Synners

18

Stalling Rivera proved to be surprisingly easy, perhaps because he wasn't quite lying. The guards on the guy's system were the best he'd ever seen. Not impossible, though. Nothing was impossible. For the first couple of days after he'd contacted the guy, he'd just laid back and taken his time, and Rivera hadn't given him any trouble. What could he have done about it, anyway?

This morning, he thought he had the answer to that. He'd awakened feeling stupid and out-of-sorts, as if he'd spent the whole night toxing out with Jones on the Mimosa. Son of a bitch, he thought dully. He couldn't smell anything in the clothes Rivera had left for him, but just to be on the safe side, he stayed nude. Rivera could have given him something to suppress his olfactory, since he'd had the enormously bad judgment to let on that he'd figured out the clothes.

Stupid even when I'm not toxed, he thought sourly, sitting at the terminal. He made a move toward the keyboard and suddenly felt overwhelmed with fatigue. "Shit," he muttered, putting his face in his hands.

"I'll be needing some more copies of the original download and anything else you might have," said Rivera's voice behind him.

At least his reflexes were too dull to make him jump and give Rivera that satisfaction. He looked over his shoulder. "Didn't hear you come in," he said. "Extra copies of the original downloads all I got." He held up a small plastic envelope with two chips in it. "Nothing else ready to travel."

Rivera came over to the desk and picked up the envelope, his eyebrows lifting slightly at the sight of Keely's nudity. "Can you have something at the end of the day?" he asked in his crisp supervisor's tone. Like he was talking to one of his indentured servants. Like that guy, maybe.

"That depends." Keely yawned, making no attempt to cover himself. "When does the day end around here?"

"We'll call it five or so."

Keely shrugged. "Could take me till three to get in. Maybe get it on a fast buffer capture. The quality won't be great, and I can't guarantee you'll have anything complete-"

"Can you do it or not?"

"I don't know," Keely said irritably. "Yah. Maybe. I don't fucking know. If you'd stop fucking around with me, I could probably put this thing into overdrive whenever you wanted."

Rivera seemed to be regarding him from a great height. "That hasn't been true in the last few days. Perhaps you need a little help."

"That what you did to me last night, give me a little help?" Keely snapped. "You better let me detox soon, or maybe you'll come back here at five and find nothing but a little pool of shit and blood on this chair where I used to be."

"You wish medical attention?" Rivera asked politely.

"I think I've had some fucking medical attention." His anger was starting to wake him up. It felt good. "I just think you better detox me before my first physical with the Corrections Board, or you're gonna have to explain more than I ever did."

"The board has waived the standard physical examination requirement, in light of Diversifications' outstanding record with reparation-sentenced felons," Rivera told him cheerfully. "Any other questions? Good. Tap Ludovic-"

"Who?"

"Our man. Tap him, get everything you can, and make three copies. I'll be back to pick it all up around five. Can you remember that?"

Keely felt himself deflating. Should have known they'd bought the Corrections Board. They could buy anything. He yawned again. "Never forget it."

"After you do that, you can enjoy some leisure time if you want. Watch the dataline, have some more cognac. But try to be ready to travel."

He felt a small wave of fear. "Oh, yah? You taking me on a Mexican vacation?" he asked slowly.

"I haven't really decided," Rivera told him. "Now or a month from now may make no difference at all. It's not your worry, anyway, just be prepared." He nodded at the console. "Ludovic will be on-line now. I suggest you start trying to get in and get as much as you can. I have an important meeting this evening, and I'll need that material."

Keely leaned on the desk and slowly went through the motions of getting ready to tap the guy's program again until he heard the door close behind Rivera. Then he sat back in the chair and tried to think. All Rivera had to do was look at the record of activity in the black-box recorder to know he'd already tapped the guy's program again without downloading anything. But he seemed to be too busy to look, so the good guys were safe for the moment.

