T2, page 7
“I’m about to call a possible recruit named Watcher,” he said regretfully. “I think she might be useful. Can I talk to you later about this?”
Dieter nodded cheerfully. “Yes,” he agreed. “We have much to talk about.”
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
Wendy brushed back her smooth dark red hair and eyed the phone lying on the table before her, willing it to ring, as she took a sip of the cooling coffee. Her eyes swept the almost empty confines of the shabby café, with its bored waitress and long-dead pastries behind filmy glass; she felt nervous, wary . . . and a bit excited, she admitted to herself.
Perhaps this secret watchdog group could help. Perhaps they were part of the problem and were onto her and just trying to find out what she knew before they—
Wow, she thought sardonically, great plot line, there. Maybe I should take a course in screenwriting. Zzzzzt! Cue the black helicopter!
Real life didn’t have a plot. It just bumbled aimlessly on its way, unless you directed it by sheer force of will. Which was harder to do than to say, she knew. She’d seen that in her father’s life. When he was her age he’d been an ardent activist, fighting against the war in Vietnam, fighting for civil rights.
Now he ran a moderately successful insurance business, just like his dad had done. And as far as Wendy could tell, he had no idea how he’d gotten from firebrand to burnout. She saw herself at his age, complacently middle class, being careful not to rock the boat too hard.
Did middle age bring about a failure of will, or did you just have more to lose? I guess, she thought, that you always have a lot to lose, it just seems less important when you’re young. So I guess it’s better that you’re inclined to fight the good fight when you’re young and don’t have a lot of commitments. Yeah, commitments, that’s the glue that slows you down, and when it sets, well, your life’s over, I guess.
Wendy lifted a brow. Maybe this wasn’t the best attitude to assume when she was about to meet AM. Or anyone else for that matter.
She tapped the cell phone on the table before her. It belonged to the house mother, a really nice woman who left it all over the place, so it wouldn’t be missed. Everyone “borrowed” it, then returned it with a cheerful “Were you looking for this?” She glanced at her watch. It was four; AM should—
The phone rang.
She bit her lip and stared at it. Just before the third ring she picked it up. “Yeah?” she said.
“Watcher?”
It was a young voice; the youth of it hit her before the fact that it was also a male voice. “How old are you?” she demanded.
There was a long-drawn-out sigh. “I get a lot of that,” he said dryly. “Not as young as I sound, I know that for sure.” Damn! he thought. “Does it matter?”
“Ye-ah! Why would I want to get involved in someone’s high-school project? Look, kid—”
“I found you, didn’t I?” John asked, letting his voice get hard. “It took about a minute.”
“Oh, no it didn’t,” Wendy snapped back. She’d worked very hard obscuring her trail, no way some kid could find it in less than an hour.
“Wendy, if I’d known you were going to be so judgmental about my voice, I would have had you speak to one of my associates. If this is an issue for you I can hang up now. It’s up to you.”
Associates, she thought. The kid has associates. Well, that was intriguing. Besides, though he sounded young he sure didn’t come across as a kid. Still . . .
“Look, this was supposed to be a get-acquainted conversation,” she said at last. “So why don’t you tell me something about yourself and, uh, your organization, I guess.”
“We’re not exactly an organization,” John explained, relaxing a little. “We don’t have a central location, for example. Our associates are spread all over the world, all over the Net—”
“Do you have a central address where their reports can be accessed,” Wendy interrupted. “I mean I assume that you’re collecting information for a reason, which means that you interpret what you collect. Presumably you allow your contributors to assist in that.”
“Actually . . . ” John thought for a moment. How to put this? “Evaluating the kind of information we’re going after isn’t something a person can just walk in and do. You need training.”
“So, train me.” Wendy tapped a fingernail on the Formica table. “That’s my price ’cause I don’t work for free, and I refuse to work blind.”
John raised his eyebrows at that. He didn’t need a loose cannon on board. “You’re not even hired yet and you want a seat on the board,” he protested with a light laugh.
