TekLords, page 9
Her husband stopped vomiting, stopped shivering. He made a sad, keening noise before falling to the floor of the rail car.
His wife started to kneel down next to him, but the plump priest caught her by the arm and pulled her into the aisle. “It really is best if you touch him as little as possible.”
“I’ve got to help him.” She pulled free, dropped to her knees beside the fallen man. “Raymond, we’re more than halfway home now. You can hold on until we get there. I’ll help you sit back up in the seat and—”
“Ma’am, he’s dead,” the priest told her.
“No, he’s not. Stop talking like that.”
Jake suggested, “Why not go fetch the medibot and leave her alone?”
“My profession calls for aiding the troubled.”
“She can’t use any aid from you right now.”
“Perhaps you’re right.” The priest turned, walked along the aisle to the middle of the car and touched a white wall plate with a red cross glowing on it.
A shrill wailing sound started.
“He’s not dead,” insisted the kneeling woman.
At a few minutes before noon Jake was walking down through Chinatown Park. The day was clear and bright, a mild wind rattled the leaves of the imitation trees.
“Good to see you again after so long, Jake.” A slim, dapper Chinese of about forty was sitting on an orange bench, smiling at the approaching Jake.
“You’re looking very...what’s the word I need, Vince?”
“Elegant?”
“You’re looking elegant. Though maybe that isn’t the right word for describing a San Francisco cop.”
Vincent Mok left the bench, brushing at his trousers. “You mentioned on the phone that you had some questions for me.”
“I appreciate your taking the time,” Jake said as they started walking along a curving path in the small block-square park. “I’m interested in a guy named Jordon Belarski. He used to be a fairly successful neobiologist over at UC, but he had a breakdown. Supposedly he ended up on the streets here in Frisco. Since you’re in charge of the Street Life Division of the SF Police, Vince, I’m hoping you can—”
“Belarski, sure.” Mok nodded. “Yeah, I know the professor. He likes to lecture people about the meaning of life and what morality is. Not surprisingly, most people don’t want to hear about any of that and Belarski gets beaten up every now and then.” He slowed, grew thoughtful, studied Jake. “What sort of case are you working on for Cosmos?”
“Started as a simple investigation into the causes of Kurt Winterguild’s death, but—”
“He was a putz.”
“True,” agreed Jake. “The point is, Vince, this is starting to look as though it’s tied in with your plague.”
“I just heard your wife has it. I’m sorry about—”
“Exwife.”
“Really? I didn’t know. When did that happen?”
“While I was away. Any idea where I can find the professor?”
A skyambulance went roaring by low overhead, siren howling.
“Must be another plague victim.” Mok pointed at the flying ambulance with his thumb.
“Any idea what’s behind the plague?”
“It’s manmade. But what the motive for turning it loose on us is, I don’t know. And so far, nobody’s popped up to take credit,” said the policeman. “Before Belarski went totally bonkers and became a sidewalk philosopher—he was working on biological weapons, wasn’t he?”
“Yep, as an associate of Dr. Gordon Chesterton.”
“Ah, the noted wifekiller. Well, at least we don’t have to worry about Chesterton, since he’s safely on ice up in the Freezer and won’t be out again until we’re all old and grey.” Mok paused. “The professor wanders around a lot, but in the past few weeks he’s been living over in the Ruins.”
“The Ruins?”
“Happened while you weren’t around, I guess. An aftereffect of the Big Quake of 2117. Most of the Tenderloin area just toppled over,” explained Mok. “What with one thing and another, having to do with budget and insurance problems, the city fathers and mothers haven’t gotten around to rebuilding. It’s possible nobody will get around to it for years to come. Meantime large quantities of homeless drifters, smalltime crooks, louts and loons have taken to squatting there.”
“Do you police them?”
“A little, though mostly we simply try to make sure they don’t come charging out of there to annoy our decent citizens. At last count, by the way, we had something around twenty-six decent citizens left in our fair city. You figure Belarski is tangled up with this plague in some way?”
