There's Only One Quantum (6 page)

Five.

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“A cell-bot,” Ms. Hunter said.

She agreed to meet him in a cafe named Indigo where the ferns inside were real, but the coffee was not. They were seated at a table for two by the window. She kept her raincoat on.

“A cell-bot?”

“A replicant,” she said. “Made in a genetics lab using real cells, tissues, DNA. Clones, essentially.”

Coe said, “Like the kind they used to terraform Mars?”

“Obviously, this one had a robotic head. It’s a spy model. Quantum makes them.”

“Quantum
makes
them?”

“Intellitech Laboratories,” she said. “On fifteen. They’re a subsidiary.”

“Quantum sent it?”

“Quantum makes them,” she said. “Doesn’t necessarily mean it came from Quantum. Lots of companies use them.” She sipped her coffee. “Doesn’t mean it
didn’t
come from Quantum, either.”

“Christ.” He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. It had all begun to make his head ache. “Auditors are spies,” he said, having a satori.

She laughed. “Auditors are lots of things. You didn’t know that?”

“I don’t know what I thought. Yes. No. I don’t...maybe.” All of those years in research, the dossiers, the background checks, the traces—he told himself it was all marketing.

“The corporate world is a cutthroat place, Mr. Coe. Without good business intelligence, how can a company like Quantum, keep its competitive edge?”

“There’s only one: Quantum,” he said, mindlessly reciting the company slogan. It appeared on print ads, billboards, corporate swag like the T-shirts and coffee mugs they freely distributed to employees—it was said with confidence by the big-breasted actress with the pouty lips that had been the company spokeswoman for nearly a decade.

Ms. Hunter smiled. “There’s only one...and we’re fortunate enough to work for it. Do you ever remind yourself just how lucky you are, Mr. Coe? You work for Quantum. The Quantum Corporation. You’re an auditor for the number one company in the world...hell, the solar system.”

“I’m lucky,” Coe said.

“Look at them,” she said, casting a glance toward the window. An endless flow of people passed by the glass, some paused long enough just to look in. “We could easily be on that side. Part of the masses, moving...always moving. Do you ever wonder where they all go?”

“Home,” he said. “Work. School. Restaurants. Cafes like this one.”

“No,” she said, sipping her coffee. Her gaze stayed fixed on the people. “I don’t think they have homes. Their job is to keep moving.”

Coe watched her as she spoke. She was expressionless, unblinking. She was beautiful but cold. He couldn’t get a read on her. “Who do you think sent the cell-bot?”

“What?” she said, dreamily. She turned slowly away from the window and looked at him. Her eyes were blank as if she did not even recognize him.

“The replicant,” he said. “The one that intercepted the message.”

“Oh, right,” she said. Her features softened then. “Steele. Quantum...”

“Who else? The caller made it seem as though there were more competitors than just Steele.”

“Maybe Devereaux, Tokei, Oxford, Atlas...it could be anyone. When you’re Quantum, the entire world is your competitor, whether it’s the box stores that anchor the strip mall or the mom and pop grocer on the corner.”

At that moment, Coe’s hand-held communicator buzzed. He removed it from his coat pocket. INCOMING: MITCHELL, it read. Coe answered it.

Mitchell’s image appeared. He looked disheveled. Purplish flesh ringed his eyes. “Revis is dead,” he said. “Suicide. He was found hanging from a tree in Druid Hill Park.”

Coe looked toward Ms. Hunter who covered her mouth with her hand. It was too convenient. He missed the message tonight. Revis had been a double agent for Steele and whoever Coe was supposed to meet. He’d missed that message, but this one was clear.

“What does this mean?” Coe asked Mitchell, anyway.

“I think we both know what it means,” he said.

The screen went black.

It was then that he noticed Ms. Hunter was weeping.

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Coe rode the train with her to her apt. She didn’t speak. She just stared out the window as she had at the cafe, watching the rain bead the glass, the lights of the city—of the snarled traffic—streak by. The interior of the train was dark, except for the eerie green-blue glow of digital readers. A man in the seat in front of him was reading the evening edition of
The Intelligencier
. The headline read: Body Found In Druid Hill Park. It was accompanied by a photograph of a modestly handsome man with dark wavy hair and a square chin. He wore small square eyeglasses. Under the photo was the caption: Collin Revis.

They got off in Blueberry Common. It was a quiet working class neighborhood. There was a dentist’s office on the first floor of her building. She lived on the third floor. He rode the elevator up with her.

“Thank you,” she said, “for accompanying me home.”

Coe said, “You don’t have to thank me.”

