Latency

by Blaze Ward

  In the distance, he could see Carl and his infamous pastry stand, out in the middle where a cold breeze had nothing to block it. That man had the Common pretty much to himself today, which was how Carl liked it.

  Greyson was headed the other way, Rachel walking beside him like a pit bull someone had forgotten to leash. He didn’t mind her being a little protective. Just meant that she’d shoot at least as fast as he did if it came to trouble.

  He paused to look at something in a window, using it to see if there were any breaks in the pattern of traffic around them. Nobody seemed to be paying attention, which was good.

  “Bolivian Army hiding?” Rachel asked, glancing at him in the glass reflection.

  “Probably inside in the food court,” he grinned.

  “Remind me to pack a tear gas grenade next time,” she grinned back.

  He shook his head and continued walking. Into the arcade, turn and immediately up the stairs.

  Revolution Books was up here. Liz didn’t believe in overlighting things. Swore all that extra light did bad things to the books and the humans, so the place was partly gloom.

  Walking into a cave was how he occasionally thought of it.

  Liz looked up as they came close.

  “Hiya, Rachel,” she called as the door beeped. “Twenty and Twenty-one came in yesterday.”

  “On duty today,” Rachel replied as she followed him to the counter. “Might come by later.”

  Greyson noted that Liz hadn’t said anything to him yet. Just sort of grinned at him.

  Liz was a semi-reformed accountant who had seen the light of day and turned herself into a goth. Too hard edged to be a hippy, but that had probably been the other option for a woman her age, assuming that being born again was going to be too mundane for someone like Liz.

  She was somewhere on the far, soft side of sixty. White hair, white makeup, black lips, and black leather jacket with strange designs and metal spikes on it. She’d had the place for at least the last ten years, occasionally filling in Greyson’s book collection, and then later liquidating it when he downsized after he got booted from the Bureau.

  Minimalism had been his thing since then, in spite of being employed again and getting a raise.

  He didn’t need things in his life.

  Greyson studied the two women.

  “I’m in no hurry,” he told Rachel.

  She was off like a shot into the back of the shop, back to where Liz kept the Romance books, entire walls of those books there, organized alphabetically by sub-genre rather than author. Said it paid off most of her bills every month, just turning that stock over to office drones in the nearby towers looking for a better escape than drudgery and retirement.

  “So I know you haven’t retired yet, like you threatened to again,” Liz began leadingly.

  “Got a good enough offer from the Metropolitan to stay on for a while,” he replied. “Training the kid for the most part, until she’s better than me. Dunno after that.”

  “You could do London when she goes,” Liz offered, reminding Greyson that the two women had bonded over books since last fall.

  That they had an entire cop/informant relationship he didn’t know about. Didn’t want to know about. Didn’t care.

  Why Rachel was reading Cop/Alien erotica in her spare time was not a topic he felt like pursuing, either. As long as everyone involved were portrayed as consenting adults, whatever kinks anyone wanted to work out on paper weren’t his problem.

  Rachel emerged a few seconds later with a pair of oversized paperback books in hand. She set them down on the counter and Greyson confirmed that the lurid, purple spines had 20 and 21 at the bottom.

  He had his classical music and his synth whiskey, who was he to judge?

  Rachel peeled put a sammie, a twenty dollar coin with a salmon on the front, and set it on top of the pile, almost vibrating with excitement.

  Greyson made sure he didn’t pull something, rolling his eyes too hard at the woman.

  Women.

  Liz bagged the books and made change before turning her attention back his way.

  “So what else brings you two lovely citizens to my den?” she asked in an innocent way.

  “Need some words,” Greyson replied.

  Liz laughed before she could catch herself, and chortled as she gestured to the floor-to-ceiling racks of new and used books around them.

  Greyson let himself grin. He actually liked Liz, unlike a lot of the folks he had to talk to.

  “Which words?” she finally managed, still sputtering a little.

