Suicide, Inc

CHAPTER 20

A breeze came rattling through the artificial jungle. A plaz palm tree at the edge of the pathway Cruz and Jazz were following made a few creaking noises, then toppled over a few yards ahead of them.

“Watch it.” Cruz caught the young woman’s arm and kept her from progressing.

“I appreciate your concern, Mr. Cruz,” she said, pulling free of his grasp. “But even in emergencies I don’t relish being handled.”

Smiling, Cruz glanced back again over his shoulder. “A reflex action,” he said. “Forgive my audacity.”

“There’s really no need to razz me about what is basically a serious…are you still thinking about those jungle women we met at the Main Pavillion?”

Ceasing to look backward, Cruz climbed over the newly fallen tree. “You must admit they were an attractive gaggle of ladies.”

“If a bunch of hussies in skimpy animal skin skivvies is your idea of-”

“You weren’t as critical of the junglemen.”

Scrambling over the imitation tree, Jazz said, “And their dippy names. No wonder nobody much is coming to this con. Camilla, Rulah, Marga, Fantomah…dreadful.”

“There’s the Gorilla House up ahead.” Cruz pointed with his metal forefinger.

“Well, Professor Winiarsky’s supposed to be living in a hut right behind that,” said Jazz. “He must really be in a dire predicament, hiding out here. Gorillas have to be smelly, noisy.-”

“They don’t keep their paws to themselves either.” From his waistband he tugged a small stungun. “Take this, my pet, and go see if the professor’s at home. I’ll join you shortly.”

“At a time like this are you planning on a shabby assignation with one of those jungle bimbos who-”

“Onward,” he urged.

The Gorilla House was a large circular building of pale yellow brix, from the inside of which came roars and chest thumpings. Imitation jungle surrounded it.

“I didn’t think you could be distracted by the first bare thigh that-”

“I’ll be with you soon. Trust me.”

Shrugging, Jazz started making her way around the Gorilla House.

After glancing around, Cruz ducked into the wide arched doorway of the big building. He stationed himself close to one wall, covered with shadow, watching the bright day outside.

“…Cage Three we see the gorillas spending an idyllic morning in their native habitat,” droned the vox-box over the nearest glazfronted display area.

Cruz stroked his metal arm as he waited.

“Bingo,” he said to himself a moment later.

Ducked low, he eased out of the building and into the brush.

A slim blonde young woman in a scant costume of black-and-white animal skin had come skulking out of the jungle and was heading for the rear of the place.

Cruz moved silently after her.

When he was a few feet behind her, he said, “Halt if you please, Camilla. So we can have a chat about why you’re following us.”

She spun, reaching toward the dagger at her slim waist.

Cruz said, “I want to talk, but I don’t want you to conk out the way the last alfie did. So I-”

“What did you call me?” Her hand closed around the hilt of the knife.

“So I’m hoping you don’t go blooey if I just hypnotize you.” He held up his metal palm toward her. “We’ll give it a try. Concentrate now, Camilla, on the whirling circle you see in my hand…”

Saint gave his white tunic an annoyed tug. “Off-the-rack garments never fit one as well as tailormade,” he remarked as they rode the ramp toward the entrance to the Tech Hill Mental Health Centre.

“We didn’t exactly have time to visit a tailor,” reminded Smith, who was also clad in a two-piece white medisuit.

Tech Hill was a complex of five large domed buildings, surrounded by grassy fields and woodlands.

“Actually my favorite tailor is in the Earth System.” The green man smoothed the front of his doctor tunic. “On the Planet Earth in a city called Hong Kong. Incredibly gifted chap, who knows exactly how to compensate for a very minute difference in the height of my manly shoulders.”

At the top of the ramp stood a tall nightguard robot, his coppery body rich with tiny bulbs of light. “ID packets,” he croaked, scannerhand extending.

“I am Mind Doctor Lowenkopf,” announced Saint grandly, “and this is my noted colleague, Doctor Matcha.”

“Talk is cheap. Let’s see some ID, gents.” The two rows of little lights ringing the robot’s broad chest were changing from yellow to crimson.

“Yes, to be sure.” Saint drew a packet of identification materials out of his breast pocket and deposited them on the mechanical guard’s palm.

From deep inside the robot came a faint clucking as the scanner built into his hand went over the packet. “All in order, you may enter.”

Smith’s papers produced a similar reaction.

Inside the first dome of Tech Hill Saint went striding over to the reception desk. “I am Mind Doctor Lowenkopf,” he told the camera eye floating above the desk, “and I have here a Release Order for Patient PR/104.”

“So let’s see it, buster.”

“Here you are.” With a flourish and a bow Saint placed a sheet of crisp lavender sewdopape on the exact center of the glaz desk.

“All in order. Continue to Dome 3, Level B. “Thank you so much.”

When they were riding the moving ramp to the Third Dome, Smith said, “You did a nifty job of getting us the right papers and altering them to fit.”

“A mere bagatelle, old chap, for one with my telek abilities.” Smith tugged at the hem of his white tunic. “I must remember to teleport the real Lowenkopf and Matcha back from that remote stretch of the Red Desert I sent them to once we wrap up this phase of things.”

Smith said, “I just hope there’s something left of Liz Vertillion.”

“Tech Hills is a very posh institution. They treat their inmates well,” said Saint. “Boss Nast could’ve dumped your old schoolmate in a far worse spot.”

“That bastard. ‘The more I don’t like ’em, the more I want they should suffer.’” Smith shook his head. “Casual enemies he just kills, someone like Liz he railroads into this joint under a fake name. Jobs all the papers to make it look like she’s hopelessly insane.”