“I sure want to talk to him about that possibility.”
“Let me know what the guy has to say—providing any of it comes out coherent.”
“Come along with me if you want. I could use a guide.”
“No, when the denizens of the Ruins spot me, it usually inspires them to fling brickbats and assorted other samples of architecture. Despite my elegant appearance and winning ways, I’m not especially popular over there.”
“Hard to believe.”
Mok asked, “You have a kid, don’t you?”
“One, yes.”
“Boy or girl?”
“Boy, fifteen.”
“Where is he?”
“Right now he’s at the Marina Hospital, too. In Observation. There’s a possibility he may develop what Kate’s got.”
“That’s not good,” he said, shaking his head. “How do you two get along?”
After a few seconds Jake answered, “Just great.”
17
THE RUINS STRETCHED ACROSS ten square blocks. Jake entered the tumbledown area just as the day was starting to fade, making his way along what had once been Mason Street. There was now only a narrow twisty path zigzagging through enormous mounds of rubble. Piles that mingled bricks, shattered timbers, twists of metal rods, jagged fragments of plastiglass rose up all around. Here and there portions of walls still stood, with a few windows and doors still in place.
The twilight brought a chill wind with it, wisps and tatters of fog were beginning to drift across the Ruins. Jake saw a scatter of lights, portable electrolamps mostly, and a few cookfires.
In the gaping doorway of what was left of a liquor shop two thin women in ragged dresses were struggling with each other, punching and cursing. Sprawled at their feet was a deadman in a tattered raincoat.
“I saw him first,” insisted one of the women as she jabbed the other, hard, in the ribs.
“Bullshit, honey. I did.”
“He’s mine. Whatever he’s got on him is mine.”
“Oh, you don’t really want him, dear. Look, he’s puked all over himself. I bet he’s got the plague.”
“Plague or drunk, I want what’s in his pockets.”
Jake continued on his way.
Near a great tumble of debris that had a lightsign reading ELM HOTEL protruding from it midway up, three lean boys of about eleven or twelve were cleaning a bird that was probably a seagull. A small cookfire sputtered nearby.
Halting, Jake said, “I’m looking for Belarski.”
“Go sod yourself,” suggested the smallest and dirtiest of the trio.
“Five bucks,” said Jake.
“Sod yourself twice,” said another.
The third boy straightened up, wiping his bloody knife on the leg of his tattered grey trousers. “Make it ten.”
“If you take me to him.”
“Horseshit. I ain’t going off alone with you, buddy. You look to me like the sort who comes into the Ruins so he can bugger sweet young tykes such as me.”
“Just tell me where to find Belarski then,” said Jake.
“You mean the professor, don’t you?” inquired the smallest and dirtiest. He was still holding the gutted bird by its neck.
“That’s the one.”
“Always spouting a lot of crap about the dignity of man and the meaning of life.”
Jake nodded. “Where is he?”
“Not far off.” Dropping the bloody bird to the ground, he held out a dirty hand. “Pay me.”
“For ten dollars,” said Jake, “I need a little more in the way of directions.”
The boy said, “You go straight along this passway for about a half mile, see. You’ll come to a piece of a building that’s got a sign out front saying PETE’S BARBER SHOP & WHOREHOUSE. Right around the corner from that there’s what’s left of a public fountain and a bit of grassy park. The professor’s usually there this time of night, preaching away.”
Jake passed him a Banx note. Then, as the two other boys closed in on the smallest, said, “I’ll be coming back this way, fellows. He’d better still have his money.”
The boy with the knife smiled thinly. “Oh, sure. We won’t pick on Danny.”
“That your name?” asked Jake.
“Maybe.”
“Not a bad-sounding name.”
“Mine’s Wally,” volunteered the one with the knife.
“Not bad either.” Jake resumed walking. “Don’t hurt him, Wally.”
