“Eight to ten hours.”
Dillal leaned against his desk. “I don’t have that to spare. The world will change in the next four and I must end this. Even if it kills me—” He stopped, looked down, and then back up to her with slow-blinking, out-of-sync eyes. “It will kill me, but you will be vindicated, and the corporation won’t have the opportunity to wipe out thousands of innocents. It’s not enough, but it’s all I can reach.”
Andreus shook her head and ran her hand over the kit, picking at objects as if she weren’t sure what they were anymore. “No, it’s not enough.” She picked up a thick, square pad no bigger than her palm and worried it between her fingers. “You have to survive, because you’re the only one who ever has.”
But we’ve come too far to quit now—not after what we’ve done! Matheson leaned forward, but the doctor shot him a warning glance. “Don’t help him kill himself.” He stepped back, his heart hammering with anxiety. Death or failure, what choice is that?
“I’m sorry, doctor, but it isn’t up to you,” Dillal said. “I must be alive and awake long enough to close or everything we’ve done will go to ruin. Don’t tell me you have no tricks to delay death, no way around the details of drugs and complications and short-term gains with lethal results.”
“Not ethically.”
Dillal put more of his weight on the counter and crossed his arms over his chest to stop the trembling of his hands. “As if that’s bothered you in the past. Drugs may be too slow, but virals—”
“Won’t work on you. Your chimeric immune system will smother them the way you’d step on an insect. It’s half of the reason you function and the others all died.”
“There has to be something. I only need twenty-four hours.”
“There is something, but you must have it now and it will drop you in your tracks for eight to ten hours.”
“I haven’t that much time.”
“You’ll take it anyhow,” she said. She stepped in front of Matheson and slapped the odd little pad against the inspector’s neck even as he raised a too-slow hand to stop her.
“What—what have you done?” Dillal asked, his gaze unfocused and his frown lopsided as he tried to pull the patch off his skin.
Andreus blocked Matheson’s instinctive move toward Dillal as she replied, “Remember when I said the surgeon doesn’t get to choose who lives and who dies? Well, this time I do. Good night, Inspector.”
Dillal might have done something, but as he started to lean away from the work table, the last of the color drained from his face and he collapsed as if the sinews of his joints had all been cut at once.
Matheson stared. The inspector had fallen face down. The hand he’d raised to his neck was bent at an awkward angle and the spill of his too-large suit over his limp form made him look small and vulnerable. The sense of fragility disturbed Matheson, yet relief loosened his muscles and he took his first normal breath in minutes. So, we go from here. He turned to the doctor.
Andreus gave him a wary stare. “I’m sorry about your case, but I won’t let him destroy himself.”
Matheson gave a small, tired laugh. “I’m no threat to that plan.”
“I can tell—you look pretty rough, too.”
“Not enough sleep.”
“Do I have to put you out, as well?”
Matheson shook his head. “I’d just dream things I’d rather not. And someone has to look out for him, don’t they?”
She cast a shrewd, seeking glance over him. “For now.” Then she grabbed an injector from her kit and crouched down beside Dillal. It took two injectors and some swearing on her part to manage her plan. The inspector lay dead still the whole time.
“I hate to tell you,” Matheson said, watching, “but you’re going to have to find some way to get him back on his feet in five or six hours or this whole thing will fall apart. If he’s not the one to close the case, it won’t matter that he lived through it because Pritchet won’t consider that a win for your project.”
“Pritchet can jump for all I care,” she said, getting back to her feet.
“But you do care or you wouldn’t be trying to save Dillal.”
“He’s an arrogant pain in my ass.”
“Yeah, I had guessed you’re not best friends. But he’s functional and he’s all you’ve got. You need him alive to keep the project going, but to prove the project is viable, he has to be the one to solve this case—for which there’s a very narrow time window before it’s all moot. Ergo, you have to get him back on his feet and able to close this investigation—or at least appear to—in five hours.”
