Chimera

Three

The flight down frightened him more than the trip up to Kopernik. Perhaps it was the idea of falling, but Coren felt at the edge of panic from the moment the shuttle left dock till he walked, legs trembling, into the concourse at Lyzig Station. It did not make sense-he never reacted this way on a semiballistic-and he resented the idea that it was all psychosomatic. He went directly to a public restroom and rinsed his face in cold water, then sat in a stall till the sweating and nausea passed.

"Never again," he muttered as he finally gathered himself up. He checked his watch-twenty minutes wasted getting over his reaction-and left the restroom.

He rented a locker and shoved his one bag inside, then headed for the station lobby.

Lyzig buzzed with first-shift traffic. The warrens swarmed with people going to jobs or shops or meetings. Coren liked Lyzig: Clean, robust, a polished politesse substituted for the unmannered friendliness of other Eurosector districts, as if the residents were conscious of a long history-an important past they were obliged to honor.

At the station gate he flagged a taxi and gave his destination. The driver's eyebrows raised speculatively, but all he said was "Very good, sir," and moved into the vehicular lanes. The short ride ended at an ancient hotel. Coren tipped the driver and stepped out.

The taxi pulled away and Coren began walking in the opposite direction. His shakes were gone by now and he walked purposefully, in imitation of resident Lyzigers.

He had three options to find Jeta Fromm. He had already decided against contacting Data Recovery Systems, through which he had originally found her. He had to assume that whoever had killed Nyom had gotten the same information about the baley run, and that meant a competitor. He had no way of knowing yet where they would have gotten the data-it might have been Jeta Fromm herself, or her handlers, or some as yet undetermined third source. He could too easily reveal his interest by going through the usual channels.

The second option was not worth considering at this point. Local police could find her and pick her up, but he would be effectively destroying her career and perhaps hurting several other people associated with her. A significant part of the work he did depended on clandestine resources. Damaging them by "going local" could cost him his reputation and impair his ability to do his job. Using the local police, then, was a course of last resort.

His best option, then, was to find her himself. He had met with her twice, at different locations of her choosing. Her nervousness had bothered him, so he had traced her back to her hab-just in case he needed to find her quickly and confidentially. Like now.

The area he now entered was very old, and the signs of wear and neglect became more evident the further he walked. The fast pace and energy representative of Lyzig faded; people here were in no hurry to go anywhere-a few were even sitting in doorways, or gathered in small groups near shops or in the cramped public spaces that passed for parks in this part of the urbanplex.

Coren automatically imitated the lethargy around him, moving slower, keeping his head down. He tucked his hands in his pockets and searched the corridor signs till he found one marked BETRAGSTRAS. He walked down the narrower corridor to a steep metal staircase that ran up the windowless wall to his left. The ghosts of old graffiti discolored the surfaces, scrubbed endlessly by automated cleaners that, over time, failed to remove all the paint.

At the top of the stairs, Coren found a broad rooftop upon which stacks of single-unit cubicles formed a small, cramped village. Light glowed from open doorways, and the thick smell of cooking almost covered the odors of plastic and sweat and unprocessed waste.

Faces appeared at doorways, lingered for a few seconds, then retreated.

Coren estimated about a thousand people lived in this precariously overbuilt shantytown, lived quite illegally and with little fear of eviction, but with the constant possibility of having the entire makeshift construct tumble down on them. Many of the residents worked legitimate jobs that paid too little to afford them a decent domicile and do whatever else they found more important -sending children to better schools, subscriptions to expensive entertainments, paying off a debt, or saving for the chance to emigrate-but just as many worked on the edge of legality: dealers in stolen data or controlled substances, informants, runners, small credit fences, rented muscle. Others simply had nowhere else to go and had fallen here, fortunate to at least have a place to sleep and a source for food.

Coren took out his palm monitor and made his way through the maze of passageways, up a ladder, and down a short gangway to an unlit doorway. The signal from the smear he had deposited on Jeta the second time they met was weaker, but still traceable. The self-replicating vonoomans exhausted themselves after a few days and decayed unrecoverably. He ran the sensor up and down a scale to test it. Satisfied that Jeta Fromm had at least stayed here for more than an hour, giving his tiny tracers a chance to proliferate in the environment, he pocketed the monitor. He palmed a flash and switched it on as he kicked in the flimsy plastic door and stepped through.

