“There was a horrific accident at Polarity Magnetics,” he said. “It coincided with a cyber-attack. Critical files were deleted from the systems and the backups destroyed. Kay had the only copy left and she had the only prototype. I speak of the cube, of course. Taking it was a clever idea. And it should have guaranteed her safety.” Harris exhaled through his nose. “I think she became overconfident. Can you conceive of how dearly Doctor Cheng desires her cube back?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Yes, it must be obvious even to a guttersnipe like you.” His twitching lips broke into a smile. “You are beholden to me. Do you realize that? If I place a call and explain to Doctor Cheng the facts…you will become the priority.”
“Who killed Kay?”
“I hold the advantage,” Harris said. “I will ask the questions. Now, I know the cube lies in the ocean. You know its precise location—the coordinates, if you will.”
The coordinates…? Something clicked in my mind. Harris must have spoken to Blake. He must have forced the answers from my friend. I backed away then, and Harris followed, with mockery in his eyes. With each step backward, I concentrated harder, and I masked the room’s single bulb. It left the sunlight from the porthole and that coming through the door to provide the room’s illumination. There was a short corridor there, however, and thus less light than otherwise. It meant shadows in the room. I backed into the deepest shadow, and I took a longer step back then, much longer than Harris could.
He blinked, and he scowled. “How did you do that?”
I stood several feet away from him, several feet away from the sword. I could move faster and farther in darkness and in deep shadows—it was one of my few tricks, my accelerated abilities. I also pointed the drug dealer’s gun at Harris, the one I’d had in my jacket pocket.
“Surprise,” I said.
He was on the balls of his feet, obviously longing to lunge at me, to use his sword.
“Now you’re going to tell me where Blake is,” I said, “or I’m going to find out if your density is enough to stop bullets.”
I saw the smaller biker. Maybe he’d been there all along. He held what looked like a parabolic gun, one used at sporting events to catch the words of coaches, referees and players. I’d seen its kind before on a smaller scale, on my boat in San Francisco.
The small biker flashed a brilliant light. As he did it, I squeezed my eyes shut and threw a forearm across them. At the same time, I fired until my gun went click, click, click.
I didn’t hear anyone drop, nor did I hear any screams. My sunglasses helped me. So did closing my eyes and using my forearm. There were splotches before my vision, but I could see. The cabin was empty.
I ran out the door, down the short corridor and stepped onto the deck outside. Harris disappeared over the end of the yacht.
I ran after him, hearing a thump. I hurried to the railing as a motor roared with life.
“Harris!” I shouted. He was in a motorboat.
Eric, the biker bull that I had crushed before, was at the controls, using one arm. The smaller biker helped Harris into a chair. The doctor looked hurt, favoring his left shoulder. The parabolic flashgun lay in the boat.
The back end of the speedboat dug into the water as it churned white with foam. Beside the parabolic gun, something big was hidden under a black tarp. The bikers must have busy with it as Harris and I talked.
If I’d had bullets, I would have shot Harris in the back. Instead, the motorboat sped away. And Harris turned, giving me a big English two-finger bird.
-19-
Harris’s yacht was huge, with a big freezer in the kitchen area. The smell there was wrong. I opened the freezer and found the carefully sliced and packaged body parts of three different people. Panic filled me. I checked heads and hands, but didn’t find Blake’s features or his ring. Then it came to me. These were the Shop personnel—the ones Harris said had been spying on his boat.
Sickened, I let the freezer thump shut. The thought of Harris murdering these people, maybe using his sword to chop them into pieces—he was much more vicious than I’d realized. More than ever, I wished I’d saved some bullets to pump into Harris’s back.
I hurried through the rest of the yacht until I found Blake. I bit back a groan. Ropes bound his wrists and ankles to a chair. He wore a gag and blindfold, and had welts on his face.
He struggled feebly as I took off the blindfold. His eyes were glazed, and he kept blinking, looking at me but not really seeing who it was. I unwound the gag, untied him and snapped my fingers.
