Chimera (31 page)

"Yes, ma'am." I Pocketed the SIG and looked for evidence to support the story we would tell the cops. I couldn't see any. I had to content myself with the hope they would find something, or, in the absence of evidence, we would get the benefit of the doubt.

Barely two steps into the hallway leading to the front lobby. Zoe clutched my arm. "Max. Chain's an AI."

"Was. So?"

"He would back himself up."

"He can't have any more bodies."

"He doesn't need any more bodies."

"The earring—"

She grabbed my arm and jerked me back. A steel fire wall slammed down inches from my nose. We turned, starting back the way we had come. The vault-like door to the laboratory closed before us. We ran down the hall, trying the handle of every door along the way. All were locked.

Zoe whipped out her PowerPad and clicked it on. The monitor field appeared with text: "Internet connection failed."

Zoe said, "I can't get an outside line!"

"The building must be shielded."

"Fuck." She pointed. A bright yellow eight-legged handibot scuttled from a janitor's closet and scrambled toward us. I opened the Pocket for the SIG, firing as it slammed into my hand. The bot shielded its sensors with a flexible leg and kept coming.

"Zoe! Catch!" I ejected the earring from the Infinite Pocket.

She caught it, turned its halves, slid the gold pieces, looked up hopefully—and the bot continued to advance. "He reprogrammed it!"

She pocketed the earring and ran at the bot. Its tentacles lashed toward her. She vaulted over them. As the bot turned to follow, she wrenched a fire extinguisher from the wall and sprayed foam across its sensors.

The bot flailed blindly. One leg hit Zoe and knocked her back against the wall. I ran up, shooting into the handibot's optics. It spewed sparks, then collapsed with its legs limp around it.

We ran up the hall, scanning door signs. Zoe jerked me to a halt and pointed at one marked "Computer Laboratory."

I said, "On two." We each took a step back. "One. Two!" We kicked together, shattering the door free of its lock, and ran inside.

Lights came on, revealing another room without windows. Whether the reason was energy conservation or security, I thought someone should talk to the designer. The place was crowded with computer work stations. One, partly dismantled, had a chest of tools lying near it. It was nice to see evidence of workers who properly valued quitting time.

Zoe set the earring on a computer console and placed her fingers on the keyboard. An electric shock knocked her down.

"Zoe!" I ran to help her up.

"No!" Eyes wide, she gasped, pointing past me.

Across the room, a short, wheeled boxlike lab bot rolled out from the wall, extending steel grippers from its sides. I threw an arm around Zoe and yanked her toward the hall.

Before we'd taken three steps, a shadow fell across the doorway. I lifted the SIG. The yellow handibot, its head hanging limp and sparking, scurried into the room, trapping us there.

I fired a burst at each bot. They shielded their optics and kept coming. I scanned the room for anything that might stop or slow a tin man and saw nothing. Sooner or later, everyone runs out of luck.

I put the tip of the SIG against the earring on the console and yelled, "Chain!"

The bots halted. Oberon Chain's face appeared on every monitor around us.

I said, "If you want the earring in one piece, let us go."

"You trust me?"

"You believe in self-interest. So do I. Why shouldn't we all get what we want?"

"Very well."

The lab bot rolled forward, extending a gripper. I lifted my pistol. The bot's pincers closed on the earring. The gripper retracted, and the bot rolled back.

On every monitor, Chain smiled. "Thank you. That was the last loose end." The handibot lurched toward us.

"Only if that's the real earring."

"Easily checked." The lab bot drew a cable from the nearest computer console and plugged it into the black opal's data port. For an instant, every monitor bore the image of a dark gem rotating in space. The lab bot jerked the cable from the earring, and Chain's face reappeared on the screens.

Chain frowned like a teacher disappointed with his students. "Did you think it would be that easy?"

"Yeah, but I'm stupid." I lunged, snatching the earring from the lab bot and grabbing the data cable. The cable went taut in my hand as it retracted, but I hung onto the plug and jammed it into the earring's jack. Then I opened the Infinite Pocket and rammed the earring inside. The Pocket closed tightly around the cable, leashing me to the computer by my wrist.

The computer announced, "Search in progress." The black opal reappeared on every monitor. The cable at my wrist jerked, slamming me against the computer console.