“A timehonored method of taking care of one’s rivals and enemies, old boy.”!

“That doesn’t make-”

“Pay attention to me!” A small middle-aged man, wearing only a short neowool robe, came running out of a room on their left. He hopped on the ramp, catching hold of Smith’s hand. “Pay attention to me! Nobody in this damn hole is at all interested in my troubles or-”

“Myron, Myron.” Two childsize robots scooted out of the room, hit the ramp and ran along it until they caught up with the unhappy man in the robe. “We care.”

“See?” said Myron, squeezing at Smith’s hand with both of his. “A couple of clunky machines who talk in unison. Is that affection? Is that supportive concern for-”

“Myron, Myron. We like you, we support your every activity.” Both tackled him, one high and the other low. “We dote on you, in fact. C’mon back to your nice room. Okay?”

“It’s not nice. It’s bleak, heartless…”

Twin tranquilizer shots, delivered by the needleguns built into the right hands of each nursebot, put Myron to sleep.

“Excuse us.” The two little robots hefted the sleeping Myron off the ramp and onto a sidestrip. “You know how it is with somebody who’s goofy.”

“Perfectly understandable,” said Saint.

“I just knew it.” Jazz gave a disappointed shake of her head. “Can’t you leave your stupefied lady friend conquests elsewhere when you come paying social-”

“Hush, my pet.” He carried Camilla all the way into the reed hut. “I want Winiarsky to hear this.”

The runaway professor was a tall, lank man in his early thirties, bearded. “Are you this Cruz that Jazzmin has been telling me about?”

“The same.” He deposited the body of the hypnotized alfie on a cot that sat on a very believable grout-skin rug. “She’s not rigged to destruct if questioned this way, proving the opposition doesn’t think of everything.”

“You mean she isn’t just looped from the booze you were probably guzzling off in the bushes?” asked the still indignant Jazz.

Ignoring her entirely, Cruz knelt beside the cot. “Camilla, tell me again who you work for.”

“That should be whom,” muttered the professor.

“I’m on special assignment for the Covert Public Relations Department of Syndek,” she said in a low even voice, eyes remaining tight shut.

“Why are you here posing as a jungleperson?”

“Mr. Bjorn assigned me,” she replied.

“Who’s Bjorn?”

“The Chief Troubleshooter.”

“Not an alfie?”

“No, he’s a real person. Humanoid.”

“Continue.”

“Mr. Bjorn had received an unconfirmed report that you two, Cruz and the reporter, might be coming to Jungleland. That tied in with earlier intelligence that Winiarsky had been spotted in the area.”

“What do you do when you find Winiarsky?”

“Capture him.”

“And then?”

“He is to be incapacitated and delivered to Mr. Bjorn.”

“Where?”

“I am to contact Mr. Bjorn and he’ll inform me where to drop Winiarsky.”

Standing up and back, Cruz stroked his moustache. “I think mayhap I’ll have the lass drop me on Bjorn instead,” he said thoughtfully. “That’ll no doubt lead to lively times for all concern-”

“You can’t do that,” cried Jazz. “They’ll kill-”

“Say, wait a moment,” put in the professor. “Are you implying that if I were turned over to this Bjorn fellow I, too, would be killed? I wasn’t aware, when I decided to hide out, that my plight was quite that-”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you while I thought he was off cavorting,” she said, twisting her fingers together. “All sorts of people are hunting you, some with rather base motives.”

“Jazz,” said Cruz, “I’ll fix it so you can take Winiarsky to the safe hideout where we’ve got Ruiz stashed.”

“Would that be Oscar Ruiz? He and I grew up together at Horizon-”

“Which is what’s behind this whole delightful escapade,” said Cruz. “Listen attentively and I’ll give you a concise rundown. Then we’ll get you safely clear and I’ll set up a rendezvous with the Bjorn gent.”

She was a thin darkhaired young woman, her cheekbones prominent, her large eyes underscored with shadows. “Now what?” she said in a faraway voice when Smith and Saint entered her room.

“Liz?” Smith looked at the young woman sitting up on the floating bed, unsure he had the right patient.

She studied him for a moment. “I don’t see the purpose of this,” she said finally. “Getting someone to look like Jared Smith. How can that hurt me any more than the-”

“I am Jared,” he assured her, crossing to the bed. This was Liz Vertillion, but much changed.

“I don’t think I believe that,” she said. “I don’t believe anything, haven’t for a long time.”

“Dear lady.” Saint perched on the edge of the narrow bed. “You can believe in us. We’ve come here, at considerable risk, to spring you from this vile-”

“Oh.” Liz put her thin hand up to her mouth, rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “If that’s true, you’ve screwed it up by saying so right out loud. They watch and listen to everything I do and say in here and now they-”

“We fixed that before dropping in,” explained Smith, taking her arm. “But in ten minutes or so one of their security mechs may start getting uneasy. Which is why you’d better gather your stuff and-”

“I don’t have anything, Jared. Only this hospital gown.”

“Fear not, dear lady.” Saint reached into an inner pocket of his tunic to produce a small parcel. “This spoiled the line of my outfit, but it couldn’t be helped. You’ll find a lightweight allpurpose shift folded neatly within. Not the most stylish of garments, yet-”

“Is he a conman, Jared?”

“Not at the moment, though usually.”

“Funny. I guessed he was, but I believe him.”

Saint said, “You are a deucedly perceptive wench.”

“Jared?” With his help she left the bed. “Is it all right if I don’t understand what’s going on?”

“Yep, don’t worry about that.” He put an arm around her narrow shoulders.