Hell, for all he knew, the guy wouldn't be on-line now anyway. Maybe the system activity for the last few days had just been the guy tidying up his system before he ran for it. Except Rivera had sounded pretty confident on that matter. Ludovic will be on-line now.

Ludovic. Sam's father, Gabe. Had to be. Shit. Why hadn't she told him she'd had that kind of in with the Dive? If he'd known that, he'd have suggested they go partners instead of trying to hack the dragon all on his own. Except she probably would have said no, and he'd have ended up here after all. No fucking use thinking about it.

But the question remained-what was Ludovic doing now? Just waiting for Rivera's ax to fall? He tried to remember what Sam had told him about her parents. She was on the outs with them, he knew that for certain, but he seemed to remember it being more with her mother than her father.

Keely sat back in the chair, one hand on the keyboard. Too bad the guy wasn't a hacker. Then the guy could pass him a virus, maybe even a little dose of the Fish, and he could pass it on to Rivera, who could then give it to whatever VIPs he was sucking off. Maybe he should just do that himself. He didn't have any Fish handy, but he knew a few tricks of his own-

He'd just be delaying the inevitable and maybe making his own position worse. Rivera would just take the virus to the Corrections Board, and he'd end up polishing Rivera's boots for the next two decades. He sighed and started the tap routine.

A couple of hours later, he was in, and he managed to capture thirty minutes before the system spat him out again. He disengaged and made the three copies Rivera wanted. Then he took a look at what he'd gotten off the guy.

Rivera was going to shit. There were maybe fifteen minutes of the guy's personal program, probably volatile storage he'd forgotten to dump. The rest of it was all commercials, finished spots, roughs, initial composition storyboards, requisition lists. He rather liked the one for body armor-guy strolling through a bad neighborhood, gets shot at, knives thrown at him, people trying to punch him, everything bouncing off; gets to his office, sits down at his terminal, and the message comes up on the screen: You Have Been Hacked! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Guy turns to pov and says, Well, there's one thing Gilding BodyShields can't protect you from. Woman enters picture, leans down, gives him openmouthed kiss, walks off, he stares after her, saying, And there's another.

Thanks, guy, Keely thought, but what the fuck have you been sitting around doing commercials for when you should have been running like hell?

Well, whatever Rivera had had in mind, Keely was sure it hadn't included commercials, which was going to make Rivera look like an idiot in front of whomever he was trying to impress. He patted the monitor. "I can't believe that's the best you could do, but if it was, good for you, pal. Good for you." He staggered off to shower.

"Something off the local dataline," Fez said, looking up from the screen.

"I'll get it," Adrian said, moving to the other screen. "Let me practice my Mandarin." He punched for the translation program and sat back and waited for the characters to appear on the screen. "Makes me feel useful."

Sam gave a small, soundless laugh. At least someone was feeling useful, she thought. They'd spent the last few days studying Keely's zap, but not doing much else. Sam felt antsy. She wanted to do something, tell somebody, but both Rosa and Fez had been adamant about keeping quiet. The information would be too traceable if Keely had talked, and they had to assume that he had. Not willingly, perhaps. She didn't like to think about that, and she knew they were probably right, but she still felt frustrated. Keely had zapped them the data for some reason.

"Oh, damn," Adrian said, and something in his voice gave Sam a small chill.

"What is it?" Rosa asked, sitting up on the couch. She'd been going over a hard flatcopy of some program she'd been working on.

"Rosa, you and Jones, and possibly Sam, are being sought by the police for questioning."

"Stone the fucking crows at fucking home." Rosa threw down the hardcopy and stalked over as Fez rolled his chair over next to Adrian. "What for?" Sam's small chill became a deep freeze. She wanted to get up out of the easy chair and join the others at the screen, but her legs felt too watery to hold her up. In three years on her own, she had never been specifically targeted by the police.

"What do you mean, possibly me'?" she asked in a small voice.