In the harsh blue-white illumination, the cubicle leapt into sharp relief. A cot stretched against the wall to his left, a sleeping bag and extra blankets wadded up at the head. A makeshift desk stood along the back wall, cluttered with objects that formed an indecipherable tangle. Along the wall to the right was a trunk, the lid open, the contents spilling over the edge-clothing, from the look of it.

Immediately to the right Coren found a lamp propped on a three-legged table. He switched it on and turned off his own light.

Vacant. He closed the door behind him.

He studied the room carefully. Jeta Fromm had struck him as a fastidious person, neat and methodical. This place did not. He sat down on the edge of the cot.

Disks, small pieces of paper, items of clothing, scraps of unidentifiable detritus littered the floor. A chair lay on its side to the left of the desk. The cot itself was angled away from the wall.

It appeared to Coren that she-or someone-had left in a hurry, possibly in a panic. Jeta peddled data-rumor, software, illicit downloads, even documented fact when she sold material to the newsnets as a stringer-so any of a number of deals could cause her to run.

She had been very professional when he met her, but it seemed to him now that there had been an undercurrent of desperation. She managed it well and he had been in a hurry, so he had neglected to pay it enough attention.

Coren stepped up to the desk. The clutter consisted mainly of components from old, salvaged readers, scanners, and bits of datum units. He saw a control panel from a commline. Tools lay mixed with the debris. Two bare spaces suggested removed equipment. He guessed, given her range of services, that she owned a pathburner, a very expensive microcircuitry cutter. Probably a very good decryption datum. The cost of those two pieces would be more than his own yearly salary.

What he saw here convinced Coren that Jeta was on the run. Someone-maybe the same someone who had rolled him in Petrabor-had come looking for her. She had duly disappeared.

He knelt down and shuffled through the papers and disks on the floor. The disks were labeled by numbers. He could go through them, but he doubted she would have left anything behind worth the trouble.

The papers mostly contained scribbled comm codes, cryptic notes-" Jam on B-stras, 3s" or "Cram Seef for Rudo, level 12"-and a couple of doodles. One caught his eye that said "B meet at seven's place, 2shift" followed by a comm code. He slipped it into his pocket and stood.

He turned off the light and stepped outside.

To his left he glimpsed someone watching him from a doorway. The door slammed shut. Coren reached the cubicle in three long strides and shouldered his way in.

In the pale light he saw a small man shoving himself in the comer behind a large chest of drawers. Coren shut the door and stepped closer.

"I didn't! Stop! I didn't!" the man cried.

"You know Jeta?" Coren demanded. "She ask you to watch her place?"

"I don't-nothing to say, gato-please-"

"Don't 'gato' me, shit. Dump it now. You're a friend of Jeta's?"

He nodded once. He was not quite as small as he at first seemed, but the clothes he wore were too big and his head was long and shaved bald. His sleeves half-covered his hands.

"You 're watching for her, right? Who came to visit before me? Who's looking for her?"

The man shook his head a little too quickly. "Don't know."

"Don't know what? Who, if, when?"

"Never saw them before."

"Them? Two? More?"

"Two. Man and a woman."

"The man," Coren said. "Short, stout, yellow skin?"

A scowl flashed across his face. "No, it was-I don't know. Leave me alone."

Coren resisted the urge to grab the smaller man. Strong-arming would do no good, but he wondered just how far subtlety would get him.

"Listen, gato," he said gently, "Jeta's in trouble. If I don't find her first she'll be dead. Savvy? Now, who came?"

"Never-I-" The man swallowed loudly and closed his eyes. "Dead?" he whispered.

"Very dead. "

The man nodded weakly. "She-two days ago, third shift, she says time to go, she's sorry. Be back in a few days for her jumble-"

"Her what?"

"Jumble-her stuff-"

"All right, go on."

"Asks me just to spot who comes looking. Like you guessed. "

"And?"

