“Bouchon was the only one we had to worry about.”
“No, there’s still Jake Cardigan to worry about. He seems to have some idea of what’s really going on.”
“So does this Gomez then.”
“Yes, but Gomez is a halfwit, not a serious threat. I know Cardigan, though, and he—”
“Halfwit,” echoed Natalie, nodding her head. “Another apt description.”
“Hush up, chiquita.” Gomez settled into a chair that put him with his back to her.
“... and they don’t know that Kittridge has managed to pass on to us, through you, a method for manufacturing a new Super-Tek that will be immune to his chip-destroying system,” Wexler said. “Nor do they have any idea where our new Teklab is located. So really there’s no reason for—”
“Unless we stop him, Cardigan will find out.”
“Cardigan is over in London, dear Hilda, and—Why are these dreadful flowers lying on the table?”
“Oh, that halfwit brought them and I haven’t gotten around to disposing of them.”
“Did you inspect them?”
“What do you mean?”
“Christ, Hilda! I mean he might’ve concealed an eavesdropping device in them.”
“He’s not bright enough for—”
“But he is. Here’s a goddamn bug. Don’t speak another word.”
And they didn’t.
In less than five minutes, probably using a portable bug detector, Wexler had discovered all the listening devices Gomez had planted during his recent visit to the doctor’s place. All of them were speedily destroyed.
Yanking off his earphones, Gomez said, “Beth was right about distrusting her padre.” Standing up, he crossed to a window. “SuperTek, huh? Those cabrónes never give up.”
“I bet Bennett Sands is involved in this as well,” said Natalie. “They got him out of prison to help on their new SuperTek project.”
“Si,” he agreed. “And Jake’s ex-wife has to be mixed up in it, too.”
Jake, led by Marj, emerged from the Underground and found himself in the ruins of a railway station. There were bodies scattered about, dozens of them, looking like bundles of rags and piles of discarded clothes.
“Lots of kids sleep here,” explained Marj. “Especially the newcomers who haven’t taken up with a gang yet.”
It smelled hereabouts of sweat, decay, and illness. Jake noticed that one of the sleeping youths was hooked up to a battered Tek Brainbox.
As they worked their way through the sleepers toward the night street, Jake chanced to brush against the huddled figure of a thin girl.
The girl awakened, sat up, and screamed. “Jesus! Jesus! Help!”
“Easy, easy.” Marj knelt beside her, putting an arm around her narrow shoulders. “It’s okay, Sue.”
The girl blinked, shook her head, came fully awake. “Oh, hi, Marj. What’s wrong?”
“My friend accidently bumped into you. It must have tied in with a nightmare you were having.”
“Yeah, I have a lot of nightmares.” She hugged the older woman for a moment. “I hope I didn’t scare anybody.”
“Only me,” Jake told her, grinning.
Letting go of her, Marj rose. “Take care, Sue.”
“Best I can. ’Night.” She settled down on the floor, readjusting her tattered coat around her.
Out on the street Marj said, “We never get ahead. You help two kids get away from here and four new ones move in.”
There was noise and light about a block away.
A caliope was playing Xmas carols, and lightsigns were flashing messages—SALVATION IS NOW!, IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND!, FREE MEALS 24 HOURS A DAY!, FATHER TIM’S MOBILE MISSION.
Marj nodded in the direction of the Mobile Mission. “We can talk to Father Tim first,” she suggested. “He knows just about everything that’s going on.”
Father Tim was a plump jovial android dressed in a well-worn clerical suit. His mission was housed in a parked landvan that was festooned with lightsigns and speakers.
Inside the main cabin of the van was a small dining area where a tarnished robot was ladling out soup from a cauldron built into its chest. Three forlorn kids, the youngest about ten, were sitting at the table.
“Bless my soul—if I had one,” said Father Tim, scratching at his curly white hair. “It does my old heart—if I had one of those either—good to see you, my child. And who’s the pilgrim with you?”
While she shook hands with the android priest, Marj explained, “Father Tim, this is Jake Cardigan.”