“Sure. Oh, sure. You got my word.”
Laughter followed Jake.
The fog was rolling in thicker, pouring down over the dark piles of rubble and the jagged fragments of walls, filling up the narrow passway. Off somewhere, unseen, a cat suddenly cried out in pain.
“Stick him again, he ain’t dead. Shit, he scratched me!”
“Hold him still, hold the bugger still or we’ll miss dinner.”
Off to Jake’s right something went scurrying through a tumbled building.
After a few minutes he heard a voice.
“...are we put on this Earth? You’ve asked yourselves that often. I know I have. Well, I’ve thought a lot about the answer. I’ve thought a lot about the answer. The purpose of life is to be kind to one another. To help each other...
Jake saw him now.
It was, judging by the few photos he’d been able to dig up, Jordon Belarski, formerly of the University of California at Berkeley and prior to that an associate of Dr. Gordon Chesterton. The man was tall, gaunt, with curly blond hair that stood up high. He was wearing faded pants, at least five ragged sweaters, one on top of the other, and around his long, thin neck was wound a new-looking scarf of bright crimson.
Belarski was mounted up on a low pile of bricks near a patch of dry grass. He was shaking his fist as he spoke, staring intently into the mist as though there were an audience surrounding him. But there was no one at all attending his lecture.
“...yes, I know what it is to betray your purpose, to spoil your life by compromising what it is that you—”
“Professor Belarski?” Jake had stopped a few feet from him.
“Save your questions until after my talk.”
“I want to ask you about Gordon Chesterton.”
Belarski executed a quick ducking motion. He started blinking rapidly, shaking his head, slowly, from side to side. “As I was saying,” he went on, looking away from Jake and concentrating on another section of his invisible audience, “the essential truth, the only truth of life, is betrayal. First we betray—”
“This is important.” Jake moved up close to him. “You may be the only one left who can help—a lot of people are going to die otherwise.”
A look of pain touched Belarski’s face and he made a brushing motion at the swirling mist. “They’re already dead. Yes, it’s much too late to stop that now. Oh, by preaching to the crowds, I can sometimes—”
“We’ve got to talk about Chesterton.”
“Chesterton?” He shivered, his whole body rattling. Then he reached up and unwound the crimson scarf. “Perhaps you’re the one,” he said in a quieter voice.
“The one you can confide in?”
“Yes, I’ve concluded that I ought to explain to someone about the awful things I’ve done.”
“Along with Chesterton?”
Belarski wrapped the scarf around his left hand. “They told me it was my duty, but they were wrong. Gordon tried to...Did you say you knew Gordon?”
“Only by reputation.”
“An evil man...I found that out much too late. But extremely convincing. Gordon swore to me that XP-203 was essentially a good thing.” He stopped talking, turned his head away and stared into the fog. “I seem to have forgotten so much. Maybe that’s what life is about...forgetting.”
“Please,” said Jake, “try to remember about XP-203.”
“They told me it was the sort of biological weapon that would, of course, never actually be put to use. Yes, one that would only serve to frighten and intimidate the enemy—whoever the enemy might be at the moment.” He sighed. “They used it in Brazil, did you know that?”
“No.”
“We killed 3,648 people, children among them. 964 children under the age of ten. XP-203 got out of hand, they explained. It was only supposed to kill a few troops, as a demonstration of its potential. Got out of hand. 964 kids.”
Jake asked him, “Is XP-203 Chesterton’s synthetic virus?”
“Chesterton’s and mine.”
“You perfected the stuff—it worked?”
“964 kids. Yes, it worked.”
“But XP-203 was supposed to have been destroyed years ago, wasn’t it?”
“So they told us.”
“Could any of it have survived? Could someone have access to a supply or manufacture new—”
“Have you ever wondered what we are placed on Earth for? Do you think it could be so that we can kill 964 children, none over the age of ten?”