“Look, why did you even want to talk to me if you don’t think I’m worth investing time in?” She was beginning to get annoyed. Speaking of time, this is a waste of it.
“It was obvious that you’re very smart,” John said. “Also that you might be so bored you didn’t realize you were killing time in a very dangerous way. A lot of you computer jockeys think that what you’re doing on-line isn’t real and doesn’t count. You think you’re perfectly safe behind your keyboards and monitors, but let me tell you, Wendy, if you kick the tiger hard enough it will find you and it won’t be friendly. Those are real fanatics you were talking to.”
He paused and ran a hand through his dark hair. “I wanted to take your intelligence and talent and direct it into a useful channel. I’d like you to be safe, lady. You’re at MIT, for God’s sake! To the Luddite movement that’s like ground zero, and you think they couldn’t find you. You’re kidding yourself.”
Hunh, Wendy thought, the kid’s really passionate about this. She knew she was suppressing the unease his words had awakened in her. Perhaps she had been foolish. Careless? Well, unwise, maybe.
“So what do you want from me?” she asked quietly.
“I want you to keep your eyes and ears open and to report to us anything you find out that might be useful. Useful being defined as something that will prevent harm from being done. I really don’t care which camp is generating the damage. Are you interested?”
Wendy thought about it. Was she interested? I dunno, this all sounds kinda weird. A kid gathering information for some undisclosed reason and passing out dire warnings? I don’t think I want to get involved. It wasn’t like she didn’t have enough to do with her time, after all.
“Sure,” she heard herself say. Then laughed at how she’d surprised herself.
“What?” John asked.
“Sure, whatever,” Wendy said. “I guess I’m game. Tell me what you want and I’ll try to get it for you.” It wasn’t like she was joining the army or something.
So John told her what he was looking for, gave her a few Internet addresses he wanted her to check into and a few general guidelines. When he was finished he hesitated.
“What?” she said.
“You might like to recruit some friends to help you out,” he suggested. “People you can trust.”
Wendy sighed. “Well, I’d like to think I’m unlikely to recruit people I don’t trust.”
John winced. “Well, you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I guess. See you on-line, kid.”
He could hear the smile in her voice and pressed his lips together impatiently. This wasn’t a terribly auspicious beginning to their relationship. He’d prefer that his recruits not find him amusing.
Hey, he reminded himself, if she knew the real story she’d run a mile. Screaming.
“Thank you,” he said. “I’ll keep in touch.” He hung up and sighed heavily. I really need to be grown up, he thought. Too bad it wasn’t something you could arrange. I guess I could work on my voice, or maybe get some sort of synthesizer. I feel grown up, I just don’t sound it. Oh, well. For real emergencies there was always Dieter.
PESCADERO STATE HOSPITAL, JANUARY
* * *
Your girlfriend’s back,” Frances said, and laughed, her eyes filled with malicious glee.
Sarah didn’t even have to look up to know that Loretta was indeed in the room; she’d developed a radar about her. Besides, she never stopped sniffling; it was hard to miss. Quite a number of patients had vanished over the holidays, to return one by one. Loretta was among the last to be let out.
One positive note was that Sarah knew she wasn’t simply being paranoid; the other patients had noticed Loretta’s attention and frequently commented on it. Some positive note, Sarah thought. I know I’m sane and I’m constantly looking for ways to back up my opinion. How healthy is that?
Frances licked her lips. “I think she wants to—”
“You’re going to work so hard at distracting me that you’re going to distract yourself,” Sarah warned. “That’s how I won all your blue chips last time.”
Frances pouted, but she shut up. They were playing gin rummy for battered poker chips. The two other players were usually silent, playing the game grimly, as if it were a matter of life and death. But suddenly Allison froze as she picked up a card, becoming so agitated that she actually gurgled instead of speaking. Donna turned with a frown to see what she was staring at and turned back with a little gasp. She began fiddling with her cards nervously, her dark eyes darting left and right. Frances deigned to look and also froze. Then she put down her cards, got up, and walked away. Allison and Donna looked at each other over the table and started to rise.
