Accidental Creatures (28 page)

“Murder? That’s insane. I didn’t murder anyone.”

“Would you like to call an attorney, Mr. Graham?”

“You better believe I would. What’s your name?”

“Cynthia Hewlitt.”

“Well let me tell you something, Cynthia Hewlitt. When I get through with this department, there won’t be a one of you-” he turned to motion at the guards with his shackled hands, “-still working here. You have no grounds to do this, no authority. This is harassment.”

Cynthia raised one eyebrow. “Your warrant was issued from the very highest levels of GeneSys personnel, with priority authorization to arrest.”

“But you can only hold me for two hours unless you make a charge. That’s the company charter.”

Cynthia ignored him and looked at the guard on his right. “Let him make his call, then put him in cell D-19”

Unnoticed, Chango slipped through the door and went up the steps. She saw Hyper standing by the information desk, studying a brass inlay in the floor. He was all tricked out in a lab coat stained with motor oil, his grey dress slacks and a scuffed black briefcase.

“Hyper! What are you doing here?”

He shot her an alarmed look hurried to her side. “Let’s get out of here,” he murmured, taking her arm and leading her across the mezzanine to the exit doors.

“Hyper, what is going on?” Chango asked as soon as they were outside. “How did you get here? Why didn’t they take me to county? How did you get them to release me like that?”

Hyper kept walking, so fast Chango had to trot to keep up with him. “Remember this?” he held up a data card, the GeneSys logo flickering in and out of view with the passing streetlights.

“Helix’s card.”

“Not Helix’s, Hector Martin’s. I got worried when you disappeared. I talked to him. He’s the one who got Graham arrested.”

Chango nodded and took this in. “We went to U of D Mercy,” she said, Hyper’s pace making her voice ragged. “There’s an old biopoly research institute there, an abandoned vat for Helix, but GeneSys security showed up. They got me. I’m sure they got Helix too, but she wasn’t in the lockup.”

Hyper nodded and said nothing, his eyes scanning the street warily.

“Benny took us there. He was supposed to be on lookout, but when the guards came, I didn’t see him around. Hyper, I’ve been thinking. Benny set us up. I think he had something to do with Ada’s death, too.”

“Graham arranged it,” said Hyper pausing on a street corner to face her. They were already three blocks from the GeneSys building. “Martin told me he had someone in Vattown working for him. From what you say it sounds like that’s Benny. And if he’s working for him now, then he probably was in the past, when Graham was in production.”

“What happened to Helix?”

“Martin’s taking care of that end of things. He got Graham arrested. The security files show that she was taken to Martin’s lab. He’ll get her out.”

“What do we do now?”

Hyper shrugged. “What do you want to do?”

Chango looked around her at the quiet, dark streets, the shadows and the secrets that they held. “Let’s find Benny,” she said.

oOo

They had no difficulty retrieving her car from where she’d left it at the U of D campus. As Chango drove to Benny’s, Hyper made plans. “Okay, so if he’s home, I’ll invite him out to Josa’s. If I say I’m buying that should get him out of the apartment. Then you can sneak inside while he’s gone and have a look around.”

“I don’t know, Hyper, I’d rather just confront him.” Chango pulled around the corner and parked, out of sight of the apartment building.

“You’d rather just get killed too, apparently. If he’s done all you think he has, then he probably has a gun, and no compunction about using it on you.”

Reluctantly she nodded.

The building was dark and quiet. Chango waited at the bottom of the stairs while Hyper knocked on the door, but there was no answer, and no light coming from underneath it, either. “He’s gone,” Hyper called softly to down to her.

She had the simple lock on Benny’s door open in moments. They went inside, still wary, moving through the darkened rooms with slow and careful movements. She stepped into the bedroom to find a suitcase filled with clothes sitting open on the bed. “Look at this,” she called to Hyper, “He packed, but he didn’t take it with him.”