He slurred, blinked several times and finally whispered, “Gavin?”
I examined his face. No bones seemed broken. Harris must have slapped Blake, not punched him. On a hunch, I went back up to the bar and collected the bottle of red liquid. I poured a small amount and let Blake sip.
After finishing the glass and giving him some time as he sat on a couch, Blake’s eyes began to clear. “Doctor Harris did this,” Blake said quietly. “He…he made me drink—”
“Don’t worry about it. We’re getting you out of here.”
“Wait. Let me get my bearings.”
I waited another five minutes and then helped Blake to the bathroom. He gingerly washed his face, doing a lot of wincing. Afterward, he told me Harris had wanted to know only one thing: the whereabouts of the cube. Harris had forced him to drink an oily substance. Blake said his mind had become fuzzy afterward. He might have told Harris about my dumping it several miles from San Francisco, and that I’d memorized the longitude and latitude of the spot.
Soon thereafter, Blake and I hurried off the yacht. I wasn’t sure yet what to do about the three packaged bodies in the freezer.
As we headed to the Alamo, Blake said, “If it’s all right with you, I’m heading back for Frisco.”
“Are you sure you can drive?”
“Positively,” he said.
“Here,” I said, giving him the bulk of my stolen drug money. “Rent a hotel somewhere in LA. Don’t tell me where. Rest up. Then come back in two days or head to Frisco. Either way, I want you clear of this.”
“Do you think Harris killed Kay?”
He’d certainly killed the people on the yacht. And according to his own testimony, he had slain the thugs he’d hired for the original theft of the cube. I suspected he’d also killed Dan Lee.
“Harris heads my list,” I said. “I have to examine Kay’s corpse first. I need to find out if Cheng used nanoparticles on her.”
“Huh?”
“Forget it,” I said. “It’s time for you to leave.”
Blake headed for the marina parking lot, increasing his pace as he left.
***
I returned to the Alamo long enough to eat. I showered afterward and changed into another set of clothes. Then I scraped up my reserves of cash hidden in a small safe, and I realized that I needed to know more about Kay’s alteration.
Harris’s idea of nanoparticles—millions of microscopic machines or silicon chips—injected into a person’s bloodstream struck me as too science fiction. He loved outlandish ideas and like many of that ilk could spin fanciful tales on the spot. The question was how could I learn the truth of this? Doctor Cheng wasn’t going to answer me. I needed twilight or night to sneak into Polarity Magnetics. There was another option, however. Rita seemed to have taken these injections. I needed to speak to her under conditions conducive to dialogue.
Where did she live?
I left the Alamo and checked for tails. Harris must have been telling the truth about having eliminated the Shop personnel staking out my boat. I hoped the Chief didn’t think I was responsible for those three men’s deaths. I had already built up a blood-debt with the Chief, and I knew he would demand an accounting. I wasn’t looking forward to that.
After buying some ammo, I returned to the Industrial Park area. I parked the Ford and went on a sightseeing tour on foot until I found the right building, an older one from the Sixties. There was a computer re
pair shop on the ground floor, taking up about half the space. I forced a lock in the deserted back area. Stairs creaked under my weight. Soon, I pried an old board on a second floor window enough so I could squeeze a scope through the crack. I’d taken it from a Shop sniper. I zoomed in on Polarity Magnetics four blocks away.
After an hour of watching, I spotted a guard stepping out of the guard shack. It was not Rita.
Only then did it occur to me that she would not be a gate guard. Stone had told me she’d been there the first time because he had expected me to show up.
Stakeouts were always tough. Sitting and staring at a place for hours was extremely boring and tedious. I almost fell asleep several times. Then I berated myself for not bringing coffee or snacks. Finally, around six PM, my patience proved its worth.