"Three hours later this tall gato, long coat, tosses her cube. Didn't see me. Stayed in her place maybe twenty minutes."

"Tall. Anything else?"

"Dark skin, like he's seen sun or something. Didn't blink."

"Didn't blink…his eyes?"

"What else you got that blinks?"

"Did he talk to you?"

"No," the man said indignantly. "I said he didn't see me."

"You said a woman?"

"Came yesterday. Looked around Jeta's cube, stayed maybe an hour, then left. "

"What did she look like?"

"Wore a mask. Not too big, though, but-"

"Nobody stopped her?"

"The other one was with her, stayed outside. "

"You don't know where Jeta might have gone?"

"No," the man insisted.

Coren grunted. He took a gamble. "Who's Seven?"

The man frowned. " 'Seven'? I don't know…" He seemed honestly ignorant, so Coren dropped it.

"Did these gatos talk to anybody else?"

"Might have." The man paused, thought it over for a moment. "Yes, did. Cobbel and Renz. They got the first cubes at the edge."

Coren suppressed a smile. "What did this tall gato sound like?"

"Kind of raspy-voiced, like he had trouble breathing. But it came out of his chest, real deep. Cobbel and Renz didn't like him too much. "

"Did the woman talk to anyone?"

"No."

Coren considered. Then he stood. "All right, thanks. I'm not here to hurt Jeta. You tell her the gato that paid her twice market for that last data she sold needs to talk to her again. Tell her to find me if she wants to stay alive. Savvy?"

"How'll she find you?"

"Same way she found what I wanted. She'll know. You see her, you tell her to stay on the move, though. "

"Serious shit?" the man asked.

Coren nodded. "Very. "

He backed out of the cubicle and reentered Jeta's cube. He took out his palm monitor and adjusted it, then turned a slow circle till a light flashed red.

From up in the corner, tucked in a crack between the wall and the ceiling, he removed a small button. He repeated the scan and found another one, on her desk amid a jumble of electronics, pretending to be a relay switch.

If there were more, his monitor missed them. He opened a slot in the side of the monitor and dropped them in. They barely fit.

At the edge of the hab collection, he paused. Then he knocked on the nearest door.

A woman looked out at him. She said nothing, only waited expectantly.

"Cobbel or Renz?" Coren said.

"Renz. What?"

"The tall gato talked to you about Jeta Fromm."

She frowned. "What about him?"

"Did he give you a code to tap if you found Jeta?"

"You police?"

"Private. "

"Ah." She stepped out. She was quite a bit shorter than he, surprisingly so. "He tapped us. Ears allover the place. Cobbel's still looking for all of them. We figured that, when he didn't give us a code. "

"He knew you'd lie."

Rena shook her head. "Wouldn't lie." She smiled. "Wouldn't tell him anything. "

"What was he like?"

She frowned again, thoughtfully. "Scary shit. Never blinked. Skin looked wrong. "

"Wrong how?"

"Don't know. Just wrong. Diseased, maybe. Too smooth. No veins." She studied him narrowly. " Jeta's in trouble."

"Looks that way. Bad trouble."

"You trying to help?"

"My fault. Trying to cover accounts."

Renz nodded. "You won't find her. Best she finds you. "

"If you see her, tell her. I need to talk to her."

"Ain't seen her in a few days. She knows how to find you?"

Coren nodded. "I don't think there's much Jeta can't find. Do you?"

That elicited a sly smile.

"Just out of curiosity," Coren asked, "how long has she lived here? People in her profession move a lot, I know."

"Long enough," Renz said. "longer than most-three months or so. "

Coren nodded. That was a long time-for a data troll.

"I'm going, " Coren said. "You see her, tell her. I need to talk to her soonest."

He went to the steps. He glanced back and saw people watching him now, openly. Something had passed through here that had scared them.

Coren hurried down the steps.

On the way back to the tube station, Coren stopped at a public comm and punched in the code he had found. The screen flashed DISCONNECTED SOURCE. He studied the note for a time, trying to decide if it would be worth his while to try to find this Seven. In the end, he fed the paper into a recycler. No time to be as thorough as he wanted. He tapped in the code for the Auroran embassy and began making his way through the maze of connections to find the person he needed to speak to. Third shift was just beginning in Petrabor Sector. Coren's timing was close, arriving at the warehouse just ahead of the crew.