“Wait a minute,” Sarah said, taking Donna’s wrist. “What’s going on?” She had the uncomfortable feeling that someone was staring at her, someone who meant her no good, but she was damned if she was going to turn around and give Loretta the satisfaction of seeing her unnerved.
“I can’t,” Donna whispered. “I’ve got to . . . she’s not . . . she . . . ” The woman wrenched her hand free and fled, muttering, Allison nervously crowding her wake.
Looking around, Sarah saw that almost everyone was leaving the common room, giving Loretta and the large woman beside her a wide berth. Sarah rose and moved over to Elisa, a small Puerto Rican woman with, she’d been told, a serious death wish.
“What’s going on?” she asked in a whisper.
Elisa tore her eyes away from the woman at the door to look at Sarah. “That’s Tanya,” she said, nodding at the woman. “She’s pretty much crazy.” She grinned when she realized what she’d said. “I mean, out-of-control, watch-your-back insane. She’s so out of it she even uses her teeth—a lot. One of the nurses is still having plastic surgery.”
“Then maybe we should go,” Sarah suggested. If Loretta was escorting such a person into her vicinity, it couldn’t be good.
“No, I hope she notices me,” Elisa said, her eyes eager. “I haven’t had a good fight in a loooong time.”
“Good luck,” Sarah said. “I’m outta here.”
Loretta was a small woman, nervous in her manner, with constantly shifting eyes and an inclination to take advantage of people. Sarah had realized this within ten minutes of making her acquaintance and had taken to avoiding her as much as possible. It had probably been Sarah’s notoriety that had attracted Loretta’s attention, and a desire to bask in Sarah’s reflected glory. She’d taken Sarah’s unspoken rejection with very ill grace.
As Sarah walked toward the doorway Loretta spoke to her for the first time. “Where ya goin’, Connor?” she asked, her voice friendly, her eyes not.
“I’m tired, I’m going to my room.”
“Naw, you’re not tired.” Loretta moved over and took her arm.
Sarah felt every muscle in her body tighten at the touch, resenting the sure knowledge that there was going to be trouble. She forced herself to allow the woman her way, to tug her over to Tanya. Any demonstration of anger, however justified, at this stage could count against her, even if the witnesses were as insane as Loretta and Tanya. That was the trouble with being notorious; you could be telling the truth with complete accuracy and still no one would believe you.
“This is my friend Tanya. I’ve told her all about you, Sarah. She’d like to play gin with you. Wouldn’t you, Tanya?”
Tanya nodded, looking at Sarah as if she were a big juicy steak and she was a hungry dog.
“Hey, Elisa!” Loretta snapped. “Take a hike.”
Elisa’s jaw dropped at the effrontery; she gave Loretta a disdainful look and settled deeper into her chair. “No,” she said, making eye contact with Tanya for good measure.
Sarah could almost see Tanya begin to quiver like a Doberman waiting for the attack command.
“I don’t like her,” Tanya growled.
“C’mon, ladies,” Loretta said, placing a hand in the center of both of their backs. “Sit down and play.” She gave them each a little shove, and Sarah, glancing over her shoulder, saw her face change.
This is not good, she thought as she took her chair and looked up at Tanya. Not good at all. She signaled to Elisa to come join them, but the younger woman shook her head, smiling.
Tanya turned at Loretta’s shove to glare at her, and Sarah saw Loretta wink. Then Tanya looked at Sarah and smiled. Not a nice smile, not one intended to soothe or make friends. It was a smile directed at something nasty going on inside her own head.
Sarah took a deep breath and picked up the cards, shuffling them neatly and then dealing. Tanya watched the pile of cards before her grow without picking them up. When Sarah was finished she placed the deck between them and picked up her own cards. Tanya continued to stare at the pile in front of her.