Fez split the screen horizontally, putting Adrian's translation on the bottom. "Details of the case aren't available," he said after a moment. "Someone's put out a 'round up the usual suspects' command. I imagine they're working on a list of Keely's known associates. There's a whole list here, but they don't have any real names-Gator, Kazin, Captain Jasm, Cherokee Rosa, Jones, and Pheasant Sam."

"Who Sam?"

He spelled it for her.

"The Mandarin has it closer to game bird, actually," Adrian murmured.

"Well, that's that. Time for a change of address," said Rosa. "Better run home and pack up my stuff and my stiff."

"I'll go with you," Sam said shakily.

"I think it would be better if you both stayed here," Fez said, looking from Rosa to Sam.

"I know," Rosa said wearily. "I can always get more stuff, but it's the stiff. If I just leave him there, he really will be a stiff. If they find him dead, they'll figure one of us killed him to keep him from talking. Won't that be a pretty pickle."

Fez sighed. "How about the gypsy jobs you've been doing? What are the chances any of those turning you?"

"Who can say?" Rosa spread her hands. "If I find a welcoming committee waiting for me, I'll jump and get a message to you later on the answering machine. Otherwise, I'll get back here with Jones as fast as I can."

"Change rentals!" Fez called after her as she went out the door.

"Pheasant Sam." Sam shook her head. "Maybe it isn't me. Adrian's translation-"

Fez shook his head. "A pheasant is a game bird." He moved back to the other screen and scrolled all the way to the end.

"Keely really did talk, then, didn't he?" she said.

"Not willingly, I'm sure. Probably in a drug-induced stupor."

"The police can't do that. I mean, they're not supposed to."

"Nobody said the police had to do it. He might be in a hospital." Fez paused. "If Keely knows your actual first name, 'pheasant' could be a slurred or garbled version of that."

Sam tried to hear it in her mind, the transformation of Cassandra into pheasant. It seemed farfetched, but stranger things had come to pass, she thought, looking at Fez's system-

"Shit," she said. "It isn't Pheasant Sam. It's Fezzansam- Fez and Sam."

Fez went so white she thought he was going to faint. "Oh, my. It's one of those good-news days, isn't it?" He was about to say something else when he did a double take at something at the bottom of the screen. "Oh, my. Did Art tell you he was going to email this information to you?"

"No!" She jumped up and ran over to him. "I mean-" She tried to think. "When I talked to him, he said he was going to copy me, and I didn't even think of-oh, Jesus, why did he do that?"

She went to the other screen. Adrian surrendered the chair to her. "I'll blow it up from here. I'll send a delete to the mailbox."

"Don't!" Fez said. "Don't get on-line. You can only delete mail under your own name, and someone could be watching for any variation of Pheasant Sam. Including plain old Sam."

She sat back with a groan. "It wouldn't be under my name anyway. I forgot. All my mail's forwarded to Rosa, and I don't know her password. We've got to get a message to her, to tell her to delete the mail right away."

"Adrian can do it," Fez said.

She looked up at the boy in amazement. "How? In Mandarin?"

"I can touch-type, and I can write," Adrian told her as they changed places again. "The lesion left writing intact. You'll just have to dictate to me, because I won't be able to read any of it.

Sam watched his fingers move easily over the keyboard as Fez dictated a short message to Rosa. "Now," Fez added as Adrian pressed send, "we'll just have to hope the traffic's running in her favor."

An hour later Rosa called to tell them that Jones was gone, her laptop was missing, and the mailbox was empty.

It wasn't one of the officially sanctioned break times, so he had the whole Common Room to himself. The whole idea of officially sanctioned break times had always rankled him anyway. Besides, what was Manny going to do to him if he found out, put a disciplinary note in his file? It was incredibly humorous to him now that he had once feared a mere disciplinary note.

As of a few days ago, he was fearing nothing. The only thing he was feeling now was a peculiar off-balance numbness, the same kind of sensation he'd had in the bayou portion of Head-hunters, when he'd been up to his neck in cold swamp water, waiting for the voodoo bad guys to pull him out and crucify him on the cypress tree.