Andreus glared at him. “You may be too smart for your own good, Eric Matheson.”
“I’ve heard that before. What can you do?”
“He’s got the drugs in his system, now. I can’t change them—and I wouldn’t. They’ll do the job, but they run the body’s systems down pretty hard in the initial uptake phase. He should be in a hospital bed with an IV and a monitor, but I don’t think you’re going to let me do that . . . are you?”
“Me? I’ve got nothing to do with it. This game of Flinch is between you two and Director Pritchet.”
“What utter crap. You have as much to lose in your way as we do. So long as Dillal’s in control and you’re his second, your star is rising. Soon as he’s down, so are you.”
Matheson took Dillal’s stool and sat, feeling so worn down he thought he’d fall. He glanced at the man on the floor and blew out a long breath. “That’s not entirely true, but I want to see this right.” He looked at her. “So what can we do?”
She frowned and put her hip against the edge of the desk as she faced him. Night glow and sign light sparked colors in her pale hair and coursed down her face like psychedelic rain. “We? Suddenly you’re in this.”
“I’ve been in it since I checked him out of the hospital six days ago. He’s impossible—you’re right—demanding, arrogant, all that. But he’s what we have, and I—I actually kind of like the crazy bastard. I want to nail the lying, murdering piece of shit who caused this, and keep on trying . . .”
Andreus rolled her eyes. “You really are two of a kind. Okay.” She looked around as if making mental note of all physical assets—which weren’t many in Dillal’s’ office. “There’s got to be a cot or a gurney somewhere in ForTech. Go find it and bring it in here.”
Matheson darted off to scavenge, and found a serviceable folding cot in the back of ForTech’s dressing room. He dragged it to the inspector’s office and helped Andreus lift Dillal onto it.
“He’s heavier than he looks,” he muttered.
“They all are.”
“All of who?”
“Ohba and Dreihleen—super-dense muscle tissue and some interesting structural changes with it. The Ohba also have increased motor nerve density and blood supply so they can use the big muscle mass efficiently. In this one’s case, he’s built like a Dreihle with the Ohba nervous system so he’s quick as a damned snake,” she said, dropping Dillal onto the cot face up, “but he’s got less stamina.”
“So I could run him into the ground in a distance race, but he’ll always beat me in a sprint.”
“Probably.”
They both looked down at Dillal. The shifting, colored light through the office window cast strange shadows and shapes over him. Unconscious, the inspector took slow breaths that each seemed to go on far longer than they should have. Matheson found himself watching . . .
“Almost mesmerizing, isn’t it?” Andreus said, passing her hand over Dillal’s forehead. “Drugs are kicking in,” she muttered, more to herself than Matheson.
“You think they’re going to work?”
“They should.” She went to the desk and took her mobile from her kit. “That chimeric system’s been a bitch to figure out, but it’s the reason he’s functional. Let’s just hope it functions as I think.”
Matheson tumbled the word around. “Chimeric . . . chimera . . . That’s some kind of hybrid organism, isn’t
it?”
Andreus frowned at him. “Not really, but most people don’t even guess that close.” She peered at him through the colored gloom and started to pick up one of her instruments. “You have blue eyes . . .”
He caught her wrist. “Yes, I know they’re rare. My family’s been improving on nature for a few generations, so I’ve heard a little about genetics. But I’m not interested in me. Tell me about him.” He let her go and she drew back.
“He’s a patient—I’ve already told you too much.”
“I’m helping you save his life. It would be useful to know why he’s so special.”
The doctor thought about it a while and gave a bad-tempered sigh. “All right,” she said, settling herself solidly against the desk. “Broadly speaking, a chimera is a single organism with two or more discrete DNA profiles—in his case it’s three—so, genetically speaking, he is his own siblings. The chimeric immunological tolerance, coupled with the way the genes differentiated, got around the lethal incompatibilities of certain gene combinations in Gattian races. It also did a few . . . unusual things to his brain physiology that enable him to run the system without being swamped by it or rejecting it. But even beyond that, he’s adapted and improved on my design—from the inside. That’s one reason among many that I can’t afford to lose him—he’s solving the system’s problems every minute he’s alive and he’s the only one there is. If he fails, the protocol demands deintegration.”