  “There was a shooting downtown a few days ago,” he said. “Man with a gun firing bullets.”

  “I heard about that,” Liz replied, her voice dropping a little.

  “I was the one who took the shooter down,” Greyson confirmed the unspoken question in her eyes. “He had a Synth Chip socketed behind his ear.”

  “While he was shooting?” she asked sharply. “How is that possible?”

  “Same thing I want to know,” Greyson said. “Hoping you might know a few people in one of those shadier corners you could introduce me to. Not after them, and don’t give a damn about whatever kinks they hack chips to run. Not today, probably not tomorrow. Right up there with Cop/Alien porn erotica novels. But this chip came from off-planet.”

  “An alien chip for humans?” she gasped. “Why?”

  “This one also didn’t have cutouts in it,” Greyson continued. “According to the initial report from the lab, that apparently was by design, and not accidental. Plus he had a gun, an old Ruger revolver. Something bad is going on and I need to step past a lot of little things to find the big one.”

  He pulled a twenty out as well and slipped it over the counter and onto her keyboard, out of sight of anyone happening to wander in, although Liz had cameras everywhere and wouldn’t be surprised.

  She still had a cover to maintain.

  Her face grew closed in concentration.

  “Let me make a few calls,” she said. “I know a few folks, tangential connections in the entertainment services industry, but they might not want to talk to cops.”

  “Understood,” he replied. “Mostly just looking for background here. Underground circuit of things, because nobody local was involved. Not even as a dupe, because too many things came together for anything less than a conspiracy. Plus, other cops might want to rattle their cages and I’m pretty sure that none of your friends have done anything I care about.”

  “Noted,” she said, smiling, but it was fake. Grim. “I’ll let you know tonight or tomorrow, depending when they get back to me.”

  “Thanks, Liz,” he nodded.

  Rachel had watched silently, but immediately headed for the exit with him, her two new books in a little bag.

  “Now what?” she asked as they got back out into the sunlight and crossed the street onto the Common.

  He walked all the way out to where Carl was serving bad coffee and pastries maybe a day or two past fresh without speaking. She kept up, but Rachel also knew his patterns.

  He got a small coffee and avoided the rest. Carl smiled as he made change.

  Greyson picked a direction at random and walked. Rachel had skipped the nasty sludge Carl brewed, but she also knew better. Greyson wasn’t going to have more than a sip or two before trashing it.

  Nobody turned suddenly as he shifted directions randomly. Maybe that meant nothing. Maybe they already had a sniffer hidden on his Bureau-issued Skycruiser and could just wait for him to drive off.

  “Now, I think I want the afternoon off,” he said finally. “You go do some homework so you can read your new books as a prize later.”

  “Gonna call Emmy?” she grinned.

  “Maybe,” Greyson replied. “She’s a busy woman, so things are usually on her schedule, not mine.”

  “Yeah, but if you suddenly had an afternoon free and needed to let cop-brain ruminate, I’m pretty sure she’d move meetings around so you two could go to a movie and dinner.
And whatever.”

  Greyson shrugged. Rachel Asher had a pretty good understanding of how he worked by now. But Greyson wasn’t all that complicated as a man. At least he didn’t think so.

  Simple needs. Simple life. Hell, simple apartment with most of his old books sold off to collectors by Liz when he downsized and reevaluated everything.

  The question he needed to answer was how much longer he wanted to be a cop. A Hunter. Especially if folks were building up the sorts of elaborate conspiracies that he and Rachel had suggested, with him, Parsons, and maybe Denise as targets.

  Not many people out there hated all three of them equally. He could think of a few.

  One, in particular, but Greyson Leigh wasn’t sure he was angry enough to go do something to the man.

  Not yet, anyway.

  5

  Knock Knock

  Greyson walked to the door and peeked through the eyehole, just to be sure. His jacket was hanging over the one chair, leaving him with the shoulder holster for the nerve scrambler visible and the palmstunner tucked into his belt.