He stood across from their entrance and this time they noticed him as they filed in by groups of twos and threes. He no longer wore the tattered leftovers of a warren ghost but the fine suit of someone in authority-an inspector or manager or perhaps a cop. As they saw him their friendly chatter died away, replaced by suspicion and silence.

Coren had about half an hour before he needed to catch a semiballistic to D.C. He studied the faces that passed before him, matching them to his memory, but the sixteenth crewman failed to appear. No surprise.

The foreman emerged from the employee access and came toward him. He was a short man, middle-aged and just beginning to lose the firm lines of a body made powerful during time working the bays instead of just supervising others.

"Can I help you?" he asked, stopping a meter away.

Coren held up his ID, which contained the emblem identifying him as a licensed independent security investigator. The foreman almost took a step closer to examine it, but Coren shoved it back into his pocket.

"Last night," Coren said, "you took your crew out during on-duty time. A place called Dimilio's?"

The foreman's eyes became wary. "What about it?"

Coren shook his head sorrowfully. "That's not contract."

"The Guild send you? Management?"

"What do you think would've happened if the routers had glitched with no one there to shut it down?"

"Routers never glitch!"

"They do if they're hacked."

Now the wariness turned to fear. "Hacked…" He swallowed. "You're talking about-"

"I'm not talking about anything yet. I'm asking. Why did you think it would all right to walk out midshift, en masse like that, for a few drinks?"

The foreman scowled at him. "I don't have to talk to you."

Coren nodded agreeably. "That's right, you don't. But if that's what you decide to do, the next people you talk to will be ITE inspectors. They don't give a damn about contract protections. "

The foreman took a tentative step closer. "Look-it was Oril's birthday. Not yesterday, but the day before, but there wasn't time then to do anything. Busy shift. Things slowed down yesterday, there were a couple of windows, we figured, what's an hour or two? We've never had a problem-"

Coren sighed dramatically. "Contract says someone has to be on duty-"

"There was! We left the sub here. He didn't know Oril anyway, no loss."

"The sub. I didn't see any sub listed-"

The foreman looked pained for a second. "Farom was out, he's been having trouble with his kid. He's already past his allotment for personal time and sick days-any more and he gets written up. We paid the sub out of our own pocket to come in for him so Farom wouldn't get the reprimand."

"I need the sub's name."

"I'm telling you, Farom's a good worker-"

"The sub's name." Coren leaned closer and softened his voice. "If I can keep this off the record I will-it'll save me a lot of trouble. I don't need the extra datawork. I just have to verify that you didn't leave your shift unattended. Word is that management has some losses to explain to shareholders. You know how that is. Now there was a glitch in the logs for the time you were all toasting Oril's good health. If it was operator error, then we can correct it on our end and leave you alone." Coren reached out then and grabbed hold of the foreman's coverall. "But you pull that kind of shit again, I'll have your ass in front of management and the Guild conciliators. Understand?"

"Yuri Pocivil," the foreman said quickly. "He's normally Second Shift at the Number Four yard. He had personal time."

"How did you come to call him?"

"We used him before."

"Covering for Farom?"

The foreman swallowed. "As a matter of fact, yeah."

Coren released him. "Yuri Pocivil. I'm going to have a talk with him. He explains the glitch to my satisfaction, you won't see me again. "

"We've never had any problems with him before."

"Happens when you step out of contract. Go back to work."

Shaken, the foreman almost bowed as he backed away. He'd recovered his composure by the time he reached the entrance. He gave Coren a last look-to which Coren returned a reassuring nod-then disappeared inside the warehouse. Yuri Pocivil had failed to report to work that day and his apartment was vacant. Coren was not surprised, but he was disappointed. It would have been simpler had he found him. Pocivil was a more direct line to whoever was running the operation.

He made his way to the station, mulling over his next move. The routing had been modified in Baltimor. That, at least, was convenient to his next stop.