Irreconcilable Differences, page 18
Kurt beams. “Totally snap,” he says.
Take a slow breath, and savor this small victory. It feels good totally out of proportion.
Chapter 24
Midnight. Getting tired. We're both getting tired of waking up in the bathroom. Micki's sore everywhere. Arms. Legs. Back. “Nggggg,” she complains.
“Yeah. Should have warned you about that. There's a price to pay for changing muscle contraction sequences. Your muscles don't like it much, especially at first. You need a lot of sleep when you use it.”
“Now she tells me.”
“Would you not have done it?”
“Hell no,” Micki smiles a little. Then sobers. “When you're gone … um. When you're gone, will I still be able to do all this stuff?”
“Oh, yeah. And a lot more. Like I said, all these neurofibers that are busy being me become part of your brain. It's … intense. You really do get a brain boost out of the deal. And neuro-wires, state-of-the-art jack, easy interfacing with small-arms. All of it.”
We head back to her room and get dressed. “Yeah, but it's not free. Is it?”
“Nope. Not free.”
“So how am I supposed to enjoy it, then?” she asks as she pulls on her bra, and arranges herself in the cups.
“Sometimes you have to make deals like that to stay alive, Mick. Only advice I can give you is, if you're making a deal with the devil, don't sell cheap.”
“Voice of experience again?”
“Yup.”
“Doesn't seem very heroic,” she says.
Shake her head for her. “I pushed hard. I got things done. I sacrificed. Heroic? No. They don't pay me for that. Maybe that doesn't exist in the real world, I don't know. Doesn't exist in my world, anyway.”
“You're a real downer tonight,” she says.
“We're tired. It affects me as much as it does you, Micki. But I'm sorry. For what it's worth.”
Micki pulls on her tank top and sprays herself with bug repellant. “So, how do you go on? How do I? I mean … if everything's compromised like that, why bother?”
“Working for the U.N. isn't so bad. They'll probably put you to work chasing hackers. Same game. Different side. Higher stakes. Tougher challenges. Cooler gear. Pay's better too. Not great, but better.”
Micki looks down. “So I might wind up tracking down Sparks and Nate. And Ed and Kari, you're saying.”
I promised I'd be honest with her. “Mick, we talked about this. They're already tracked down. They're going to have to make their own deals if they want to stay out of prison.” At best.
“Fuck. They'd have been right to shoot me.”
“Mick. Nate was the one who sold you out, remember?”
“Do you think he's working for Director Neil?”
“I don't know exactly. I doubt it's that direct. It's safer when you do things by proxy. But there's certainly a flow of information between Nate and Robert. But at the same time, if he had Nate under control, he wouldn't need me. The 785s shouldn't even have been a blip on Robert's radar, but he went after you like a sidewinder.”
“A rattlesnake?”
“Heat-seeking missile. Old tech. Sorry.”
“He said we were in the trace his intercept ops picked up.”
“I'm sure you were. But so was the rest of KanREN. They had to filter for you specifically.”
“What about the trace virus from the bank?”
“You run virus scanners and outbound traffic monitor ice, right?”
Micki rolls her eyes as we climb out the window. “Duh.”
“Did you detect any tracking virus?”
“No.”
“Did you detect one when you cleaned out your deck?”
“I didn't look. Just erased everything and reloaded.”
“There may not have been one. When you're interrogating someone, you don't have to be honest about it. You can make up whatever evidence you want to convince the person they have to deal. Classic police technique.”
“But you said…”
“That's only if you make deals. They had your deck, Micki. They probably generated that data, going through your own logs.”
“Without a warrant?”
“They only need a warrant if they're going to introduce something in court. Otherwise, for Covert, at least, it doesn't matter. Why do you think they didn't formally arrest you?”
“Fuck.”
“Covert plays dirty. That's our job. The Bureau has to play strictly by the book. They wouldn't have even arrested you.”
“Do they have a purpose other than screwing random people?” she snaps.