  He’d offered her her own key to the door, as often as she came over to spend the evening or the night, but Emmy refused.

  Said it was his space and he needed to reserve it for just himself.

  Greyson wasn’t sure he understood her logic, but he barely understood the woman and what she saw in him. Still, he undid the locks and opened the door.

  Emelina Aitana Antúnez.

  Tall and dusky. Mexican, originally, before the aliens made national borders a quaint thing, but pureblood Spanish even then going back centuries.

  Brown hair bobbed just long enough to grab hold of in one hand and pull in certain circumstances. Dark eyes that didn’t miss anything. Body that just didn’t stop.

  He had at least a decade on the woman, but she could run men fresh out of boot camp into the ground if she wanted. Had, before he stumbled across her as part of an investigation and apparently caught her eye.

  She had a look like a hunter spying a sprung trap as she crossed the threshold.

  “I told Danzer he could handle everything for the rest of the day,” she said conversationally, stepping close and kissing him without making any other physical contact. “No big deals or contracts that needed to be handled until tomorrow at the earliest.”

  Greyson had met Emmy’s attorney a few times. If he hadn’t already know her, he might have thought the man was a dangerous predator. A shark in shallow waters.

  Danzer was really a remora compared to her.

  He returned the kiss, flipping the door shut as he did.

  Eventually, he leaned back from kissing the woman and took her in.

  Yeah.

  Five feet, nine inches of dancer. The kind that saw the Argentinian Tango as a warm-up for serious dancing. At least he could lead.

  “So I’m not interrupting any major corporate takeovers?” Greyson asked.

  All that, and she was a shark. Fabulously wealthy businesswoman on her ninth start-up, if he had the math right. Four had gone public or been bought outright by major industrial players. Her personal wealth was right at the bottom of the top thousand of humans alive after her last venture had worked out. He didn’t even know what she actually did, except that Emmy found companies other people missed, usually start-ups needing a shot of something.

  She bought them, or bought in. Found them that missing piece. Turned around and sold her stake six or twelve months later, sometimes making back something like one hundred times her original investment.

  On the streets, he would have called her a fixer. Maybe they also did up in the corporate towers where Emmy ruled.

  She stepped past him with a chuckle and Greyson watched her walk. There wasn’t enough light, but it didn’t look like she was wearing anything under that royal blue, A-line sun dress.

  “There are a few out there,” she smiled, turning slowly back to show him her profile, backlit by the kitchenette. “Wounded rabbit sort of thing. Danzer can run them down for now.”

  “That’s good,” Greyson joined her grin, stepping around the luscious woman to the counter, where there was already a pair of glasses next to the synth whiskey bottle.

  He poured as she stepped right up and pressed herself against his back, laying her cheek on his shoulder and wrapping her hands around his stomach.

  “You’re more fun when you’re a cop,” she sighed. “Greyson Leigh was amazing without that badge, but it does something to you. Something arousing.”

  He nodded carefully.

  He was Greyson Leigh. She had not been able to tell otherwise.

  Greyson did laundry religiously, so that the smell of a Phrenic body was never obvious.

  Ethen Boli had killed Greyson last fall. Taken his form and his mind. Maybe his soul.

  A Phrenic used a projection of their victim to imitate them. Like hiding behind a living screen of Greyson Leigh so he could get inside the coming investigation after Ethen had killed Dominguez but been interrupted in his feeding by Rachel Asher.

  Greyson had been too much to handle. Or maybe the cop had offered Ethen a way out of being a serial killer and a fool.

  Still waters ran deep.

  Ethen’s partner Zaborra had shot him—them—there at the end. Killed him. Killed them.

  Should have turned Ethen Boli into a Deathwalker.

  Except that Greyson Leigh had turned around inside their head and looked right at him. Offered to save them both, if Ethen would just let go and let him handle things.

  He was Greyson today. Ethen had retreated and hid, except when Greyson needed to ask him a question.