The elevator opened onto a dark hallway lit only by a small, solitary lamp with an amber shade. They stopped at a door marked 310.

“I’d invite you in, but—”

“I need to get home anyway,” he said.

“Of course.”

“Good night,” he said, and turned to go.

“I suppose you think it was a queer response,” she said.

Coe stopped.

“My getting emotional,” she said, “at hearing about Mr. Revis.”

Coe shrugged. “I assumed it was a normal reaction to hearing that someone you had worked closely with—an auditor whose reports you had transcribed—had passed away.”

She smiled, but her eyes were wet. “That’s
exactly
it.”

“You’re human,” he said.

“Good night, Mr. Coe.”

Coe managed a smile. “Good night, Ms. Hunter.”

He waited as she unlocked her door and entered. When he heard the door lock from the inside, he strode back to the elevator.

“We’re having a dust storm,” Janeiro said. Her hair was wet. It lay flat against her head. “The entire planet is covered.”

There was the usual delay between messages—their interplanetary call-and-response. He said, “It must be amazing to see—from your window inside your dome, of course.”

He sat there looking at her. After the evening he’d had of spy-versus-spy with mysterious calls and exploding cell-bots, he wanted nothing more than to interact with her in real time—to hold her against him—to fall asleep inside of her. Instead, she in some way felt less real to him. He presented an edited version of the day to her, revealing nothing of the excitement, the intrigue, or even the short excursion to Ms. Hunter’s apt. It left him with very little to talk about.

As she described the red dust clinging to the eco-dome of her city, and pinkish hue it cast on the streets, the buildings, his thoughts turned to Ms. Hunter, weeping—of her enthusiasm, loyalty, and vulnerability. He was ashamed of himself. His shame was experienced on many levels. Shame, because he was freely betraying his long-time employer for a woman he had never met; shame, because he was waging something valuable in the current state of earthly life (a job); and shame, because he was feeling excitement for another woman, while the woman he loved was on the screen before him—their calls, their time, so precious.

“Are you feeling all right?” she asked.

“I feel fine.” But he couldn’t hide a sudden dissatisfaction, perhaps impatience, with the distance between them and the tedium of their communication. He reminded himself it was not her fault, that she was taking a tremendous risk on him, leaving her home planet for an overcrowded, overburdened place that often seemed ready to come undone by the birth of even one more child.

“I love you, Scotty,” she said.

He imagined her voice relaying from satellite to satellite, across the immense, cold void. A harrowing, hellish eight-month voyage awaited her in the near future—if he was ultimately successful in obtaining the obtuse, esoteric information that Steele wanted.

“I love you,” he said, meaning it all the more.

Six.

The global jobs market finished the year on a sour note and is unlikely to improve any time soon as slowing economic growth and the high global dollar (The G credit) put employers under pressure. Almost 14M full-time jobs were lost to the economy in December as the international unemployment rate rose to 13.4 per cent. Total employment fell by 5M as demand for part-time workers offset some of the lost full-time jobs. Minority Leader Tony Digby (D) pinned the blame for the rise in unemployment on—ironically—the lack of global conflicts, increased longevity of life, and a general malaise among the planet’s citizens which has led to a renewed interest in sexual activity and has therefore, placed an undue stress on natural resources because of a swelling global population...

The first thing he heard was the hum of the hovercar just outside his bedroom window. Laying half-asleep, half-awake, in his bed, the sound was first indistinguishable from the other hover traffic outside—that constant drone of traffic, of movement, as if it were to stop, all life would come to a grinding halt. But it was the hum of a particular hovercar, one near his building, flying near his window in what was clearly marked a no-hover zone. The power of the hover engine, so close now it had begun to shake the windows, caused the entire room to vibrate. Immense light, white and searing, poured through the window and pored over him.

Dressed in his pajamas, he first sat up, then instinctively rolled from bed onto the floor, crawling away from the bed as a blast of glass and bullets ripped through the air, shredding the bed. The room snowed cotton and man-made fibers as if he had suddenly found himself inside the center of an enormous snow globe. The concentrated artillery fire remained fixed on the bed for several seconds before moving through the remainder of the apt, shooting out the windows, chewing up furniture, bedding, and carpeting.

Coe had wedged himself in a doorway, balled up and laying close to the floor and making himself into as small of a target as possible. The hovercar moved swiftly then, finishing its assault, and speeding away.

He lay on the floor for some time after that, listening. The monotonous night-noise of hover traffic returned, and with it sirens.

“So let me see if I have this straight,” the detective said, looking down at his e-notebook. His name was Jansky.

Coe had provided a statement, speaking directly into the dictophone of the e-notebook. It automatically transcribed his statement.