Cars began leaving. I examined each vehicle that drove out the gate until it became monotonous. At six forty-five, I spied Rita. She drove a hybrid, a ridiculously small silver car. I trained the lens on the license plate, spoke into my recorder and watched her turn east.
I dug out my cell and placed a call to San Francisco. It was to the detective agency where I did contract work.
“Lamplight Investigations,” a woman answered.
“Martha, put me through to Ed, would you?”
She hesitated, and I wondered who had called concerning me.
Then the phone rang again and a man answered. “Ed Cloud speaking.”
“It’s me,” I said.
“Gav—” he stopped himself from saying more. “You’ve become popular, did you know that?”
“Could you do me a favor?” I asked.
“Right now, just talking to you is a favor.”
“I have a license number to one of those hybrids. I know how you’re dying to own one.” Ed was three hundred and ten pounds and almost six-seven.
“You want me to trace the owner?” he asked.
“No. I need the owner’s home address.”
“You’re not planning to kill anyone, are you?”
“Just you if it turns out you give me false information,” I said.
“Can I call you back?”
“I’ll call you back in ten minutes,” I said.
“I might need longer.”
“Okay, make it fifteen.”
“Give me that license number again,” he said.
I did and hung up.
Fifteen minutes later, Ed Cloud gave me the home address: 445 Memory Lane.
“I owe you,” I said.
“Just make sure you come back in one piece. I have a job that’s just screaming your name.”
“It sounds interesting. Later.” I cut the connection and began figuring out the fastest way to Rita’s home.
-20-
I strolled down Memory Lane. It had slender Bradford pear trees, maybe two years old. The homes were new for the techies and young lawyers, with thick grass lawns that no doubt had been laid down like heavy carpet a couple of years ago.
No children played outside. No dogs barked, although a few cats prowled the last hours of daylight. Likely, there were only a few children in these homes, and those would be watching TV or playing on the computer. The cars were mostly foreign or hybrids. Air conditioners hummed. As I passed a lawn, automated sprinklers popped up and began to spread their spray.
A late-working husband in his SUV, talking on his cell, drove past. He gave me the once-over, likely wondering what a man with an A’s cap and shades was doing walking his neighborhood.
I saw the silver hybrid parked in front of Rita’s house. I wondered idly why she hadn’t parked it in the garage. Maybe the garage door was broken. I decided on the direct approach, walked to the front door and tried the handle. It turned easily enough, so I stepped inside. Fortunately, Rita wasn’t Alice Smith, and no shotgun greeted me.
A TV was on. I heard Pam of The Office explaining something to Jim. Rita must have Netflix. That she liked The Office was a plus for her humanity.
I walked into the kitchen. There were thick wire chairs around a glass-topped table. The walls were white, the microwave shiny black plastic and the sink sparkling chrome.
It was then I heard the click. This wasn’t my day for women and guns. Rita stood against a wall, with a silver pistol in her hands. Her arms were up and the pistol was aimed at my head. Rita had a buzz cut, a nose ring and a low-cut top. Her features showed intensity and her eyes were like lead.
“I’m here to talk,” I said.
Rita used some profanity and wisely took several steps back. “Lay on the floor,” she said.
Very slowly, I pulled out a wire chair. I had serious doubts about whether it could hold my weight, so I sat down carefully. Then I put my elbows on the glass table.
“Nice place you’ve got here,” I said.
“On the floor!” she demanded.
“I want to talk to you about Kay.”
Rita blinked hard, squeezing her eyes closed so they scrunched up her entire face. Then she opened them wide. Her cheeks were shiny with perspiration, and she used her shoulder to wipe the left cheek.
“You watch The Office much?” I asked.
“What?”
“The TV,” I said. “You have Netflix?”
She twitched and her jaw muscles bulged. “Why shouldn’t I blow your head off?” she asked in a low voice.
“No need, for one thing. The Shop is after me and Harris is itching to run his umbrella-sword through my chest.”