“Deintegration?”
Andreus nodded, looking frustrated. “Remove all the non-organic modules—salvage them for another try. There is no safe way to remove them right now—not in his state or anything like it. But that’s the protocol I had to agree to.”
Mother of stars . . . “You’d have to kill him. To retrieve your machines.” Matheson felt sick.
“That’s how it would go.” She glanced down at the inspector again. She looked as if she’d swallowed water poppy seeds. “I had five others before him. They all died on their own. As bad as he is right now, he’s still not going to go easily, and there won’t be another like him unless I just get lucky again.”
“Lucky?” Matheson recoiled.
“Yes,” she snapped. “I didn’t realize what I needed—it was pure luck that he volunteered. I could find a geneticist to do the work of creating others like him, but there’s no guarantee they’d have the brain physiology that allows him to dedicate continuous unconscious processes to controlling and using the system while the rest of his mind performs all the normal functions—along with those inscrutable mental gymnastics of his. In all the other cases, either the system failed to integrate, or it became invasive and took over. It killed them—every one. Not him. I need to study him.” Andreus said.
Her gaze darted from point to point as she seemed to be talking to herself and Matheson drew farther from her as she went on. “That brain physiology . . . and the mechanism of organ rejection’s drastically different in chimeras. But the side effect of his adaptation is an otherwise super-aggressive immune system—that’s something to do with how he works in the system. And that’s why virals won’t work. The tailored drugs do, but they’re slow and they beat the crap out of that immune system, so he sleeps—” She raised her eyes to the ceiling and began tapping her fingers against the work table in a rapid tattoo for most of a minute. “Wait . . . I do have something I can try, but I’ll have to go back to the hospital for it.”
She glared at Matheson. “Watch him.” Then she scooped up her kit and rushed away, leaving Matheson alone with Dillal, who didn’t stir except to breathe his long, slow breaths.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Day 7: Tuesday—Dawn
The reception area outside Pritchet’s office teemed with sleekly groomed media sharks even this early. Matheson backed almost away at the thought of being recognized, but he couldn’t. He’d washed up, managed to get a clean uniform—which seemed to fit looser than it should—from supplies, and hoped the regional director had really meant “right now” in his reply to Matheson’s request, and not “when I can be bothered.”
The receptionist was male, Gattian, and unrealistically perfect. He turned up a lazy, knowing smile on the group encroaching on his desk, and caught Matheson’s eye, making the tiniest of gestures to send him down the hall without pause or diversion. Matheson took the opening and darted for the goldwood doors before the crowd could turn and catch him. The door gave way before him and he slipped into the office.
Pritchet was taller but Matheson didn’t give him the opportunity to loom. He managed a decent salute—he hadn’t bothered with one in nearly a week—and closed the distance to the desk as the director was still rising to his feet. With the rain-drenched dawn light behind him, Pritchet looked like a thing of stone and shadow.
“Sir—” Matheson began.
“What in the Blackness are you two doing? Where’s Dillal?”
Matheson banished his comfortable self, and reached for the things he’d tried to throw away—the privileged, unflappable certitude of being a Matheson. Not just Eric. Eric Matheson. His voice came low and calm, almost lazy. “He’s unconscious, sir.”
Pritchet appeared ready to spit. “This is hardly the time to take a nap!”
“He’s not asleep. Dr. Andreus put him under for medical reasons.”
“What? Why? That woman—”
“He hasn’t slept in at least forty-eight hours and I suspect more. If you’d prefer him dead or insane before the end of the day, then, by all means, tell her to wake him up.”
Have I just cut my throat . . . ? I need you on my side, Pritchet. Right now.