  Neither of them were certain what a medical scanner would show, but weren’t about to risk finding out.

  Rachel had her suspicions. Greyson was pretty sure on that score.

  Emmy just thought he had been reborn.

  Maybe Greyson had, in a way. Surviving certain death was likely to do that to a middle-aged cop with nothing to lose except this amazing woman leaning her weight on him.

  Except that Emmy weighed nothing at all. Just thinking about her held him up like a helium balloon some days.

  He turned inside her arms with a glass in each hand. Kissed her again because she was warm, and welcoming, and smiled at him.

  “Wanna go see a movie?” he asked innocently.

  She shifted her weight to stand up, snagging the highball glass from his hand with a sly grin. She took a sip.

  “Can we sit in the back row and make out like teenagers?” she asked.

  “Sure,” Greyson grinned back. “Except that you’re dressed all wrong for me to try to slip a hand up your shirt and feel your breasts.”

  “The cotton’s almost as good as bare skin,” she purred. “Maybe better for a little roughness in the right places. And if you put your jacket over me, I might just slip the shoulder straps off.”

  He took a drink with a laugh and then kissed her, relishing the taste of whiskey on his tongue and smell of the flowers on her skin.

  “Surprised you wanted to go anywhere,” she said in an offhand way.

  “Gotta keep you on your toes,” Greyson smiled. “Don’t want to get all stodgy and predictable. You might decide to trade me on a younger model.”

  “You find me anyone as good as you and I might, but you’re pretty safe.”

  “I’ll keep you away from Rachel, then,” Greyson shrugged, slipping loose and dragging her to the couch so they could settle and he could watch Emmy fold her long, brown legs under her like a cat.

  “Your partner like girls?” Emmy asked in a voice that even sounded innocent.

  “I haven’t inquired,” he said simply. “Enough people think we’re fooling around that they make mistakes underestimating me. Us.”

  “And you’re not?” she asked. It was an innocent question, rather than a jealous one.

  He had no claim on her, beyond what time she could carve out from corporate takeovers and board meetings. He was a cop who kept bizarre hou
rs.

  “Too many cops end up fooling around when they have a pretty woman as a partner,” Greyson replied. “Human nature, as that might be the only person that they see who understands the job. The stress. I was never home enough to be married when I was in the army or later. I keep Rachel at arm’s length. Not my type.”

  “Really?” Emmy asked. “What’s not to like? Maybe she’s a little short, but she’s got better muscles than even I do. Smart as a whip. Lethal, too. Even a similar skin color and hair. Maybe her family are three generations removed from Puerto Rico, but still.”

  “I need to keep my life in compartments,” he said, turning so she could see the truth in his eyes. “Cop things. Music things. Personal things.”

  “And I’m a personal thing?” she asked with a lascivious grin on her bright red lips.

  “About as personal as it gets, Emmy,” he replied. “You remind me what it’s like to be human, when I get too deep into the Bureau. You pull me back when I start to drift out to sea.”

  He paused to take a drink of the whiskey, wondering why he was baring his soul to this woman today. Except that it was Emmy. She knew most of what there was to know about Greyson Leigh.

  Nothing of Ethen Boli, but that was for the best.

  “I’m on a new case,” he admitted when she just sat and sipped, watching him like a predator.

  “The shooting?” she asked, showing that she’d been following the news. And had her own channels for information, since his name hadn’t been attached to it and he hadn’t seen her in a week.

  “It was a setup,” Greyson nodded. “Perp with an illegal firearm. Alien Synth Chip that had been hacked to override its programming and the human wearing it. And my picture in his pocket.”

  “Oh, shit,” she gasped, suddenly, finally looking less like a corporate titan and more like a concerned woman.

  That was why he could carve out time for Emmy. She could make that transition. Not many people could.

  Greyson took another sip and nodded.

  “Rachel thinks that whoever it is has set something in motion to take down me, Parsons, and even Upkins.”