His first impulse, after seeing the hacker's final message, had been to download everything to chip and clear out. Marly and Caritha would have been barely accessible to him-his system at home wasn't sophisticated enough to handle anything more than a standard game. But at least he would have saved them.

After getting over the initial shock-Rivera spot you meeting-he had reconsidered. The only way Manny could have spotted him meeting-with Marly and Caritha, he assumed-was to have this hacker, whoever it was, crack him, which was illegal surveillance according to Diversifications' own company bylaws. Which meant Manny couldn't actually do a damned thing with the information. If Manny reported him to the Upstairs Team, he'd have to mention how he'd found out in the first place. Gabe might still lose his job, but Manny would almost certainly be fired, too. Even if Manny had done it with the blessing of the Upstairs Team, all Gabe would have to do would be to file a grievance with the Labor Board; upper management would quietly throw Manny to the wolves to avoid a scandal.

Stalemate, at least until Manny figured out how to maneuver. Working faster than he ever had in his life, Gabe had downloaded everything to do with Marly and Caritha and filled the system with commercials. If Manny had had him cracked just to research a case for a personal audit, then let the audit come, then. They'd find nothing but story boards, roughs, finished spots, and inventories of props. Even if they were suspicious, Manny would look like an idiot.

The most surprising thing about his plan, Gabe thought, staring unseeingly at the dataline screens in the wall, was that he had gone through with it. He had filled the system up with new commercials, all kinds of spots, body armor, pharmaceuticals, clothing-whatever had been waiting for him in his assignment queue. It was as if he'd been some kind of machine, cranking them out, not even wondering if he'd be able to come up with anything, just doing it. Doing what he had to do. Apparently he wasn't as burned out as he'd thought. Either that, or a touch of danger was exactly what the old creative generator had needed to get it fired up again.

So he'd done commercials and more commercials, waiting for something to happen, waiting for a note from Manny to appear in his interoffice emailbox asking him to please come to Manny's office, waiting for Manny himself to show up at the door to his pit. And nothing had happened. He hadn't even seen Manny around the building.

Maybe Manny didn't actually know anything at all. Maybe the hacker had covered it all up somehow. He had to consider that, too, Gabe thought, that the hacker's warning had come early enough to give him a chance to clear his system of anything incriminating. If so, that meant he'd be able to load Marly and Caritha back in again eventually, and he'd be a little more cautious about it this time, keep the time/productivity ratios a little more even, if he could. Because he shouldn't have to lose everything all at once. He shouldn't have to be left with nothing.

It was fortunate, he thought, that he hadn't seen Catherine in days, either, not since she'd announced she was leaving him. One look at him would have told her that something other than the end of their marriage was bothering him. But things had gone back to a semblance of normal at the condo, too. She was sealed up in her office, and he was tiptoeing in and out of the guest bedroom, all as usual. Apparently her house hadn't come onto the market yet. He imagined she would let him know when it was time to move, and perhaps he should have been out looking for an apartment, but if he hadn't let Manny stampede him, then Catherine wasn't going to do it either.

Behind him he heard the Common Room doors whisper open. "There you are!"

He jumped at the sound of LeBlanc's voice, spilling cold coffee all over his lap.

"Sorry," LeBlanc said with an embarrassed laugh. "I didn't realize you were in media trance. What are you doing down here all by yourself when everyone's up on Mirisch's folly watching the show?"

He blinked at her, dabbing at his pants with a napkin. "Mirisch's folly?"

"That stupid platform terrace on twenty." She handed him another napkin from the dispenser on the table.

"There's a show up there?"

"Sort of. That woman is up there, and she says she's gonna jump."

Gabe shook his head. "What woman?"

"The one that hit you. She's sitting on the rail, and she says she's gonna jump. I thought you'd like to see that."

"She's going to commit suicide?"