“The noted detective, is it?”
“The detective anyway.” Jake shook hands with the mechanical man.
“Either of you folks care for a bowl of soup before we chat? Tonight it’s Moonbase Gumbo.”
Shaking her head, Marj said, “Jake is fairly certain his son, Dan, came over here a day or so ago. He was planning to contact somebody in the Westminsters.”
“You’ve been away for a few days, my dear.”
“Yes. Has something happened?”
“The TKs raided the hangout at the abbey,” the priest informed her. “There was, I’m afraid, considerable killing.”
Jake asked, “Do you know if my son was hurt?”
“I don’t as yet have the names of any of the dead or injured,” he replied. “But hear me out, the both of you. What happened next may have some bearing on your search. It seems the Tek Kids took some prisoners, along with considerable loot, back to their headquarters at the palace. That very night there was a ferocious raid on the TK enclave.”
“By the Westminsters?” asked Marj.
“No, these were apparently outsiders. Mercenaries of some sort, I’ve been told,” said Father Tim. “Came roaring in with considerable firepower and did a goodly amount of damage. The psi powers of the TKs didn’t help them a bit. The raiders, in turn, took off with several prisoners. They also carried away the Coronation Chair, which the Tek Kids had swiped during their raid at Westminster Abbey.”
“You don’t know the names of the kids who were taken?” asked Jake. “Or where they went?”
“I fear I do not,” said the android. “Though if you can give me a day or so, I’m sure I can find out.”
“We don’t have a day,” said Jake. “We’ve got to get some answers tonight.”
26
THEY FOUND SILVERHAND SALLY sitting on a pile of rubble in one of the chapels of Westminster Abbey. She had a leg folded under her and was absently rubbing at the fine mist that was forming on her metallic arm.
Marj said, “We’d like to talk with you, Sally.”
“All right,” the girl replied in a faraway voice.
“Something wrong?” She crouched beside her.
“Oh, nothing special, Marj. When just about everything is wrong, it’s hard to pinpoint.”
Jake told her, “I’m Jake Cardigan and—”
“I met your son.”
“Is he here?”
“No,” she replied, “not anymore.”
“But he was?”
“Yes. Angel and Ludd brought him in. They found him wandering around and brought him here.”
“Do you know where Dan is now?”
Sally looked up at him. “I’m afraid maybe he did something really stupid,” she said. “I warned him and so did Angel. He wouldn’t listen.”
Marj asked, “He came here searching for Nancy Sands, didn’t he?”
“Sure, and when I told him the Tek Kids had taken her prisoner in a raid, well, he said he had to go over to the palace to find her.” She rubbed again, slowly, at her arm. “I warned him that wasn’t smart.”
“Do you know for certain,” Jake asked, “that he got there?”
“I’m pretty certain he did.”
“Any idea what happened to him?”
“I don’t think he’s dead,” said Sally. “Whoever it was that raided the TKs took some prisoners and maybe he was one of them.”
“You sure of that?”
“All I know is that he wasn’t among the dead ones. Neither was Nancy.”
“We’ll have to talk with the TKs,” said Jake.
“Lancelot’s dead,” Sally informed him. “I don’t know who the hell is running the gang now.”
Jake sat down beside her. “You’re a friend of Nancy’s.”
“Not a very good or reliable one, though. After she came to me for help, she just got in deeper trouble.”
“Why’d she come here?”
“She’d found out some things she didn’t want to believe. Nancy thought of this as a sanctuary, a retreat where she could do some thinking. But, you know, Marj, that this really isn’t a good place for anybody.”
“What had she found out that upset her so?” asked Marj.
“Nancy didn’t tell me everything, but I know it had to do with her father.”
“With his escape from prison?”
“Did he escape? I didn’t know that,” said Sally. “But, yeah, that must be part of it. I think she found out that somebody high up in the Tek trade was financing a breakout. She hadn’t, you know, allowed herself to suspect her dad was tied in with the Tek cartels.”
