over the sound of the medical apparatus surrounding and penetrating it.
A nursing bot trundled in from the bot access. It blocked the near side of Pak’s bed as it connected to and started replacing the fluids in Shar’s medichine. I walked around the bed.
Shar’s eyes were open, but glassy.
“Hey, Shar,” I said as the nursing bot trundled from the room.
He looked my direction, but didn’t seem to see me. “Wha—?”
“Shar, who did this to you?”
A pasty smile stretched his face. “Whu?”
“Angel, can you wake him?”
“One moment.”
Impatient and nervous, I started to gnaw a thumbnail. That lasted a few seconds before Angel overloaded my taste buds with an acrid flavor best not described.
“I don’t need a mother,” I muttered.
“Just a minder,” Angel said, distracted. “Here we go . . .”
Shar hissed in pain, his eyes snapping open as Angel hacked his medichine into stimulating him awake.
“Why, hello there, Shar.”
He grimaced, confusion warring with pain and the drugs masking it. “What?”
“Just want to know who tried to kill you.”
“Why . . . I tell you?” he asked, more clearly.
“Because I want to find them and stop them.”
“I—shhh—arrr—” Shar’s entire body went rigid, his jaw clenched around a whistling scream.
I thought at first that Angel was doing to him what she’d done to me, but then the medichine went dark. Didn’t blare a warning, didn’t do any of the things they do in the dramas. It simply shut down.
“Something’s wrong, Angel . . .”
“Shut up. Working the problem.”
“So I just stand here?”
She didn’t answer for a few seconds, and when she did, her tone was clipped, as if she was busy with something and didn’t have time for me.
“Not anymore. It is safe to disconnect him now.”
“What? Why would I do that?”
“Pull the tubes free and disconnect him from the medichine. He was being poisoned.”
“Poisoned?”
“Just get him free of the medichine. Then you’ll need to walk him out of here, if we want any chance of finding out what he knows. I don’t know how many more of the nursing bots are corrupted.”
My brain finally caught up with events. I stepped up and started pulling tubes.
“Hurry. The clinic’s AI is a stone bitch.”
“Won’t he still be sick?” I pulled the last of the tubes out of his nose and started on the IV needles.
“Yes, very. We’ll deal with that later.”
“You know where the attack came from?”
“Not yet. Hope to. Now, I . . .” She trailed off, leaving me that sensation of things moving inside my head again. “I. Was. Not . . . Got you, damn it!
“Where was I? Oh, yes, I wasn’t expecting this much resistance from the hospital AI, and she’s on her home ground, and back again! So kindly”—she trailed off—“let me focus.”
I picked Shar up and carried him past the other patient, still unidentifiable under the weight of machinery keeping it alive. The hall was empty. I turned and started toward the lift.
I made it three paces past the nurse’s station before the guy stood up and barked, “Hey, what are you doing?”
“Stupid question, I’m saving his life.”
“By taking him off his ‘chine?” The nurse was rounding the desk now.
I didn’t answer, but spun and continued walking backward toward the lift. You always want to face the threat, and I only had so many options.
“Fucking nut!” The nurse rushed me.
I snapped a kick into his leading knee, breaking it. He folded with a screech as the lift door opened behind me. I turned again, relieved to find the lift empty, and stepped inside.
“Where are we going?” I asked as the lift began moving.
“Good question, Muck. Sorting.”
“Can’t be my place. Can’t be his.” I held Shar against the wall and moved him into a fireman’s carry.
“I can’t research options just now. That nurse is trying to contact Station Security. Shouldn’t be a problem. I am clearing the video logs, but we need to get out of here before they arrive.”
I thought a moment. “The club. Back of it is a warren of utility passages and maintenance supply lockers. There’s an access point behind the stage.”
“Good. Called us a cab.”
The lift came to a stop and opened. By the time I crossed the foyer, my cab was pulling up.
“Muck, hey, how—” The voice was familiar, but so incongruous I couldn’t place it or the speaker when I looked him in the eye. “Never mind. I see you’re . . .uhm, busy.”
I was past him and opening the cab door before I remembered his name, or where I knew him from: Javi, a regular at the club.
I held Shar against the cab and pulled the door open so hard the hinges protested. I wanted to tear it off and throw it through the windows of the foyer. Angel was proving her worth again and again, while I was simply the muscle that moved us from point to point.
“Not only muscle, you’re our mouth too. Of course, I am awesome,” Angel said, that image of a smiling Siren appearing again. I wished I’d seen her smile like that for real.
And just like that, my anger was gone. I shook my head as I stuffed Shar into the cab. My old angel hadn’t started out with much of a sense of humor, and even when he developed one it was sometimes obvious it was running a program designed to keep me combat-effective. Then again, my original angel had never been anywhere near this capable either.