“Actually, yeah. Every company's got their own cadre of corporate security people, and they've gotten awfully good at playing the system to their advantage. Covert operates in the black to stop these corporate guys from … taking over the world, basically. You know how bad it can be when U.N. troops have to put down corporate security armies. You were here when it happened. I was overseas.”
“So you're the watchers. Who watches you?” Smart girl, Micki.
“The Bureau steps on us if we get too far out of line. We step on them if we find patterns of corruption in their organization. And both sides are responsible to the Secretary. The directors of both services report to him. Or her. It was a him when I was copied.”
“So this secretary knows all the slimy shit Covert does.”
“Not really. At most, he gives an order, “Investigate company foo.” How it gets done, by whom, what rules get bent aren't his concern, as long as the job gets done. Now, if someone gets seriously out of line and it gets brought to his attention, he may have to take action. Especially if it hits the media.”
“So…”
Yeah, that's where it sounded like she was going with this. “Don't even think it,” I tell her. “Robert's a savvy player. You might get him yelled at for the rules he's bent, but if you go to the secretary or the press about all this, you can bet money you'll get tried in TexMex. Actually that's probably the best you could hope for. As long as he's got that over your head, he pretty much owns you.”
Micki gets on her bicycle and pedals out onto the road. “So the deal I signed…”
“Was a formality, really. It also covers his ass if he gets caught putting hardware in certain underage girls.”
“If I went to the RCMP though…”
“Again, you could probably get him yelled at, yeah. And then he'd point out that you're carrying a million dollars worth of classified hardware, and probably someone would make a deal. But even if Canada stuck to its guns, it would take years to resolve, and your whole future would be in the hands of politicians. Even then, you'd never get a decent job. No security clearance.”
“You guys suck.”
“I'm sorry, Mick. This is what you signed up for. I'm just telling you how it is.”
She pedals quietly for a while, then adds, “Sounds like you thought all this through once already.”
“Y'know, one day I'll stop underestimating your smarts, Mick.”
“So … what's he got on you that's so bad?”
Pull back from her as much as I can. Which isn't much. Still feel her hands on the handlebars. Still watch the road. “Please don't ask me that, Micki. Please.”
“Does this have anything to do with the Yankees?”
Shit. She can't know. I haven't given her that. Please, let me not have given her that. “Um. Mick. You promised me you'd back away from really secret stuff if I was honest with you. All I can tell you is it's bad, and I really doubt it has anything to do with this mission.”
“Sorry.”
She's quiet a while. All I want to do is wrap my arms around myself, sit in the dark, and watch the corn and the quiet go by, but on some level I remember that this will make bicycling difficult for Micki. I miss having my own body. I don't even remember what it feels like anymore, but I miss not having to share. God, I need to get this op over with. No. Not just over with. I need to succeed. It changes the mission parameters a little.
“If it's so bad, why did you tell Neil? You knew how he is,” she finally asks.
I don't answer her. Not for a long time as she pedals.
“Rae? You still in there?”
“Where would I go?”
“You didn't answer my question.”
I sigh at her. “Micki, I did something horrible, okay? It was a long time ago … but it's one of those things that doesn't go away. One of those things you can't undo. And that kind of thing … gnaws at you. It got to the point where I had to tell someone. And I loved Robert. I trusted him with the knowledge.”
“So what happened?”
I miss being able to gesture. I'm starting to realize that I am … I was one of these people who talks with her hands. All I want to do is shake my head. But I can't. “I know you won't believe this, Mick. I know … it hasn't been your experience with the man. But Robert is a human being. The relationship just died. He knew it. I knew it. We hadn't … made love in over a year. The basic caring was gone. I pointed out to him at one point that we're both killers, basically, and staying in a relationship where neither of us was happy pretty much had to end badly for someone.”
“What'd he say?”
“Have you ever seen someone laugh, but their eyes aren't laughing, or even smiling?”
Micki nods. “Kari sometimes does that. I just figured it was because she's nuts.”