Jake patted her on the shoulder. “Thanks for your help,” he said, standing.
“I don’t think I’ve been much help to you,” said Sally. “Nor to anybody else.”
“It was Nancy’s decision to come here,” reminded Marj. “And Dan made up his own mind to follow her.”
“We’d best head over to the palace,” suggested Jake.
Sally touched Marj’s arm with her real fingers. “Maybe,” she said quietly, “sometime soon we can talk about my getting out of here.”
Marj smiled. “That’s a good idea.”
“The thing is,” said Sally forlornly, “I don’t want to stay here—and I can’t go home.”
Bundled up in his new thermocoat, Gomez made his solo way along the late-night Avenue Victor Hugo. He was striding briskly, to prevent his blood from turning to ice in his veins. The night was bleak and bitterly cold.
When the chilled detective tried to whistle a seasonal tune, his breath came out as wispy mist.
“Remind me,” he said to himself, “to spend next Xmas someplace in the tropics.”
The robot doorman in front of the Hôtel Hernani had apparently frozen earlier in the evening. Two uniformed bellbots were pouring steaming hot water over him from silver teapots.
Three doors past the hotel was the Kowboy Kitchen. It offered, according to the lightsign pulsing in its window, AUTHENTIC AMERICAN CHOW!
Shivering once, Gomez pushed through the swinging doors.
The simulated scents of frying meat and simmering onions and potatoes hit him as he crossed the small foyer.
“Howdy, pard!” greeted a huge bronzed robot decked out in a passable approximation of early twentieth-century cowboy garb. “Welcome to our homey little chuckwagon.”
“Well, sir, that’s right neighborly of you.” Gomez was looking beyond the robot and into the small dining room.
There were only five customers scattered around at the small tables. Alone at the table next to the potted artificial cactus was the man he’d come to see.
“You want a table all by your lonesome?” inquired the jovial robot. “Or are you—”
“I’ll be joining a friend yonder,” replied the detective. “I’ll just mosey over to his table.”
The small Chinese was hunched slightly in his chair, frowning at the dozen watches built into his cyborg right arm. “Shit, Gomez, you’re eight minutes and fifteen seconds late.”
Sitting down, Gomez said, “That’s because I froze twice en route and had to wait until some good Samaritans poured boiling water over me.”
“Don’t you carry a watch?”
“When you reach my advanced years, Timecheck, you don’t want to be reminded of the swift, inexorable rushing passage of time.”
“You’ve always had a negative view of temporal matters, daddy,” said Timecheck. “I’ll tell you something. Since I’ve relocated in Paris from Kyoto, Japan, I’ve found the folks here to be very much obsessed with time. It’s, hey, a real gasseroo to be doing business in a nation of clock watchers instead of a lot of Zen types.”
“Speaking of business, what have you found out for me?”
Timecheck was scowling at another of his built-in timepieces. “Berkeley, California, is six secs slow again. That’s a pisser, because now I’m going to have to—”
“Information,” reminded Gomez.
“Aren’t you going to join me for a snack?”
“Nope.”
“You really ought to have a fixed schedule for your meals, daddy. Myself, I always have a midnight snack between 11:58 p.m. and 12:32 a.m. That way, no matter where I might happen to—”
“Excalibur,” said Gomez quietly.
Timecheck brought his metal arm up to his ear, listened to several of his watches in turn. “I don’t like the sound of Cairo time.”
“Electronic watches don’t make any noise.”
“Sure, they do.” He lowered his arm, then tugged at his ear with the fingers of his real hand. “You just got to know how to listen.”
“I am prepared to listen,” Gomez informed him, “to any and all scuttlebutt for which the Cosmos Detective Agency is paying you a ridiculous and overblown fee.”
The young Chinese rolled down his jacket sleeve, covering most of the watch faces. “So far I’ve been able to establish that this guy Wexler is a dyed-in-the-wool member of the Excalibur outfit.” He picked up his chili soyburger and took a bite. “You really ought to try the chow here.”
“Back to Wexler.”