"Yah, she really hates it here. No, actually, she's got this harness on with these long elastic cords, it's some kind of stunt-" LeBlanc pulled him out of the chair. "Come on, you have to see it to believe it."

They were really turning out for this, Gina thought, looking at the crowd on the terrace. Two security guards were trying to keep them all back from her, and some ditz named Clooney was running back and forth trying to be in charge. The security guards were arguing as to whether they should call for reinforcements or prove they could handle this themselves. Christ deliver us all from security guards with something to prove, she thought. A little ways down from her, Valjean was leaning on the rail, tapping his foot impatiently while his cape went into tile-deformation frenzy. She could practically hear his thoughts: Are you gonna do this fucking fall, or are you gonna wait for a bigger fucking audience?

She checked the connections on the harness she was wearing, making sure the cords were secure on the stone rail, and tightened the band on the minicam strapped to her forehead. Canadaytime and their fucking signature image. Last time she'd had to go feet first off the roof of the old EyeTraxx warehouse building, and Valjean had complained that the fall hadn't been really long enough. It would be long enough this time. The bungis would stretch fifteen stories at least.

"You've got to seal this place off, make all these people leave, and mount a serious rescue operation!" Clooney was yelling at one of the guards. A sudden gust of wind whipped the corner of his large, floppy shirt collar right into his open mouth. The guard shoved him aside.

"Madam, please get off that rail and come inside now!" he shouted at her. "Don't make us have to call your supervisor up here."

"Whoa, my fucking supervisor, I'm trembling in my fucking traces over that one," she muttered, looking out at West Hollywood and the Santa Monica Mountains. Like they weren't going to tell Rivera about this if she just went along quietly. She'd told the Beater when the deal with Diversifications had gone through, you work for a large corporation, they'll expect you to believe all kinds of stupid shit.

And what kind of stupid shit did she believe-that getting eight holes punched in Mark's head was going to crank his battery back to high? That if she went along with him, the world was going to be new again?

If you agree, you go tomorrow, you and Mark. To Mexico. And if you say no, they'll find a reason to get rid of you, Gina. I know it for a fact.

Bend over, right now, while they're still asking nicely.

He wants you with him. And if you say no, he'll go anyway because that's the deal. Rivera didn't want me to give you much time to think about it, or to try to talk Mark out of it.

The guy she'd popped appeared among the crowd on the terrace, looking dazed and confused. Must be his natural state, she thought.

If you go with him, he can make it. It's the one chance he's got to keep from melting down, but if you go with him, he'll make it for certain. For what you are to each other, even if you don't know what that is.

So how much stupid shit did she believe, and how much of it was stupid shit? She'd pounded on Mark's door, but he hadn't been in that fucking pit. Lost somewhere in videoland; in the stupidsphere.

Who's gonna find him if you don't, Gina?

She'd almost smacked the Beater for that one. For that, and for sitting on it until that morning, when it was too late to say but one thing. But she wouldn't say it while the Beater stood there waiting for it, she wouldn't say a goddamn word to him. Let him crawl for it over forty-seven miles of barbed wire. She looked around the crowd on the terrace again, her gaze snagging briefly on the punching bag. The Beater hadn't crawled up here yet. Neither had Mark.

Valjean straightened up and threw one end of the cape over his shoulder. Cloud shapes were scudding through the material at high speed. What was she waiting for? She had to do his stupid fucking fall. Get it planted good in her mind, so when they drilled her skull, it would come out of the holes like the perfect dream, and she wouldn't need the footage from the cam strapped on her head. She stood up on the rail, balancing carefully, ignoring the guards, who were shouting at her again. "Wait!"

The punching bag had broken out of the crowd, coming toward her. He looked like he was going to be sick any moment. She stuck her fists on her hips. "What."

He looked around self-consciously. "Ah… are you sure you know what you're doing? There's a flying harness in the pit, you know."

Funny; she could almost believe he cared about what was going to happen next. A screwy idea popped into her head. "How'd you like to get even?"