“That's what he did. Then … he just got quiet. He said, ‘If you want a divorce, you know what to do.’ And that was that. I don't know what he thought I'd do next. Truth is, I didn't do anything for four months. I was going to serve him papers the night I was copied.”
“He was unemotional like that?” she asks.
“Hidden like that, at least. I never saw the man cry the whole time we were married.”
“That sucks.”
“For all concerned, Mick. Believe me. People always thought we made a good couple, you know? A lot alike.”
“So when did you grow all this humanity?”
“Must be your bad influence on me, Micki.”
She chuckles at that.
We meet them at Highway 81. Nate is driving the Winnebago. Kari hauls Micki's bike up the stairs and shoves it into the back next to the bed while Micki climbs aboard. She looks at Micki carefully, black eyes focusing close. I wonder what she's seeing. “You okay, sweetie?” Kari asks. “You look like crap.”
Micki eyes Kari. “Thanks. Nice to see you too. Least you and your brother are dressed this time.”
Kari laughs gently. “Don't be like that, Micki. Nate and Carl were just goofing around. You know. Boys and their toys.”
“Yeah?” Micki looks at Kari's eyes.
“Mmhm.”
“Only you and Ed were the toys.”
Kari laughs. “Well, yeah. But that's me, you know? Tool, toy, weapon. None of them are good or evil by themselves. It's what you do with them.” She pauses, as though about to add something more, then changes tack. “Hey. You got your hair cut.”
“Yesterday, Kari.” Micki says.
Kari sighs, and tilts her head a little. “Things were a little busy yesterday, Mick. I'm sorry. I didn't notice. It looks really nice.”
“Hey, enough with the girl talk. Let's get this show on the road,” Sparks says.
Micki walks over to sit at the table next to Kari. She buckles herself in, and the Winnebago lurches into motion.
Kari ruffles Micki's hair. “Yup. Still works.” She grins at that. I watch. The smile reaches her eyes.
There is, of course, the matter of where the Sargents fit in to all this. Me. Nate. Big player. Sargents. Connection between Nate and the big player. Connection between Nate and Robert. Connection between me and Robert. And somehow it all fits together. Frustrating.
“Where're we headed?” Micki asks.
“Dunno if you heard, but the little war we started burned itself out this afternoon,” Sparks says.
“Who won?” Micki asks.
“Reapers. They must have been seriously souped up somewhere along the way. They took the Bizmen all the way down, and chewed up FBOF so bad that FBOF called the cops. Cops beat on the Reapers some, and there were some arrests. Time all was said and done, the Reapers had thirty-nine dead. Eighteen DOAs and another twenty-one so badly fucked up they got euthanized when they got to the hospital. Well, you know, too badly fucked up to pay for, at least. And those are just the ones on the public record.”
Micki shivers, and I remember the dream of the injection in her neck. Brain death is more or less instantaneous.
“How many left, do you think?” Micki asks.
“Nobody really knows. The Reapers were always pretty cagey with their numbers. Figure if their maximum strength was more than about fifty, their payroll would add up to more than the golden limit, and the RCMP would have come down on them. And that's assuming they only paid those guys twenty-k a year. Can't live on that. Now, if they were working with someone else, that might all change.”
“Thinking they're getting someone outside backing them?” Micki snorts.
“The Bizmen and FBOF were tough customers. They might.”
“Did they turn up with a health plan?” I ask that one. I think. I'm so tired it's hard to tell.
“Nope,” Sparks says. “No health plan, no service contracts. Story I got was one guy walked out of the hospital with a traumatic amputation below the elbow. Hospital security dragged him back. He owed for the ambulance ride.”
“Jesus,” Micki says. “If they're getting backing, they're getting screwed.”
Kari slips an arm around Micki's waist. “Life in the new world,” she says, a little sadly.
Micki looks at Kari. “You don't have one either?”
Kari shakes her head.