Jake took hold of Belarski’s arm. “Did you and Chesterton also develop an antidote?”
“There’s no antidote for the awful things I’ve done.”
“An antidote for XP-203?”
“The United States government never accepts a new lethal virus unless you provide a...But that’s of no importance now. My mission now is to preach to the multitudes.”
Tightening his grip, Jake said, “I’m near certain your XP-203 is what’s being used here in Frisco. You know how to stop it.”
“Do I?” He pressed the wadded-up crimson scarf to his chest. “I wasn’t aware that the government had any further use for my services. How many children do they want killed this time?”
“You’ll have to come with me, to explain to—”
“You don’t understand. My mission now is to preach.”
Belarski died then.
The beam of a lazgun came darting out of the thick surrounding fog. It touched his chest just above where he held the scarf and swiftly sliced through his torso.
Jake dived, hit the ground and rolled.
The beam came looking for him.
18
JAKE GOT TO HIS feet, went running into the fog. The beam of the lazgun hissed again, slashed across a pile of rubble three feet to his left.
He tripped on something unseen, fell, his head cracking into a fragment of wall. Jake scrambled around the wall, getting it between whoever it was out there in the misty night and himself.
This had been a small church, back before the Big Quake. There were still five rows of pews lined up on flooring that was strewn with chunks of mortar and thick with dust. The sole surviving stained glass window showed a handsome whiterobed angel with his wings unfurled.
The angel suddenly separated at the waist, his torso exploding into jagged chunks of glass and slamming down to the dusty floor.
The lazgun beam that had sliced the window in half came probing in at the new opening.
Jake, ducked low, ran along a row of seats and out through a great jagged gap in what was left of the opposite wall.
Beyond the collapsed church rose a high mound of debris that had once been a building. Beyond that there seemed to be nothing but chill, deadwhite fog.
Jake made his way around the pile, crouched behind it and drew out his stungun. He still hadn’t seen who’d killed Belarski and was now stalking him. He didn’t know how many of them were out there in the thick mist.
All at once a fat grey rat, frightened by something, ran out of the fog, brushed Jake’s ankle and was gone.
Jake narrowed his eyes, watching the swirling mist. He spotted a dark blur that was moving, very slowly, closer. He aimed his stungun and fired. The humming beam of his weapon hit the shadowy shape.
There was a cry of pain, a shuffling sound of feet scraping on dirt. Someone fell against a pile of bricks, wooden beams and plastiglass.
Jake waited where he was, watching and listening.
A minute went by.
Jake stayed there for another full minute.
Then he started moving, circling the great mound of rubble. He listened as he went, straining to hear the faintest sound of pursuit.
Another partial building loomed up out of the fog. The entire front wall of Shery’s Cafe stood, its front door hanging lopsided and half open.
When Jake was level with the door, it snapped all the way open, hitting his gunhand and sending the stungun spinning away into the fog.
A wide, black man lurched out. “...kill the bastard...Jake Cardigan... He held a needlegun clutched in his left fist. “No good bastard has to die...
Jake backed slowly, hoping he’d trip over his lost gun in time to use it on the zombie.
A knife sailed by Jake’s head and hit the big man in the chest. The zombie gasped. His needlegun went off, sending two dozen sharp silver darts into the ground. With his right hand he made a grab for the hilt of the knife that was sticking in him. He missed, staggered. He made a second grab and missed again. His hand dropped to his side and, spitting out blood, he fell flat out on the ground and died.
“That’s worth twenty,” said a young voice. “At least.”
Jake turned.
Wally, one of the boys he’d met by the cookfire, was walking out of the night mist. “I’ve been following you,” he said as he stooped to retrieve his knife from the deadman’s chest.
“Thanks.”
“Pretty good toss of the knife, wasn’t it?”
“Expert.” Jake saw his stungun lying nearby and picked it up.
“You want an escort out of the Ruins?” Wally wiped the knife blade on the side of his trousers.