“He’s a big man in Excalibur. Those gonzos want a king to rule Merrie Old England once again,” said the informant. “Toppling the established democratic government of Great Britain takes dough. How are these jerkoffs going to raise the bucks? The answer, my friend, is—”
“By peddling Tek.”
“Yowsah, you got it. Rumor has it there’s something called SuperTek about to hit the market. This new stuff is more powerful than regular Tek and it’s designed to withstand any destructive devices turned against it,” said Timecheck, taking another bite of the burger. “SuperTek sounds like a neat idea to me, Gomez, and if these ginks were selling stock, I’d buy a sizable—”
“What about Dr. Danenberg?”
“The old bimbo’s a buddy of Wexler.”
“That I know.”
“But she’s not a card-carrying member of Excalibur. The skirt doesn’t care if King Arthur II sits on the throne or on a portable biffy.” He paused, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together. “The good doctor is in it strictly for the old cumshaw.”
Nodding, Gomez asked, “You got anything on her itinerary?”
“She’s departing Paris comes the dawn tomorrow.”
“Bound for where?”
“London.”
“London,” said Gomez. “It’s not likely to be any warmer than Paris. But I’ve got a feeling I’d better follow her there.”
Morgana was leaning against the base of the Queen Victoria Memorial, arms folded across her narrow chest. “You missed all the excitement, Marj,” she said. “Who’s your friend? He’s carrying one of those damn scramblers of yours and I can’t get at his mind.”
“I’m Jake Cardigan. Did my son—”
“Dan? Yes, he was here,” she answered. “I do hope he’s not going to end up looking as world-weary and shopworn as you do, love. He’s a handsome lad, he is.”
Marj asked her, “What happened to him?”
Shrugging her left shoulder, Morgana answered, “The bastards carried him off, along with that Nancy bitch.”
“Who were they?” asked Jake.
She shrugged both shoulders. “They were all equipped with blockers. I couldn’t read a single thought,” she said. “Hired hands my guess would be, outsiders and not kids. Old sods some of them, in their forties and more.”
“How many were there?”
“At least two dozen. They used landcars, skycars, and a stew-pot of weapons. It was fast and efficient and a lot of us got killed.”
“Any of them killed?”
“Only two or three.”
“Where are the bodies?”
She cocked a thumb in the direction of the ruined palace. “We dumped them out in front. For the dogs and rats to eat.”
Jake walked in the direction Morgana had indicated.
Marj followed him.
There were three bodies, two men and a woman, laid out side by side on the rutted ground.
Kneeling, Jake started to search one of the men. After a moment he stood. “Nothing on him, no ID packet.”
Frowning, Marj moved over to look down at the dead woman. “I know this one,” she told him. “A longtime raider for hire.”
“Know whom she worked for?”
“Yes, I know who probably provided her and the others,” answered Marj. “We ought to be able to persuade him to tell us who the mercenaries were working for and where they took Dan and Nancy.”
Morgana drifted over to them. “I have a feeling,” she said, “that we’ve maybe been sold out.”
Jake asked, “How so?”
“We’re very much for monarchy, for the old times when the first King Arthur ruled and England was a decent, well-ordered place to live,” she explained. “Hell, we took our bloody names, a lot of us, from the old stories about him and his knights.”
“Who betrayed you?”
“I’m not certain, but those bastard raiders took the Coronation Chair. Seems to me they have some use for it in mind,” Morgana said. “If they’d told us what they were planning, that they were monarchists, too, why, we might have given it to them and there wouldn’t have been any damn killing at all.”
“They probably do have a use for the throne,” agreed Jake. “But they wanted Nancy Sands, too. She’s important enough to them that they’ll kill to get hold of her.”
“And what makes that bitch so special?”
Jake said, “I don’t have a complete answer yet.”
27
THE NEW VAUXHALL MALL rose up twenty stories beside a safe stretch of the Thames. The seethrough elevator carried Jake and Marj up past the bright-lit twenty-four-hour shops and restaurants toward the quieter commercial tiers.
TekLab Page 13
