Amanda's Eyes (5 page)

The alley was wet, and it smelled.  Damp
pavement, soggy boxes, and ... urine?

I wrinkled my nose and glanced over
my shoulder, trying to spot the forlorn cardboard condo lying in sodden ruins
beyond the nearest streetlight’s anemic, blue-white glow.  I could barely make
out that misshapen lump now that darkness had swallowed three-fourths of my
surroundings.  Not that I was worried about lurkers.  Cuey and Michaels had
scanned the alley before sentencing me to wait here more than two hours ago.  Nobody
was home at the recyclable hovel ... or likely to be any time soon, given the
miserable weather.

At least the downpour had stopped. 
A fine mist hung fuzzy haloes around the heads of the few widely scattered
streetlights, blurred the edges off buildings, and shed tears on blankly
staring windows.  It also kept me blinking and swiping my hand across my eyes
in an effort to see clearly.  Of course, visibility would have been limited
even without the mist, thanks to the impenetrable shadows enveloping the maze
of blackly towering warehouses.  A little more than a block away, the van was
reduced to an indistinct silhouette crouched silently, almost sullenly, in
front of warehouse one nineteen.

The wind kicked up, dank and
smelling of the Bay.  A gust knifed into my alley, moaning through the narrow
space as it pressed my jacket and clammy black turtleneck against my skin.  I
shoved dripping black bangs off my forehead and squinted, trying to pierce the
gloom behind the lifeless windows and the dark pools breaking up my sightline. 
I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of my escorts since they left me here with or-else
orders to, “Sit.  Stay.”  Funny guys.  Anyway, I knew the CIIS agents were out
there ... somewhere.

When are they going to make their
move?
I wondered impatiently.

Supposedly, they were reconning the
area.  Riiight.  I imagined them set up in a nice, dry warehouse, drinking
coffee from a thermos, and chuckling over the expression on my face when I
caught my first whiff of the alley.  I growled in frustration.

Well, a deal was a deal, and I had
agreed to do this their way.  Yes, the person claiming to be an innocent duped
into making deliveries for the Ferrymen had chosen to make contact with me
instead of the feds.  Yes, I had, out of the kindness of my heart and a highly
developed sense of civic duty, passed what I considered an iffy tip along to CIIS,
the premier intelligence-gathering, law-enforcement agency on the continent.  I
had still had to do some fast talking to get the SAC, a taciturn guy named Ito,
to see the situation my way and let me tag along.

Truth be told, he had been within an
inch of tossing me out on my ear, when I reminded him my anonymous tipster
might decide to contact me with last-minute information that could immediately,
significantly impact the mission in progress.  Since Citizen Unknown made no
bones about the fact that he or she would break off all communications the
first time any face but mine appeared on screen, I ought to be on site.  Each second
counts, right?

I probably hadn’t sold the whole
load of bologna, but I had planted a seed of doubt.  So that was one argument
in my favor.  Second argument, I had a reputation for giving cops and feds a
fair shake and keeping my cool in tight spots.  But the argument that won them
over was my refusal to tell them where to go unless they took me with.

Once I got my erstwhile teammates
past the arrest threats by convincing them I would rather be behind bars than
left
behind, we managed to come
to an agreement.

Movement down the block and across
the street from the van caught my wandering attention.  I braced my left hand
against the rain-slick concrete wall, leaned around the corner, and snuck a
peek.  I didn’t see anything at first and was tempted to chalk up that flicker of
so-called movement to wishful thinking, when I glimpsed a lithe form ghosting
through the deep shadows cast by the warehouse opposite the loaf-shaped “target
vehicle.”  In the blink of an eye, the figure vanished, merging with the
darkness again.  Two or three minutes crawled by before another figure, shorter
and huskier, materialized near the back of the van.  A signal was given, and
the taller individual darted out of the shadows and across the street to join
his partner.

After a brief consultation, the
shorter of the two—that would be the dreadlocked Cuey—squatted and reached
underneath the rear bumper, planting the first tracking device, a chip the size
of your average pinhead.  The plan was to follow the van, ID the small fry,
tail them to bigger fry, and so on, until the authorities reached the top of
the world’s most murderous food chain.  Cuey and Michaels would plant a backup device
equipped with audio/visual capabilities inside the van.  Providing they could
bypass the anti-intrusion measures, of course.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t been able to
get the specs on those, because my source hadn’t left a callback number, and
the subject hadn’t come up in our earlier chats.  But if the tip was on the
level, and the cargo was as advertised and belonged to the gang it reportedly
belonged to, that security system would be well-nigh impregnable.

