“Natural blond?” she smiled.
“Me? Yeah. You?”
“Yes. Nice to see another one—it gets lonely.”
He was going to say that his girlfriend had blond hair, too, but didn’t feel comfortable thinking of Opal, thinking of her as his girlfriend. And maybe, he recognized, he simply didn’t want the widow Greenberg to know that he had a pseudo-girlfriend, semi-lover. Guilt bubbled. Nausea rolled over in him like a baby he was carrying…growing, wanting to burst out of him.
“I was hoping we’d have the opportunity to talk alone.” Her eyes didn’t flinch or coyly divert from his. She was forty-two. “I was wondering if you’d care to have dinner with me tonight or some other, Mr. Black?”
“Why?”
“Why?” She couldn’t help but giggle a little. “Well, I find you to be an attractive man. Why else do people ask to see other people?”
“I, ah.” He looked to the oil painting, which was only a little less disquieting in its appraisal of him. “I’d like to but I really can’t…” A sickly embarrassed grin.
“Married?”
“I, ah, contracted M-670 at Toll Loveland’s Pandora’s Box.”
“Oh, good Lord!”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, you poor, poor man—I had no idea! That’s horrible! Oh, I feel so bad for you…I feel like it’s my fault.”
“It isn’t, don’t say that. So…I…assume that dinner might lead to other things, as it often will…and I can’t.”
“Yes, I suppose sex would have been on the agenda. I’m so sorry. Please don’t despair, I’m sure a cure is right around the corner.”
He made himself look back at her, smile again. “That’s what they say. Thanks, anyway.”
“Maybe in the near future, eh? Hang on for me—put that in your head. I want to take you to dinner.” She smiled to comfort him.
“I will.” He liked her.
She gave his hand a squeeze and then finished off her coffee.
Vern returned. “Ready to go, man?”
“Thank you for the coffee,” Black told Helga.
“Remember.”
“I will.”
“Goodbye for now, gentlemen, and good luck in your search. I enjoyed your company.”
“Likewise.” Vern waved. Black didn’t look back. As they followed Linda down the jungle-lined corridor again, Vern whispered, “I asked Red out for a date. No go, dammit. I knew I shoulda shaved today. We’ll have to think of a good reason to come back, huh?”
“Yeah.” The study door remained open behind him and he was sure he felt Helga Greenberg’s eyes on his back like two ice cubes melting down his spine.
NINE
When Black got home that evening, there was someone in the hall waiting for him, stepping out of the shadows.
It was Ruichi, the landlord, dusky-skinned and pock-faced—of indeterminately mixed heritage, unknownable even to himself maybe. He never seemed to bathe, or use deodorant, and Black was not startled to see him there. The cloud had announced him.
“Mr. Black, I need a word with you.”
“What is it?” Black didn’t care for the tone of voice. He didn’t care for Ruichi.
“You have it.”
“Have what?”
Ruichi kept a safe distance. “Mutstav six-seventy.”
“Who told you that?”
“You have it. I know.”
“Who told you, man? You got a call, did you? From a Captain Nedland, maybe? He wants me at HAP in a hospital bed so he called you, right? So I’ll have no place else to go, or so he thinks.”
“I don’t want you here.”
“Fuck you. You can’t discriminate against me!”
“I own this building.”
“I’m no threat to anybody, moron!”
“If my other tenants find out…”
“They won’t, and so what if they do? I’m not leaving.”
“I will have you thrown out by the police.”
“HAP. Don’t you mean your buddies at HAP? Go ahead…I’ll have housing officials, fire marshals, building inspectors, and the works down here to go over your buildings with a fine-toothed comb, asshole.” Black stabbed a finger in Ruichi’s face, backing him against the wall. “Don’t fuck with me or I’ll sneak in your house and puke down your throat, fuck—then you’ll have something to worry about.”
“You can’t threaten me…you’ll be sorry.”
“I’ll get a lawyer, Ruichi, and I’ll own your fucking building when I’m done. Now stay outta my face. And go take a shower, huh? You’re more a health hazard than I am.” And Black passed the landlord to thump upstairs, before his anger could mount to a dangerous level.