They went through the drawers of Benny’s dresser, searching for something that would tie him to Ada’s death, or at lest confirm his connection to Nathan Graham. Chango stepped inside the nearly empty closet. It was empty. As she turned away, something caught her eye. A piece of panelling about two feet square, screwed to the back wall down by the floor. He’d probably just put it there to patch a hole. She took a screwdriver from her backpack and unfastened it, pulling the plywood away to reveal not a jagged hole but a carefully sawn opening. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end as she reached her hand inside, and touched something metal. A set of air tanks, she realized, her hand fumbling over their rounded surfaces. Grunting she pulled them out of the hole and into the meager light from the bedroom windows. Something silver glittered near one of the release valves — a pair of initials scratched in the black plaint. An A and a C. “Ada’s tanks,” said Chango.

oOo

Awkward under the weight of her sister’s dive tanks, Chango pushed open the door of Josa’s Bar and stepped inside, followed closely by Hyper. Human voices and the smell of smoke and growth medium surrounded them. There was a good-sized crowd, buzzing with the excitement of the morning’s riot. The place wasn’t packed though. This was no victory celebration.

Chango spotted Vonda at the far end of the bar, conversing with Josa. Without a word to Hyper she walked towards her, attracting as many glances for the determination of her stride as for what she carried on her back.

“Vonda,” she said, closing on her.

Vonda turned, her eyes widening as Chango hoisted the tanks from her shoulders and slung them onto the bar. They hit with a solid bang, immediately silencing all conversation and riveting attention to herself and Vonda.

“I found them at Benny’s apartment,” Chango said, loud enough for everyone to hear. For Vonda’s benefit she pointed out the initials scratched on the tanks. “They’re Ada’s.”

Suddenly she was surrounded by a hubbub of voices and bodies, but she kept facing Vonda, kept talking to her. “That plan of Benny’s to take Helix to U of D Mercy was a trap. After we got there, GeneSys security showed up and arrested us, except for Benny. He set us up. When I got out of the lockup, I went to his apartment. He wasn’t home. There was a packed bag on the bed, and these - “ She put one hand protectively on the tanks. “-were hidden in a hole in the closet wall.”

Vonda didn’t say anything. She just stared at Chango, and then at the tanks. But Pele was at Chango’s elbow. “How do you know Benny set you up? Maybe he just got away.”

“He was supposed to be on lookout.” Chango kept looking at Vonda. “And Hyper talked to Helix’s father, Hector Martin, who said that Nathan Graham has somebody in vattown working for him. Somebody he told to turn that strike this morning into a riot.”

Vonda examined the dust clouded gauge on the tanks, aimed the release nozzle at the wall and twisted it experimentally. “They’re empty,” she said, looking at Chango over her shoulder. “But maybe I can get a residual sample from the valves.”

oOo

Graham strode down the hall to his office, fresh anger at his recent imprisonment burning inside him. It had only taken an hour or so for his lawyer to intimidate security into releasing him, but it was just a temporary reprieve. He was going to have to do something of a permanent nature about Hector Martin. The best thing would be to discredit him, get him dismissed from GeneSys in disgrace. It would take some doing. There was very little that a man of Martin’s professional standing couldn’t wiggle out of. Except possibly corporate treason. Anna would take a very dim view of him selling corporate secrets to a competitor. It was good. Worth following up on, but now he had more pressing matters to attend to. Helix was loose again, he felt sure. Martin wouldn’t go to all the trouble of locking him up just to leave her there in the lab.

There was a light on in his office. His secretary would be gone by this hour, and in fact, the reception area was dark, the desk empty. Graham opened the door to his inner office to find Benny sitting in his chair with a glass of scotch in his hand.

“Oh good,” Graham said, “I was going to call you.”

“Were you? I thought you’d forgotten about me.” Benny stood up, and pulled a gun from the waistband of his pants. He pointed it lazily at Graham. “I thought I was going to have to remind you.”

Graham laughed. “You’re talking about your payment, of course. But you’ll never get paid if you kill me. Besides, I’m not through with you yet, son.”

“What? I did everything you asked me to. Now I’ve got to get out of town!”

“Getting a little hot for you? Well, if you remember, I asked you to get rid of Helix, and you botched it up.”

“But I took them to U of D, I saw the guards nab her.”

Graham shook his head. “It didn’t take. Martin pulled some strings somewhere and got me thrown in security before I could do anything with her.”

“But that’s not my fault!”

“Well it wouldn’t have happened if you’d taken care of her in the riot, now would it? I’m pretty sure she’s at Martin’s now, and I think I know what we can do.”