Across the room, the handibot lurched for Zoe. She sprang aside, and it scrambled after her.

Chain's face came back on the monitors. "Release the earring!"

"Say 'please.'"

The lab bot hit me from behind, knocking me to my knees. I kicked back, knocking it away, and saw Zoe hit the handibot with a desk chair. Toppling,it caught her ankle.

Chain said, "You'll release the earring, or—"

His voice was cut off by the computer announcing, "Search completed. Three hundred fifty-three thousand, six hundred ninety-four copies of the Chain intelligence found on the net. Commencing erasure."

Chain's image on the monitors broke into a sunburst of pixels, then resolved to show Janna Gold smiling as she said, "Gotcha!"

Chain reappeared. "Stop the program!"

"Dream on. Forever."

As the lab bot's pincers closed on my right arm, Chain's image was shot with static for an instant. He said, "Then we all die—"

His image broke up again. When he came back, he looked coarse, grainy, almost two-dimensional. Old cartoons never die; they just decrease their resolution.

The handibot dragged Zoe toward it. The writhing data cable in my wrist kept me from shooting at it or the lab bot. Chain's voice had lost most of its character as he said, "—die together. Initiate self—" His image collapsed into snow.

I passed the SIG to my left hand and got off a shot at the handibot. It scuttled back from Zoe. My moment of satisfaction ended abruptly: The lab bot's grippers closed around my chest and squeezed. I shrieked as bones cracked.

Zoe snatched a screwdriver from the dismantled work station and ran toward me. The handibot wobbled after her. On the monitors, Chain said, "—self-destruct—"

The world was dark and distant as Zoe drove the screwdriver down with both hands into the join between the lab bot's casing and its metal skull. She twisted the screwdriver. The lab bot spasmed, released me, and slumped where it stood.

My ribs screamed as I lifted my arms to shoot over Zoe's shoulder. The first shots missed, but several struck the handibot's damaged sensors. It thrashed, swinging steel tentacles. Zoe ducked. I thought that I should, too, just as the bot knocked me against the far wall.

Chain's voice came as if he were a world away. "—destruct mode." That meant something bad. Zoe ran to me and knelt by my side. I blinked and tried to smile.

On the monitors, Chain broke up into a ghostly pattern of dots, then disappeared. The computer announced, "Three hundred fifty-three thousand, six hundred ninety-four copies of the Chain intelligence erased. End program."

Zoe said, "You okay?"

I groaned, opened the Pocket, and unplugged the earring. "Do I look okay?"

"You look—"

A siren sounded. The computer said, "Self-destruct command verified. One minute to implementation."

Zoe said, "What?"

The computer said, "Fifty-nine seconds."

I lurched to my feet. "Goddamn sore loser!" My ribs screamed, but I had better things to do than listen to them. The countdown continued as I staggered into the hall. The fire wall still blocked our exit.

"Max—"

"C'mon!" I sliced open a maintenance hatch with the edge of the Pocket. Zoe vaulted up inside it and pulled me after her. Crawling through the ductwork hurt more than walking had, but I wasn't about to slow down.

We hadn't scrambled far before we came to the intersection with the maintenance sled clamped to the wall. Shouting, "Wait!" I wrenched the sled free and threw myself onto it. "Hop on!"

Zoe leaped on my back and clung tight. That made breathing harder, but breathing wasn't a priority just then. I yanked the throttle. The sled rocketed through the ducts for several long seconds until, directly ahead of us, the shaft ended at a heavy grille.

"Max—"

I glanced at my watch. Time was up. "Trust me!"

"I hate it when you say that!"

The nose of the sled smashed the grille aside. As we scooted across the rooftop, I kept the throttle back hard, and we shot into space. I don't know if I felt heat or shockwaves, or heard the explosion first. All I know is the explosion lifted us, flinging us over the road at the rear of the building and onto the grass.

We hit hard and bounced. The trees in front of us looked even harder. I wrenched the steering rod, and we flipped across the lawn. I ended up in a bush and felt like staying there.

Zoe lay near me. When she rolled over and looked at me, I felt a little better. "Max?"

"Yeah."

She kissed my lips. "We didn't die."