The director drew his head back slowly and looked down his nose, studying Matheson from his greater height—he was about fifteen centimeters taller and he used it to his advantage. Or would have with anyone else. Matheson was unimpressed and knew it showed.
Pritchet lowered his head a bit and narrowed his eyes. “You’re . . . Matheson, right? Any relation to Park—”
“He’s my father,” Matheson answered. “But that’s not relevant here.”
“Everything is relevant. You and Dillal have put me in a hell of a spot. I assume that media leak about the situation came from you.”
Now they were back where Matheson wanted to be and he made a dismissive shrug. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.”
Pritchet laughed—it wasn’t a reassuring sound. “I’ll allow for deniability. But I’m displeased with the attention Central System is turning on us right now.”
“It’s better than the alternative. And it will go away as soon as this case is closed and everything looks normal to Central’s investigators. From my experience, they aren’t particularly tenacious.” A bigger lie he didn’t think he’d ever told—Central’s oversight investigators were the continual bane of Callista’s machinations. He had no personal experience, but he didn’t mind implying that he’d been in the thick of the family business since he’d picked up his first mobile, and he would wield that connection to his advantage. “We can close this today, if you let us. We have one of the two surviving perpetrators in custody and have identified the remaining subject at large. When we receive confirmation, we’ll know exactly where he is, and Dillal and I can take him. I need a few hours, and then it’s over.”
“You need a few hours? You and your whip—you seem to think I can change the course of time.”
“No. But I know you can push Corporation House to hold off on any ill-advised moves—”
“Not as well as you think,” Pritchet snapped. “There are troops inbound. I can’t stop them.”
Cold fear squeezed on Matheson’s heart, but he just raised inquiring eyebrows.
“Corporation House and the GISA board are less afraid of the media than they are of this situation getting out of hand. Dreihleen murders, Ohba violence . . .”
“There hasn’t been any violence in the Ohbata.”
“But there’s a connection to your case—one I’ve already discusse
d with Dillal. And now this corruption rumor just gives the corporation cause to bring the heavy artillery into play and claim it’s for the sake of neutrality—cutting GISA out of the action. You tied my damned hands!”
Is this distant, chilly terror and determination what Dillal feels all the time? Matheson found it exhausting, but pushed on with his facade in place. “I came to untie them. We’ve determined that there were only three perpetrators. We have one dead, one in custody, and one at large. We’ll take that final subject down in a few hours. There’s no connection to the Ohbata—the guns and ammunition came through another source, regardless of any spurious rumors. We have physical and forensic evidence, statements, witnesses, and we have a perpetrator willing to cooperate in exchange for lenience. We have a complete case.”
“But you don’t have the final perp! And I can’t push back on the corporation with words made of smoke. Who do you have? Who are you after? Where is he or she? What’s to stop them leaving the planet on the next jump-bound transport? Give me that and I’ll give you the day—I can’t guarantee more—maybe not even that much. The damage may be too great already.”
“The perpetrators were all Dreihleen, as were all the victims. Simply a crime of opportunity gone wrong.”
“That’s too vague. You have two prisoners in holding.”
“Yes, but they’re at risk if they’re moved.”
“They won’t be. Tell me why they’re important—the names mean nothing to me.”
Matheson breathed slowly through his anxiety, giving Pritchet a thoughtful look as if he were evaluating the director’s ability to use the information reasonably. Pritchet scowled back and Matheson smiled a little before he said, “There’s a Dreihle boy named Zanesh Farrazee—he was a witness to the planning meetings and he was illegally detained at Camp Ejeirie to keep him from talking to us.”
“But that means there is an ofiçe in the mix.”
Matheson rendered an insouciant shrug. “Yes, but corruption is not the core of the case and it’s not whetting the corporation’s appetite—it’s holding them back. As much as we don’t like it, the source here needs to be protected until the case is officially handed off to prosecution. That crooked ofiçe is your shield and scapegoat until then.”
Blood Orbit_A Gattis File Novel Page 40