“Why didn’t you ask me to deal?” she demanded. Her eyes rose to meet Sarah’s challengingly.
“Did you want to? You can if you like,” Sarah said agreeably, putting her hand back onto the deck.
Tanya looked at the deck, then looked at Sarah. “You were awful eager to get rid of that hand,” she observed. “Anybody’d think there was something wrong with it.”
O-kay, Sarah thought. Looks like I’m going to have a fight whether I start one or not. Still, she’d do her best to avoid it.
“Not at all,” she said aloud. “I just honestly don’t care who deals. If you don’t want to play cards we can play something else, like checkers.”
“I don’t like checkers,” Tanya said as though the mere suggestion were an insult.
Sarah braced herself, certain from the way Tanya was stoking herself up that at any moment she was going to be attacked. She’d seen this kind of behavior often, years ago, when she’d been here before. If memory served, on occasion she’d done this sort of thing herself.
Tanya grinned. “It’s okay, take your cards, I’ll deal the next hand.”
Sarah reached for the deck, and even though she was expecting it Tanya almost got her. As Sarah’s hand touched the cards Tanya’s flashed forward to impale the deck with a Bic pen. Connor thrust her chair back and started to rise when Loretta struck her viciously on the side of the head with a sock filled with change or metal washers or some such. Sarah went down, striking her head on the table—hard, then hit the floor, aware but absolutely helpless.
Tanya looked at Loretta and smiled when the smaller woman gestured at Sarah as though presenting a gift. Tanya climbed up onto the table and crawled across to look down at Sarah, then looked at Loretta, almost coquettishly.
“Do you have a pen?” she asked. “Mine’s broken.”
Loretta grinned at her fondly. “Honey, I’ve got two!” She handed them over.
Tanya took one in each hand and began to laugh. Sarah stared up at her, still unable to move; the last thing she clearly remembered seeing was Tanya flowing off the table onto her, the pens poised like daggers. Then the points came down.
Elisa screamed at the sight and jumped up from her chair. The scream came from pure rage prompted by jealousy, but it had the same effect as a cry of horror; staff came running from all directions. Loretta turned on her with a snarl, then moved as far from Tanya as she could.
At first the orderlies came sprinting toward Elisa, but she quickly pointed toward Tanya. Tanya’s hands, bloody almost to the elbows, rose again and plunged down, and a spreading pool of blood beckoned. The orderlies changed direction, one of them yelling into his radio for a doctor. Soon there was a cluster of orderlies hauling Tanya off the unconscious Sarah as Tanya screamed furiously and tried to bite.
“She started it!” Elisa said to the orderly who led her away, pointing at Loretta. “She put Tanya up to it, then she hit Sarah, and then, and then—”
The orderly shushed her and led her to her room, followed by a nurse carrying a syringe full of neomorph.
“She set it up!” Elisa insisted.
“C’mon, honey,” the nurse said, urging Elisa into her room. “We’ll make you feel better.”
“You’re not listening!”
And they wouldn’t, she knew. No one believed crazy people.
Dr. Simon Ray ran his fingers through his short blond hair, then rested his elbows on his desk and dropped his face into his hands. This was unbelievable. You’d think Pescadero was some snake pit! How had this happened? Didn’t anyone notice how dysfunctional Loretta was? How dangerous Tanya was? How could they have allowed her to go to the common room?
This was a disaster! He had one patient, a very famous patient at that, laid out with multiple stab wounds and complications to her liver. One patient was accusing another of setting it up and the board was demanding to know why someone as dangerous as Tanya Firkin was mingling with the other patients. This was worse than a disaster. This was actionable. He sat back with a heavy sigh, resting his head on the back of his chair.
There was a sharp rap on his door, making him start, then the door opened and a tall, thin, middle-aged man walked in.
“Where’s my secretary?” Ray asked.
“I’ve no idea,” the intruder said. “Off photocopying something, I suppose.” Or she should be: he’d given her a hundred dollars to find a chore that would take her away from her desk for ten minutes.