Possibly lethal, I mused, rubbing a
hand over a persistent prickle at the nape of my neck.  Now that we were here,
this deal was beginning to feel way wrong.  Seized by a sudden, almost
overwhelming urge to call the whole exercise off, I took a half-step toward the
mouth of the alley before I managed to rein in the impulse.  These guys were
pros; they didn’t need me to tell them this might be a trap.

As soon as Cuey stood up, he and
Michaels went to work on the cargo-bay doors.  The tiny red eye of their
scanner cast a diffuse glow as Cuey ran it around the seams.  I had it on good
authority Michaels was the Investigative Division’s resident computer whiz
kid-slash-wonder boy.  Supposedly, the system he couldn’t hack had yet to be
invented.  I pictured his freckled fingers dancing across a haptic interface,
searching for the command or series of commands that would temporarily reprogram
the anti-intrusion system to Open Sesame.  Once he succeeded,
if
he succeeded, the scanner’s
indicator light would flash green.

Five minutes later, it did. 
Michaels pumped a fist in the air, and Cuey leaned in close to the van.

Retinal scanner
, I thought.  P
robably
mounted at eye level to the left of the small, tinted back window.  Michaels
must have fooled it into recognizing Cuey’s retina.  I held my breath, bracing
for the big bang, but the door slid up into the roof with a pneumatic hiss not
much louder than my sigh of relief.  Cuey drew his weapon and climbed
cautiously inside, closely followed by his partner.

By now, I was weighing the pros and
cons of moving in for a closer look myself.  I wanted to see the inside of that
van so bad I could taste it, but there was no question in my mind about what
would happen if Cuey and Michaels caught me within fifty feet of them when they
had specifically warned me to stay put.  Despite my bravado back at
headquarters, incarceration wasn’t an attractive prospect for any number of
reasons.  In addition to all the pesky legal hassles and bad food involved,
Dad’s press secretary, Carolyn Mayer, would have a cow.  And her reaction would
be mild compared to Mom’s.  But the con that trumped them all was the fact that
I had given my word.  So, end of debate.  I would stay where I was, as comfy as
a wet cat, in the mouth of an alley with severe halitosis.  I only hoped the
story would be worth it.

I had no sooner made my decision,
when the nerves in my wrist hummed, scaring me out of half a year’s growth.  Swearing
silently, I tore my eyes away from the van and pushed up my left sleeve. 
UpLinks.  Can’t live with the phone-computer combo, sure as hell can’t live
without one, now that the nuts and bolts of life are stored in the Cloud.  The nearly
weightless black band tickled my wrist again as I read the crimson crawler,
Urgent call, caller unknown
.
 Now, as we all know, Caller Unknown
is the favorite ID of telemarketers and anonymous tipsters the world over. 
Since tonight’s ticklish operation was based on information from the one of the
latter, I issued a mental
answer call, closed caption
command to
the thought-activated software.

The three-dimensional color image
that materialized on the flex-screen took maybe five seconds to register.  Five
merciful seconds before I realized what I was looking at, moaned, “Nooooo,” dropped
to my knees, and vomited.  I threw up until I hit empty, then managed to unfold
at the waist.  Still on my knees, dizzy and shaking, I wiped the back of my
right hand across my lips, shoved up my sleeve again, and forced myself to take
a closer look.

I had never seen anyone flayed alive
but had no doubt this would be the result, if someone was.  There was no way to
tell whether the raw, bloody corpse had been male or female, Caucasian, Asian,
or Martian; it had been peeled like a grape.  The lipless mouth was frozen in
an agonized scream.  No tongue.  The caption read,
This is what we do to traitors
.

My stomach pitched again, but a
second message vibrated “incoming,” so I sucked a steadying lungful of air and
called up the transmission. 
And
inquisitive reporters. 
I
quickly flicked to the next screen to read the rest. 
You’re out of your league, Ms.
Gregson.
 
Flick.
 
Suggest you stage a tactical retreat.

They know
, I realized, as my
heart catapulted into my throat. 
And if they know they have a leak, they
probably guessed I would tell ....

My head whipped up.  My eyes locked
on the van.  I scrambled to my feet, letting my sleeve drop over the UpLink as
I stumbled toward the street, screaming a warning.  I was still screaming when
the van erupted with a deafening roar in a blinding flash.

Memory and I woke up together for a
change, the events of that night crystal clear, complete in every detail, so
sharp they cut like a knife.  Heart thudding painfully in my ears, I lay
perfectly still, horror rolling over me like a malevolent tide.

The van had been an ambush after
all.  Armageddon on a long fuse, the end delayed just long enough to lure prospective
prey well into the trap.  Cuey and Michaels hadn’t been blown up, they had been
vaporized.