Micki gently curls her arm around the tech-ninja's, and laces her fingers among Kari's.
Kari shrugs and smiles. “Hey. Better to burn out than fade away, anyway, right? ‘Sides. Canadian law says they can't euthanize you without a court order. You're underage.”
Micki looks at Kari again. “That's supposed to make me feel better?”
Kari laughs and tickles Micki's bellybutton with her free hand. “Oooo, I think Hottywire cares or something.”
Micki squirms away from Kari as much as her seatbelt permits. “Yeeek!” she giggles. I squirm too. Micki's devastatingly ticklish. Joy.
Kari grins impishly at Micki.
Sparks rolls his eyes. “Get a room, you guys.”
Micki gives Sparks a big, fat raspberry.
“Put that away if you're not going to use it,” he quips, almost automatically. Old banter, sounds like.
Micki rolls her eyes. “Okay. What's the plan?”
“Real simple. We go poke the Reapers again, and see what's left. If they're still strong at all, we go slap FBOF again, then kick a few more hornet's nests on the Reapers' behalf.”
Micki looks down. “And if they're not?”
“We get rid of the Reapers ourselves. Take over their ops and sell most of them off to other gangs. Cheaper'n fighting, and we're not big enough to run their whole operation. We use the cash to get some upgrades. Hire some more people.” Sparks looks at Kari, then Micki. “And a service plan, if there's enough. I don't wanna check out with a needle in my neck either, you know?”
“This comes from you, or Blackjack?” Micki asks.
Sparks nods toward the front of the Winnebago. “Him, mostly.”
“And his big player?”
Nate speaks up. “Yeah. That's what he wants, too. We move up in the food chain. Pretty much like you wanted, Micki. You don't like it, there's the door. We might even stop first.”
“Kiss my ass, Nate. I was just asking. Just tired of being in the dark all the time, and having to make all this up myself, you know?”
Nate chuckles, but it's a humorless, forced sound. “Wouldn't touch your ass, Micki. I've seen the kind of company you keep.” Well. I'm insulted.
But Micki just shrugs. “Your loss,” she says. “It's a classic.”
Kari snickers, and slowly raises her hand to flip Nate off with deliberate elegance. She holds it high enough that Nate can see it in his rear-view mirror.
Ed looks over his shoulder. There's something in the man's eye, something in the slack, but enthusiastic expression, and in the body language that reminds me of a guard dog I knew once. The kind of look that says, ‘Can I hurt him? Please? Oh please? Just a little?’ That kind of enthusiasm.
Kari shakes her head slightly, but doesn't say anything. Ed turns back around and slumps in the seat.
Micki shrugs. But she asks me in the gestalt. “Is this what we're supposed to do?”
“Yeah,” I tell her. “Remember, I told our contact that was the plan.”
“But if the player is Neil, or someone he's working with, that doesn't make any fucking sense.”
I have to stop and think about that. “So much for that theory, I guess. Covert's pretty good about not chasing its own tail.”
“So … what then?”
I have to shrug at her. Bad habit, I guess. She gave it to me. Or I might have given it to her, I don't know. “We see what happens, I guess. But.”
“But what?”
“Be careful. Live-bait ops are very, very dangerous.”
“Said the fisherman to the worm,” Micki grumps.
Chapter 25
It's almost comfortable being this close to Micki. Feeling her thoughts run through me. I have to work to keep the link one way. Gestalts. Sparks. The usual concerns.
“You in?” Sparks says in the gestalt.
“I'm in,” Micki answers.
“Then let's go see what we can see.”
Micki jumps to Leo's Tool and Machine. Checks the status of our fiber. “There 'tis. Doesn't look like anyone's noticed it.”
“Well, there's luck. Or the Reapers have been too busy dying to check it out,” he says.
Micki stiffens. I think it comes from me. I'm not sure why. I try to let the thought “Careful,” slip into Micki's mind.
“Well, be careful,” she says, automatically. “Something's giving me the willies about this.”