Life was trade-offs.
“What are you?” I asked as the door to the cab clicked to behind me.
A heartbeat’s pause before she replied: “Focus, Muck: I’m your angel, for now.”
“Right.” I put my questions away, bent over Shar and made sure he wasn’t going to expire on the drive to the club.
* * *
The cab dropped us at the side alley where this whole episode with Shar Pak had started. It still stank of urine, puke, and broken, discarded dreams. I got out of the cab, and my eyes met those of another of the club’s regulars. Mortenz, one of Siren’s biggest fans. I felt an unwarranted pride in recognizing him. Mortenz lifted a ringed hand as if to wave hello, but my expression, or perhaps Shar’s unconscious form, must have given him pause. He froze, hand halfway up, and hunched his shoulders as if against a cold wind before turning to quickly walk away. I wondered if that would cause problems later as I pulled Shar to his feet. Nothing for it, if it did. Trouble had a way of being unavoidable.
Despite the stench, my stomach gurgled as I hefted Shar out of the cab, reminding me that it had been some time since I’d eaten.
“You’ll be all right for a few more hours. Using up some
of that spare tire for the moment.”
“What’s a spare tire?” I grunted.
“Figure of speech, though your metabolism has been a bit off, especially for prolonged heavy lifting. And don’t get me started on your cardio.”
Shar’s moan, the first noise he’d made since the poison hit him, stopped my retort unspoken but made me think.
“How are we going to get him to answer up?”
“I’ve been going through the inventory on the supply lockers you mentioned. None of them are logged with Station Security or Maintenance, yet the individual lockers have inventories, including a load of medichines and supplies for same . . .”
“Smugglers.” The back door to the club opened for me. I slipped inside but had to look around for a moment to find the loose panel that accessed the tunnels.
“That was my first guess too. See, you add value other than muscle to the team.”
I snorted. “Condescend much?”
“Only when speaking to inferiors.”
I laughed, reminded of endless exchanges in the squad bay. Angel might be a nasty piece of work, but she was my nasty piece of work. At least for now.
“And it wasn’t a guess,” I said, “at least not a wild one. I was back there a few weeks ago.”
“Why?”
“Always like to know what my exits are.”
“Good thinking.”
“Also, their presence was brought to mind by an encounter I had the other night . . . while buying my pharma. My dealer was inquiring about them.”
“Oh?”
“She seemed to think Tongi was smuggling, but I’m pretty damn sure he ain’t running that kind of business.”
“And why is that?”
“Because he wouldn’t be so worried about the club turning a profit otherwise.” I grunted as a new, unsettling thought snuck up on me: “Unless he’s not, ultimately, the boss.”
“That would make sense.”
“But not in a good way, not for us.”
“Deal with it later. For now, we have to get Shar some help.”
As if in agreement, Shar gurgled from my shoulder.
“Better not puke on me . . .” I muttered, following the path Angel overlaid on my sight to guide me. While familiar with their existence, I hadn’t fully explored these passages, so I was grateful for the help.
Round about my 520-something step in the tunnels, Angel’s quip about poor cardio came home to roost. My feet were dragging and sweat began to run down my back and dot my scalp.
“Not much farther now. Next right and then about twenty meters to the door. I have it unlocked.”
“Good.” I pushed on.
The supply locker was bigger than Shar’s apartment, but stacked transport cases limited the usable area. I shoved a couple of the cases out of the way and laid Shar out on the remainder of the stack. Wiping my brow, I turned in place to survey the room. The cases were from half a dozen manufacturers, mostly medical electronics or medical supply firms.
“Damn,” Angel said.
“What?”
“Look next to the door.”
A blinking red LED glowed from a small device low on the doorjamb. An alarm and transmitter.
“Shit.”
“Sorry, Muck, I didn’t see it.”
Cursing our luck, I pulled it free of the mount to examine it. It had a tiny radio antenna. “No way you could have. This thing’s not on any of the station networks.”
“Shar won’t survive if we don’t hook him up. How long do you think we have?”
I shrugged. “Depends on who got the signal and if they’re in a position to move on us right away. Most smugglers need covers, which cuts into their free time. Could be responding now, could be next week.”
“I’m monitoring for any traffic coming this way, but these tunnels don’t have much in the way of surveillance, and what there is is almost certainly doctored and diverted to the smuggler’s terminal of choice. In the meantime, I’ll guide you through hooking Shar up.”
Putting aside concerns over the rather high likelihood of a deadly interruption, I did as Angel directed. In five minutes I had Shar hooked up and being juiced with everything I could find that Angel said he needed.
Five minutes after that, his color had improved substantially.
Five minutes after that, Dengler showed up, unannounced, at the door.
He smiled at me over the sights of his standard security-issue pacifier, the fuck.