Bastards. Those slimy bastards. No more check-ins at HAP…none…that was a promise. And before he let them lock him in their hospital dungeon they’d have to kill him. Another promise.
*
The tran was gone.
Massive yellow robots and tiny human (and humanoid) figures moved across the strange overlapping configurations of tracks. The hum, buzz, grinding of their activity resounded out there.
Greenberg had owned the land originally, sold it to the Bedbugs, bought it back—and now sold it to Cugok Pharmaceuticals. And Cugok was cleaning up its new property.
“Shit. Bloody fucking steaming shit,” snarled Vern. Beside him stood Dirge of the black market Teeb organization.
“Nothing can come easy for me, can it?” Black said to himself as he strode with such determination toward two of the workers that they prepared themselves for trouble. When he got close enough for them to see, he flipped his badge. “Health Agency. Where’s this junk going…to the other Bedbug trackyard?”
“Some of it,” said a Choom woman in a hard-hat, clipboard under her arm. “Some of it they’re paying us to dump.”
“What about that intact old tran that was close to the Greenberg lot?”
“Ah, we brought that to their new location. All the trans, except one burnt-out shell…that we’ll dump.”
“So where is this place?”
She told him, cowed by the flash in his eyes.
They went there, Black and Woodmere and Dirge.
It was an old airport—Black couldn’t remember the name but remembered now his father and mother bringing him here as a boy to watch the many various vehicles come and go on a lazy summer Sunday. The buildings and hangars were now used by the Bedbugs, it looked like—hangars with tracks vanishing into them, obviously storing trans. The old office and administration buildings were low, flat-roofed and in need of paint, and every window was bolted over with black slabs of metal. A huge spiked fence like the one around the abandoned yard surrounded this space, too. Black brought his rented car to the gate, but there was no one at it, no guard shack. He hooted his horn repeatedly, got out of the car to yell and wave his arms.
He saw a small black figure scurry from behind one building to behind another, and maybe some more scrambling in the cave mouth of a hangar. A large, black metal sphere appeared from behind the main office building, floating on repulsor beams, or maybe an antigrav, six inches above the ground. It approached the gate. Black took a few wary steps back from it, and Vern had his gun in his lap in the car.
The implacable, almost featureless black globe hovered beyond the gate. A lifeless, robot-like voice came from a grille—probably a translator.
“Are you of the Cugok Company?”
Badge again, held up for eyes that weren’t apparent. “No, Health Agency. A derelict tran from the old Greenberg property was brought here and we’d like to take a look at it—it’s very important.”
“Are we considered to be in violation of health ordinances?”
“No, no, it doesn’t concern any wrongdoing on your part. A human placed something in the tran and I have to find it. It’s evidence in an investigation.” If they demanded to see a search warrant it was over. Also, there was still the possibility that the Bedbugs, or at least some opportunistic rogues among them, had aided Lov
eland in constructing the teleporter. The chances were good they’d be turned away until the Bedbugs visited the old vehicle themselves, destroyed the evidence of their participation.
The lifeless voice droned, “You may come in and look. No weapons.”
Black glanced back at Vern. No problem. They still had their blue and red pens in their pockets, if an emergency arose. A little something.
The ball opened upwards like a blackened orange peeling itself, two figures emerging as the vehicle remained suspended. One was a Bedbug. Bipedal, small, black and armored, four slim tentacle-like arms ending in pincers, the lower two of the original six removed and replaced with jointed, intricate black metal prosthetic arms which actually looked more appropriately insect-like than the wavering whip arms.
The other figure was as tall as Black; that was because it was a human. Apparently. Black-robed, the colorless bald head atop the black cone waxy and as lifeless as the voice from the sphere, which had come from its lips. The eyes didn’t seem to see Black as they looked at him. Atop the bald head was a black cap. No, he realized: a black metal plate in the human’s skull. No names were offered, none asked for.