My stomach knotted and rolled. 
Laying a hand on my abdomen, I breathed slowly and deeply, waiting for it to
settle.  It was a long wait, but I eventually managed to level off.  Or close
come close to level, anyway.

“Time check,” I croaked.

From the nightstand next to my bed,
my new UpLink—the old one had been reduced to a Dali-melt—replied in a pleasant
male tenor, “The time is twenty-three-oh-five.  Date: thirty September.”

Drawing a shaky breath, I sat on the
edge of the bed and mentally accessed the visualization program embedded in the
walls of my room and linked to my implants.  They had been activated a week
ago, when the docs decided it was safe for me to be up and about on my lonesome. 
The black screen behind my eyelids bloomed with blue, three-dimensional shapes—chairs,
walls, doorways, windows, even the slippers I had kicked off midway down the
left side of the bed.  Not the way you want to see the world twenty-four/seven,
and vizzing for more than a few minutes at a time will give you a worse headache
than a six-margarita hangover.  But the program is great for short stretches, when
you’re blind as a bat bereft of echolocation and want to get from point A to
point B without crippling yourself because somebody moved the furniture.

I slid my feet into the mules and
stood, waiting for my legs to firm up before scuffing across the room and into
my private bath, where I nudged the door closed with my hip.  Wrapping both
hands around the edge of the sink, I dropped my chin to my chest.  Just when I
had begun to doubt I would ever remember that night, total recall in one fell
swoop.  It was almost more than I could take.  So I stood there, trying to ride
out the storm and navigate a chaotic flood of emotion.

When the waves calmed to choppy-but-navigable,
I straightened and shoved my hands under the motion-activated tap, letting water
tumble over my wrists and forearms.  I soaked a washcloth and ran it over the
back of my neck, across my lips and chin, down my throat.  My hair was matted
with sweat, but as tempting as it was, sticking my head under the tap, bandages
and all, didn’t seem like such a bright idea with surgery scheduled for six
a.m.

Yes, today was the day.  By this
time tomorrow the worst would be over, and I would be halfway home.  Three weeks
from today people and furniture would no longer be Euclidean.  I would be able
to see my family again and get my first look at newcomers who had become major
players in my small, dark world.  Doctor Marisol Ramirez, Nurse Dennis Baker,
Katy Terrance, even the mysterious Jack Eagan.

Speaking of Eagan, I need to talk to
him. 
Now that
memory had returned, I had important information to share and almost no time to
arrange a briefing.

Folding the washcloth, I draped it
over the sink.  Once my hands were dry, I shuffled out of the bathroom and over
to the lounger angled in a corner to the left of my bed.  I sat and studied the
blue jumble atop my nightstand until I managed to pick out my UpLink and slide
it on.

Then I hesitated.  I wanted to keep
this call confidential, but as nonsensical as it sounds, you have no actual
privacy in a private hospital
room.  No such animal in a hospital,
period.  You never know when some medical weenie will pop in unannounced to listen
to your heart and lungs or take your temperature or cop a scan.  My best shot at
keeping my chat with Eagan under wraps was to head back to the bathroom, so I
did.

Thank God Jack decided to program
his number into my unit. 
Call Eagan, Jack
, I thought, activating the UpLink from my seat on the throne. 
After a ring and a half he picked up.  Not being able to see him, I forgot that
he
would
be able to see me.

“A.J.  Are you calling from the …
never mind.  What are you doing up so late?”  I could tell he was tired—his midnight
voice was a bit rough around the edges.  “Don’t you have surgery tomorrow?”

“Today, actually.  Oh-six-hundred.” 
Briefly distracted, I shook my head.  “Have you been keeping tabs—”  I broke
off mid-sentence when I remembered the clock was ticking.  “Forget it; it’s not
important.  Where are you?”

“On my way home.  Why?”

“How long would it take you to get
here?”

Silence.  Then, “You remembered
something.”  No fatigue in his voice now.

“I remembered
everything. 
I’m
not sure how much it will help, though.  You probably know most of it.  But I
do have a wrinkle or two to add, and I want to do it while the details are
still fresh in my mind.  Besides, who knows how long they’ll keep me doped up
after the surgery?”

“All right, if you’re sure you’re up
to it, I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

“I’m sure.  Oh, and Jack?”

“Yeah?”

“Do me a favor.”

“What’s that?”

“Can you get in without anybody
seeing you?  I would just as soon not give anyone reason to wonder if I’ve
remembered.  Word might get out to the wrong people.”

“Good thinking.  I’ll see you soon.”