His face scrunched up. "What?"

"For the punch I gave you."

"You're just doing this for the attention!" bellowed the ditz Clooney, actually shaking a finger at her. She shook a different finger back at him.

"You wanna get even or not? Make up your mind. I gotta go one way or the other, I jump or you push me."

He looked green with horror.

She waved a hand in dismissal. Nobody would push you when you asked for it. Screwy fucking idea anyway. Turning her back to him, she took a deep breath and looked down to intensify the vertigo. The terrace had enough overhang so she wouldn't leave a long red smear on the side of the building. Considerate of them to build it that way. She wondered what it had been built for as she stepped off the rail.

On the third bounce she figured what the fuck. She'd do it.

In the bedlam that followed, Manny finally came up with the older man, the Beater. Gabe hadn't especially wanted to see Manny, but he hadn't wanted to leave while the security guards were hauling the woman up over the side of the rail. She seemed to be fine, or no worse than usual. The strange guy in the weird cape kept trying to get around Clooney, who was pushing him away and warning him about unauthorized personnel. Gabe wondered what Clooney thought he could actually do. Everyone else was milling around, gabbling in shocked tones that sounded more than a bit lascivious. It was the most excitement anyone had seen since the original stars of a very popular bad movie called Love's Madness had taken a publicity tour of Diversifications and somehow gotten into a fistfight in the middle of it. Love's madness, and now rock-video madness.

Manny noticed him almost immediately and gave him a friendly nod. Mystified, he could only return the nod and then retreat to the doorway leading to the elevator bank as Manny descended on Gina Aiesi.

She gestured at the Beater a few times, pointed down, waved a fist under Manny's nose-maybe she was going to hit him, Gabe thought, thrilling briefly to the image of Manny going down with blood spurting from his nose. Abruptly she turned her back on him and finished unstrapping the harness. Manny and the Beater turned and went back toward the elevators. Gabe tried to will himself invisible, but Manny paused at the entrance.

"How's the jaw?"

Gabe blinked at him. "Pardon?"

"The jaw." Manny tapped his own face. "Better now?'

"Just fine," Gabe managed, nodding. "Uh, thanks."

"Glad to hear it." Manny went inside. Gabe watched as he and the Beater stepped into one of the elevators. Their departure signaled a mass migration. Gabe slipped through the crowd to where Gina Aiesi was bundling up her harness under the stem supervision of the security guards.

"The show's over," she said. "I don't know why you're still hanging around. Unless you wanna make sure I don't steal the goddamn terrace while I'm at it."

The caped man shoved Clooney aside disdainfully. "You tell them, Gina."

"We're going to escort you back to your work area," said one of the guards stiffly. "Where you are to stay. This floor is off-limits to you, you're not to come up here again."

She gave them each a look. "Well, I guess you told my ass off."

"Just come along, madam." The guard reached for her, and she slapped his hand away.

"I'll take her," Gabe said impulsively. "I'll escort her back to her pit."

The guard glared at him. "You were in on it."

"No he wasn't," Gina said. "Get outa my face. I'll let him escort me."

The guards turned to the caped man. "Sir, we'll have to escort you from the premises now."

"So escort him," Gina said. "You two could open an escort service. Might be a better line of work for you, you don't do shit in security." She laughed a little as they herded the man toward the still-crowded elevator bank. "Hey, Val, you notice I got your fucking fall?"

"It better be good," he called back as one of the guards pushed him through the crowd.

She peeled the cam off, rubbing at her forehead. "You mind waiting till the Keystones are gone before you escort me? Since you wouldn't push me."

"Is that your idea of egg in your beer?" Gabe asked, surprising himself.

She smiled at him. She had some smile, he thought. It did things to him, and he wasn't even sure why. She tossed the cam at him, and he caught it with a dexterity he'd seldom found occasion to use outside of a simulation.

"Come on," she said. "You can take a little walk with me."