The bluish lips moved slightly. “This way, please.” As it pivoted and moved away, the Bedbug with it, Black realized the human’s feet—if it had them—didn’t touch the ground. Vern elbowed Black. “Trick or treat,” he said.
The gate closed and bolted by itself behind them, as in a horror movie.
Black described the tran they sought to the human’s back, not getting into too much detail. They were led to a group of trans outside one of the hangars in which the functioning trans were stored. For a few minutes Black and Vern were in doubt; the first one they tried had no Navigation globes and Black began to worry. But the next one was it. Vern peeked under the front console, gave Black the thumb’s up. Dirge moved down beside him.
The robed human stood to the rear of the vehicle with Black. “What is it that has been placed aboard our craft?” it droned. Black had hoped it would leave them to their work, but why not ask it some questions since it intended to remain with them?
“An illegal teleportation device has been tapped into the tran, to the Navigator spheres…I don’t know the how. It was used in the escape of a criminal from a crime scene, and he’s probably still using it by remote control. Do you know anything about this, or an artist named Toll Loveland?”
“We have no knowledge of that person or of an illegal teleportation device aboard our craft. We would not cooperate in the installation or utilization of such a device.”
Black didn’t know whether to believe his cadaver-like host or not. “Is it possible some of the Bed…the Coleopteroids could have cooperated on their own?”
“They would not.”
Yeah, right. Black thought of the Dimensionals, the errant gang of Bedbug criminals said to live in the subway tunnels and forgotten grottoes far below Punktown, sealed off by humans after the destruction of the great earthquake.
“I will examine the device.” The human glided forward, Vern and Dirge backing off to give it room. They stared in horror as the black cone crumpled and telescoped, the white head lowering to look up under the console. There could be no full body inside those robes. A black mechanical arm emerged to gently probe the hidden device.
“Trick or treat is right,” muttered Black. “Dirge, what I want is to see if we can tap into Loveland’s device, get in its mind. Then work in our own remote control. Home in on him, and teleport him right here into our arms.”
“A tall order.”
“It’s important.”
Dirge was an odd being himself—a white salamander thing, no bigger than Black’s finger, in a box riding atop three silver legs like a camera on a robot tripod. Three little silver arms were retracted under the box. Like the prosthetic limbs of the Bedbugs, an adaptation to humanoid-based society. Black could see the bright-eyed little creature in a window of its tiny cockpit. In there earlier, Vern had pointed out a wall calendar featuring a photograph of a nude salamander female. Odd, but at least he wasn’t trying to look human, or be partially human, like that thing up front.
Dirge replied, “If he’s got his molecular pattern on file in the thing’s memory, maybe…maybe I can snatch him. Otherwise, all I could zero in on would be the remote control. I could teleport that here. Or maybe let you know where it is. That way you’d know where he lives, or where he is if it’s on his person.”
“Beautiful. Either way.”
“Maybe, I said. Either way. This guy’s not stupid; he may be prepared for this. No memory pattern. A scan blocker where he is. Whatever.”
“So if he had no pattern on file, what would he have to do, scan himself and transmit that information to the teleporter before he teleported?”
“Yeah. His remote unit might be a scan, too, though that could be getting unwieldy, more something in an apartment than something you carry in your pocket. Who knows? This is a smart boy. It looks tough.”
“I am afraid,” said the seemingly disembodied head, floating back to the level of Black’s own head, pivoting to face him, “you are correct. Some of our kind must have assisted the criminal you seek. But not one of us here.”
“The Dimensionals?”
“It must be.”
“Shit,” said Dirge, “this is gonna be a pain in the gills.”
“Give it your best go, man,” Vern reassured him.
“I must report this to my superiors,” said the mock-human liaison. “Proceed with your investigation—I shall return.” It left the tran.
“I shall return,” Vern mimicked its voice exaggeratedly.
Dirge’s telescopic legs collapsed enough for him to work under the console, his tiny robot arms coming into play. Vern and Black hunkered down to watch him. Vern lit up a smoke. Dirge said, “Ah, guys…could you give me some room—you make me nervous. I don’t like an audience.”