Rita took that moment to do another eye-squeeze with her entire face. I did notice she didn’t ask what the Shop was or who Harris was, so she obviously knew both. I would have been surprised if she hadn’t known them, but it was good to have it confirmed.
“Just to let you know,” I said, “I don’t hold any grudges about the neural whip. You were given orders and like a good heel-clicker you obeyed to the letter.”
I could see it in her eyes that she was debating emptying her silver pistol into me.
“Stone must have told you that the accelerated are hard to kill.”
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“We’re dense so bullets have less effect.” I shrugged, hoping she’d believe that lie. “Why do you think Stone ordered you to use the neural whip before? You must realize that your little pistol is worthless against me.”
“Wrong,” she said. “Our tests proved that a shot to the head will take down even the strongest of you. And this isn’t just any pistol.”
“You have silver bullets?” I asked.
“I’m only going to say this one more time. Then I’m going to kill you.”
“Rita, there’s a curious fact about shooting unarmed people. It’s harder for the shooter to do it looking at the victim, talking to them in a normal fashion. Shooting someone in the back of the head is so much easier on the shooter’s nerves, on their psyche. Look at me. I only want to talk. That’s it. Then I’ll leave.”
“You’re lying.”
“If I get off this chair, by all means, shoot. Until then, why not see if I’m telling the truth or not?”
“They say you’re fast,” she said.
“So are you.”
“I’m not accelerated.”
I smiled. Rita’s rigid stance, her stiff pose was making me nervous. I didn’t like the idea of her firing a stream of shots at my head. I wondered what was different about her gun.
“That’s why I’m here,” I said.
“Because I’m not accelerated?” she asked with a frown.
“Kay was stronger than I remembered, and she was quicker. She spoke to me about her alteration.”
“The bitch! She signed a confidentiality agreement. She deserved to die for breaking her contract.” Rita scowled more deeply than before, compressing her lips so they turned white. “On the floor! This is my last warning!”
I glanced sharply left. It was an elementary tactic, but sometimes those were the best. Keep It Simple, Stupid was a good maxim for combat. I glanced left even as I
lifted my hands and lurched out of the wire chair. I hurled the glass table at Rita. She hissed like a wounded snake and snapped off three shots. The first shattered glass and grazed my cheek. The second parted a lock of hair. The last lodged in her black plastic microwave. Then the badly starred table struck her so she grunted and flew backward. The gun skittered across the floor. The glass table was thick and it must have been treated for strength. Except for the three bullet holes and the cracked lines radiating outward from them, it remained in one piece.
Rita thumped hard against a kitchen wall and sprawled onto the floor. She was tough, however, and sprang up like a leopard, making a high-pitched karate scream. I kicked the little silver gun so it slid under the refrigerator. But the gun hadn’t been her target. I grunted as her foot lashed into my gut. The blow shouldn’t have hurt and she shouldn’t have been able to knock me back. She did both, and then her fists pumped at my face and neck, interspaced with slamming kicks at my shins, groin and gut.
Rita was stronger and quicker than she had a right to be. She hit hard enough so her bones or knuckles should have broken or cracked. Her wildcat attack put me on the defensive, and it surprised me. Her alteration was more encompassing than I would have thought possible.
I thumped against the fridge because she had me off balance. That’s when she made her mistake. She should have used the precious seconds and run. I bet she could sprint fast. Instead, as she panted, she began to throw carefully planned blows as if I was a heavy bag. She was actually trying to beat me down.
I pushed off the fridge and blocked her blows so I could get in close. Then I grabbed a wrist and applied considerable pressure. She gasped. I swung her against a wall so she smashed through boards. I yanked her to me as I spun her, then I held in her a bear hug. She whipped her head back like a jackhammer, but I’d been expecting it and I held my head forward, saving my nose from a bloody bash. She bit my forearm.
I tightened my arms so she couldn’t breathe, and I waited. Soon she began to thrash in little jerky ways that told me she desperately needed air. I eased my grip.
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