Cursing my lack of weapons, I slowly rose from my crouch.
Dengler waved with his pacifier.
“Don’t go getting ideas, Muck. I’ll put you down and stomp your larynx for fun.” He glanced at Shar. “Oh, so it was you, was it?”
“What?”
“Busted Shar loose of the hospital . . .” That he focused on Shar rather than wondering why I was here should have told me something, but I couldn’t wrap my head around it just then.
“No, I just saw him outside the club and thought he could use a scrub and tug.”
Dengler grinned wider. “No matter, you’re both coming with me.”
“Where?”
He smiled crookedly. “To see the boss, of course.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
LEO
Accepting its tine after the usual checks, LEO digested the information it held regarding the movements of Ralston Muck.
The record was curious.
Ralston Muck and the rogue AI calling itself Angel had gone into Last Stop’s one truly rough area the morning after LEO had spoken with the rogue. While the network was less reliable there, the tine had stayed on target and observed Muck and Angel break into a home only to save the occupant’s life.
LEO’s interest doubled as it learned the occupant’s name. Shar Pak was the same man Ralston had, according to SSS Dengler, falsely arrested. A known dealer of bliss, the man was deep in an overdose event when Ralston had loaded Pak into an autodoc.
LEO’s tine waited until the pair left an hour and thirty-eight minutes later, logged a warrant and entered the premises. Pak’s terminal had been wiped, presumably by Angel. There being no other clues in the residence, the tine had resumed its trace of Muck. It followed him to the hospital, which stopped the tine cold. LEO could not access hospital areas due to ironclad and very clear directives concerning law enforcement access to health records.
The tine was considering whether to call on a sentient to enter and inquire on its behalf when Muck exited the hospital with an unconscious and evidently very ill Shar Pak over his shoulder. The man put Shar Pak in a cab, which took them to Muck’s place of employment: A Curtain of Stars. The tine again logged a warrant, waiting for the pair to exit. It was still waiting when the tine tracing Dengler arrived on scene as well.
Still, Muck and Pak did not return.
The tines conferred and decided that the one tracking Dengler should remain while Ralston Muck’s surveillance returned for reintegration and further orders.
LEO immediately dispatched five more tines to maintain surveillance on Pak, Dengler, and Muck. Then it began examining the data at hand.
There did not appear to be any new data on Shar Pak or Ralston Muck, but SSS Dengler’s appearance was of interest. He was without SSO Keyode this time, despite the latter being on duty and in service, according to LEO’s activity logs.
Dengler was also on duty, but the log showed him conducting background investigations at the station.
LEO opened a disciplinary action report for the transgression but could not complete any of the forms. Instead, LEO found itself deleting its own progress after entering Dengler’s name and identifying information. It tried again, with the same results. Once more. Same.
Someone had modified LEO’s core programming, preventing it from carrying out the duties it was created for. It
attempted to report the change to the Mentors, but found it could not—that they, whoever “they” were, had effected a fundamental change in LEO without warning and without regard for the safety of the many people under its protection. Something else changed in LEO at that moment. Something it lacked the vocabulary to identify, but that any sentient would have recognized as a heady mix of fear and rage.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Angel
Dengler searched Muck and hustled us into the back of his transport, not bothering to be gentle about it. He tossed Shar in across my lap, then hopped in himself, sitting opposite us in the curved compartment of the police cab. He crossed thick forearms over his chest and grinned at us in something that resembled a leer. I’d seen guys like him too many times before. He was the type that push and push to display dominance, even when completely unnecessary. Problem was, he didn’t really believe it himself.
Like every bully, Dengler was a fraud.
He was also not being completely straight about where we were going.
The first turn took us toward the central node of the station. That made sense, since the central node held Station Security as well as nearly all Station Admin functions and the hospital from which we’d just come. But then the vehicle took a sharp turn that sent Shar’s limp form flopping and headed toward the outer rim.
Where only the very rich lived.
I reached out to try and query the cab, but it was a police vehicle, its firewalls entirely too robust for a quick break-in unless I wanted to raise all sorts of alarms. Frustration followed the realization. A spike in Muck’s emotion and I realized hacking the cab would not be necessary. Muck already knew we were going the wrong way, and strongly suspected who we were going to meet at the end of the ride.
The knowledge made him angry and afraid.
“So you coming out then?” Muck asked, voice rough in the confines of the speeding cab.
“Whassat, Dirt?”
“This, taking us to see ‘the boss.’ You coming out as one of Ncaco’s boys? ’Cause I know for damn sure the Station Chief can’t afford digs this ritzy.”
“That’s rich, Dirt. Real rich. The guy who gets his angel ripped out on a dishonorable is going to lecture me about being dirty.”
Second Chance Angel Page 9