“How do I know you’re not going to just string me along again?”

“Well, that’s the risk you have to take, isn’t it? Believe me, I’d like nothing better than to see you jetting off to a foreign land, but first, you have to finish your job.” Graham crossed the room, ignoring Benny and the gun now hanging loosely at his side. He switched on the transceiver, called up the yellow pages and dialed an all-night hardware store. “How are you at welding?” he asked Benny over his shoulder. oOo

Quick hands untied the cords at Helix’s wrists and ankles. She stood and flexed her arms, stretching the cramped muscles in her back.

The guards stood between her and the tank of growth medium. She stepped around them to dangle her fingers in the delicious fluid. The guard that untied her cleared her throat. “Hector Martin has reserved a plane ticket for you. We can either escort you to the airport or take you to his apartment, but you can’t stay here.”

Helix looked at them, and then back at the little tank, barely big enough to hold her. It was no good. She might be able to fight them off and get into the tank, but more would come to take her out, or to examine her, run tests and take samples — make of her what she was, an experiment. They were right, she couldn’t stay here, but she couldn’t leave either. Graham had told her things she didn’t want to know. But knowing, she couldn’t erase his words. It was time to go to the source, time to confront her father with his lies.

oOo

His door buzzer went off, and Hector rushed to it, to peer through the peep hole. His heart fell. It was Helix. She had decided against taking the airplane ticket, apparently. He had hoped she would get away, far away, and be safe. He had hoped he wouldn’t have to face her.

He opened the door and the next thing he knew he was grabbed by four strong arms and slammed against the wall. His head struck first, pain lanced down his neck and shoulders.

“What have you done?” she snarled, her face only inches from his.

He shook his head, unable to speak. She looked awful, worse than she had when he first found her, after she’d been thrown out of the nest. Her skin was raw in large, flaking patches. She had a bruise under her eye and a cut on her lip. But worst of all was the look in her eyes. What he saw there he could not bear to look at for long.

She bared her teeth and grimaced. This close, it was an awesome sight indeed. “What the fuck am I, Hector? Huh? Tell me!”

He was afraid. She could kill him with no trouble at all. She was stronger than him, and she had the advantage of an extra set of arms. Right now, she could just tear his jugular vein with her teeth if she wanted to. And why wouldn’t she? What had he ever done except tell her lies?

“Tell me!” she screamed, lifting him and slamming him back into the wall again for emphasis.

“You’re, you’re... I don’t really know, alright? You’re a genetically engineered organism. A product of corporate research and development.”

She stared at him, eyes blue and wide with rage, stared and stared until he thought that in the next instant she would kill him, but instead she said, “Your research.”

He licked his lips and nodded his head ever so slightly. “Yes.”

The blow happened so suddenly he didn’t see it coming, just heard something go crack, and then felt the stinging pain on his cheek and in his mouth.

She had released him and stood now with her back to him. He raised his hand to his lip and brought it away bloody. He glanced at the door. He might be able to make it, he might never have another chance, but how could he do that? She was his responsibility.

“Liar,” Helix growled, her back still turned. She was staring down at the glass top of the coffee table, where the prism for the holoweb sat amid scattered mylar documents and takeout cartons. Her shoulders were shaking. “You lied to me.” She turned and her eyes were full of tears. “There never was any orphanage, you didn’t adopt me, I’m not a sport. I’m not even human!” She screamed the last, picking up the heavy glass prism and sending it crashing through the top of his coffee table. Hector cringed at the sound of splintering glass and suppressed the impulse to run. “No, you’re not,” he said loudly. “You’re something else, Helix, something new under the sun. You and your kind, I may have created you, but I don’t even know really, what you are, because there’s never been anything like you before. I know what you were designed for, but that’s not the same thing. It’s very important for you to realize that, Helix, it’s not the same thing.”

“What was I designed for, Hector?” She stood over the shattered remains of his coffee table, eyeing him coolly. “Why do I exist?”

He laughed in fear startled amazement. “Because I thought of you, I suppose, or... I don’t know. I — I was given a project, you see, to create a — a biological machine.” When at last he blurted the words out he flinched, expecting her to strike him again, but she didn’t. She just stood there, staring. “To replace the vatdivers,” he explained.