"That's always my favorite part."

Bionova headquarters was engulfed in flame, a beautiful and terrifying sight. I saw people in the front parking lot and hoped everyone else had taken advantage of that minute of alarms.

Zoe said, "C'mon."

"Okay." I lifted myself on an elbow, then fell over. My last memory is of Zoe crying, "Max!"

I woke on a soft bed in clean sheets in a place that smelled like pine trees. I didn't want to open my eyes. I expected to see my cell at Duggan. Then I remembered Zoe and our escape, and I sat up.

I hoped someone had checked to see if I was claustrophobic before putting me in this room. Its off-white walls had been slid so close together that there was barely room for the fake mission-style chair beside my narrow bed. One HV screen hung on the wall by the foot of the bed. A second unit mounted on the wall beside me projected the illusion of a window: I could see tall pine trees and hear birds calling to each other in an outside world that was hundreds of miles away or that had never existed. I confess, it was comforting.

The medical AI hanging overhead spoke as I sat up. "Good morning, Mr. Maxwell. You're in Pasadena Presbyterian Hospital. Your health is excellent, and you've recovered fully from your accident. How do you feel?"

"Copacetic. Do you know an AI at Sherman Oaks General?"

"I do not."

"Too bad. I was going to ask you to tell him Max says hi."

I stood, more steadily than after I had been killed. My clothes hung on hangers on a peg on the wall. My suit had been cleaned, but it was torn and stained from the trips through the ducts. Paper slippers had been set out for me, which meant no one had recovered my dress shoes. I resolved to wear hemp coveralls and shoes on any future case.

I'd just looked out the HV window at green hills and a blue lake which looked like Lake Arrowhead with the houses digitally removed, when the HV at the foot of the bed came on. I turned to see a slender black woman in a lilac nurse's uniform.

She smiled. "Good morning, Mr. Maxwell. I'm Aleysha Ndege. How are you?"

"Don't you talk to the AI?"

She squinted at me. "Of course. But there's nothing like the human touch—"

I smiled at that. She was an image on HV. Even if there really was a human Aleysha Ndege looking into a camera somewhere, her human touch was aimed straight for my wallet. I wondered how much of my indenture money would go to pay the hospital and whether any would be left to put toward shortening my time with Duggan. "What's the damage?"

"Three broken ribs, one badly bruised leg, and a concussion. You'll want to take it easy for a few days."

"I meant to my bank account."

"Oh! It's paid."

"Excuse me?"

She leaned closer to the camera and spoke quietly, a little embarrassed. "Your contract owner paid it."

"Ah." I frowned, thinking Duggan hadn't done me a favor. They would extend my time to cover the cost of injuries endured while escaping and add a healthy mark-up for themselves.

Ndege kept speaking softly. "Your owner asked to be notified when you woke. Someone's coming to meet you."

I nodded as my freedom slipped away. I had known I would face that eventually, but I'd hoped for a few hours to sit by the beach and talk with Zoe about what had happened and what it meant.

"And you've got a visitor, if you're ready for company."

"Anytime." As Ndege's image disappeared, I slid back into bed, propped myself up on the pillows, adjusted the blanket, and checked my reflection in the HV screen. Pale, but not frightening, I thought. This wouldn't be as nice as the beach, but a couple of minutes with Zoe would make it easier to return to Duggan. I leaned back and closed my eyes, wondering what she would do if she thought I was asleep. But the instant I heard the door open, I grinned and looked up.

The grin died on my lips. Detective Chumley said, "Expecting someone prettier?"

"Ah, Chumley, who's prettier than you?"

"Funny."

I held out both hands. "Well, you got me, copper."

"Who the hell wants you? I need your statement and the cat's. Any idea where she went?"

My surprise that he didn't want to arrest me was overridden by his news. "She's gone?"

"No one's seen her since she told her story to the reporters."

"What story?"

"About Chain being an AI and creating the werewolfings."

"People believed a chimera?"

"There's some corroborating evidence about Singer Labs being part of Chain Logic, and people working for Singer having this habit of dying. The justice department's looking into it. If you can second what she said, she's no longer a suspect."

"I can."

"I still need to hear from her before that's official."

"You might try her home in Minnesota."