“Let us know if you’re onto something.” Black moved to the door, hopped down to the ground and lit up his own smoke.
“Ya wonder just how bad the relationship is between the Dimensionals and this ant farm,” mused Vern, squinting toward the old administration buildings. “I never hear about them going after the Dimensionals.”
“They don’t like to talk about them—they’re an embarrassment. Like you said, they’ve got an ant farm mentality. I’m sure they try to deal with the problem in their own secretive way.”
“Can’t blame them, though—the Dimensionals. I wouldn’t want to live like these freakin’ cockroaches.”
“It’s a wonder there are the Dimensionals. I guess we decadent humans just have a corruptive influence, huh?”
“Well, they can just keep the fuck out of our dimension if they don’t like it.”
Black began choking as if he had swallowed the wrong way; doubled over. Vern clapped him on the back. “I’m okay,” Black hacked, waving him off. He flicked away his cigarette. “I inhaled too deeply.”
“You shouldn’t be smokin’, man.”
“What’s it gonna do, kill me?”
“Enough of that talk—I told you! You can’t have that kind of attitude!”
“I’m gonna die, Vern…I’m dying now.”
“So am I…but I want to prolong it as long as I can, right?”
“So why are you smoking?”
“Well, you gotta enjoy life, too.”
“My brand’s milder.” Black tucked his cigarette package into Vern’s leather flight jacket. “There. I quit. Happy?”
“That’s better. You’re learning.”
Black grinned. But it was a bloodless grin. His eyes had the puffy bareness of a model without makeup. Vern hadn’t been close with Black in the past, but it was apparent nonetheless that he had lost weight and was still losing it fast. His skin had a light but unmistakable yellow cast. Not Asian yellowish-brown. Yellow yellow, like they painted Asians in comic books. The stark sunlight was not flattering. Black suddenly looked to Vern like a
fluorescent-lit corpse on a morgue table.
“Hey,” they heard Dirge calling from inside, “hey guys!”
“What?” Vern said, starting to turn as the tran exploded.
They were close to the machine, but it was thick metal firmly bolted and contained most of the blast. Still, pieces flew; a chunk of something smashed across Black’s left shoulder, spinning him to the ground. A more treacherous piece of shrapnel hit Vern. He managed to stay on his feet, but he howled. Black heard him howling up there, rolled groggily onto his back to look, shielding his face with his arm although the metal hail had ended.
Black smoke billowed out of the tran’s door and portholes and ruptures, and inside those thunder-heads flickered purple tongues of lightning. Vern was dancing, a marionette in the hands of a child. A jagged plate of metal was embedded in his cheekbone, splitting his nose in half sideways. A bolt from the pouring smoke clouds had reached out to the shrapnel, making Vern dance spasmodically, shaking out his howl while it flashed like a strobe jump-rope, the marionette’s string that kept him on his feet. It was a nightmare image which transfixed Black.
Then the electric flashes tapered off, withdrew, and dropped Vern onto his face. His moan in response was high-pitched and horrifying.
Black struggled to his feet, staggered backward, fell. He lost sight of Vern…saw only the thick smoke above him, beginning to spread and disperse. But he heard the sphere’s door open, and an excited chittering. Then the voice of the pseudo-human representative of the Bedbugs. The words were urgent if the tone was not.
“Take them, they may be saboteurs, take them…”
Pincered claws caught hold of Black’s jacket. “He left a trap…it was a fucking trap,” he protested. He thrashed weakly as he was hauled to his feet, a Bedbug at either side, remarkably strong for their size. Like all bugs. Now he could see Vern. “Help my friend—help him!”
Vern was on hands and knees. Moaning. He could rise no further. No blood, when Vern lifted his head to gaze (could he see?) toward Black. The edges of the wound around the jagged plate were black and cauterized. The Bedbugs took hold of his arms but his head fell forward limply, heavy with its alien weight. Black was convinced that he had just seen Vern Woodmere die. He was wrong.
Health Agent Page 12