Jansky read, “And then this—cell-bot, is it—its head turned into a robot bird and flew away?”

“That’s correct,” Coe said, shivering in the night air as it rushed in through his smashed windows. He’d attempted to put on his robe, but it had been reduced to rags as a result of the gunfire.

“I see,” Jansky said. “And this is related how?”

“I’m unsure it’s related at all,” Coe said. He was hesitant to tell the police anything at all, since it could prove detrimental to his position with Quantum and as a co-conspirator of Steele. But, he needed to give them something since a machine-gunning of his apt could not be kept secret.

“What is it you do again, Mr. Coe?”

“I work for Quantum.”

“Uh huh,” Jansky said. “Doing what?”

“Marketing research,” he told him, a loose version of the truth.

“Sounds interesting. Any idea why someone would want to do this to your apt, or better yet...to you?”

“No. No one.”

“No enemies?”

“Just the cell-bot.”

“The one with the bird head?”

“The one with the bird head,” Coe said.

Jansky looked around the room, at the walls riddled with bullet holes, and the floor covered in glass. He whistled. “Sure pissed someone off.”

“I don’t even know anyone,” Coe said. “I’ve been in the city a week.”

“Maybe a case of mistaken identity,” Jansky said, speaking into the dictophone. “I hope you’ve got insurance.”

“Now what?”

“We’ll file a report,” Jansky said, preparing to leave.

“That’s it?”

“Do you know how many people live in this city?”

“No.”

Jansky grimaced. “Me, neither. It’s a lot, though.” He scratched his forehead. “Maybe someone saw something...there’s always someone moving down on the streets below. Whether they’re willing to help someone with a cushy job in a cushy apt so many stories up it’s halfway to the moon, well...that’s anyone’s guess.”

“What about tonight?” Coe asked, following Jansky and two other policemen to the door. “Is it safe to stay here?”

Jansky laughed. “Unless your friend with the robotic bird head returns, who’s going to get you up here?”

“Someone just almost did.”

“There’s your answer,” he said, and walked out.

“I took the liberty of first cleaning up,” Ms. Hunter said.

“You didn’t have to go through any trouble,” Coe said, setting his overnight bag down onto her floor. Behind her, he could see she had placed a sheet, a pillow, and a flannel blanket onto a sofa. He felt both relieved and disappointed. Ms. Hunter was in a pink bathrobe and pink slippers; her legs were bare. In the muted amber light of her apt, her hair looked almost red. It was pulled back into a ponytail. She wore small glasses.

She said with a wave to the sofa, “I trust it will be suitable for you? If not, you can take my bed and I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

“I’m just grateful you could accommodate me.”

She blushed. “I’m honored.”

“Stop it.”

“How awful, Mr. Coe. When you told me the news, all I could think was that you are all alone here. I want you to know, you’re not alone. Quantum is like family to me. You are welcome to stay here as long as—”

“Property management assured me they’ll have the glass replaced by tomorrow.”

She smiled. “I’m just glad you’re safe.” She leaned in suddenly and embraced him. When he was slow to react, she pulled back. “Good night, Mr. Coe,” she said, still smiling.

“Good night, Ms. Hunter.”

She walked to what he assumed was her bedroom, and closed the door. Coe waited a moment and then undressed, changing into his pajamas. He lay on the sofa and turned out the light. He lay silently thinking about Ms. Hunter, wondering what she had on beneath the robe. There was no denying he was excited by her. In just a week, he’d become less enthusiastic about Janeiro. First the intrigue, then the threat on his life—this was not his reality. He imagined breaking it off with Janeiro, leaving her to her own world, severing ties with Steele. Maybe he could go to Mitchell and Lyme and tell them he’d been approached by Steele, perhaps become a
double
-double agent. The idea of staying loyal to Quantum was an attractive one. He imagined instead how it might be to share Ms. Hunter’s love, her loyalty to Quantum—how it might be to secretly be with her. She was flesh, blood; she was here.

She was in the other room.

Was she laying in bed thinking of him? Was she imagining how it might be to love him, be loved by him—how it might feel the first time he entered her?

He fell asleep with these thoughts and with the irresistible sense of her in the next room—a sense that she wasn’t sleeping at all but also lying awake, perhaps thinking the same thoughts. It was some time during the night, in the din of her apt with its smart appliances and automated climate control tirelessly adjusting the heat in response to their body temperatures, when he awoke to find her standing naked over him. In the darkness, he could faintly discern the features of her body that were only hinted at beneath her business suits. She said nothing. She did not move. She just looked over him with the vigilance a guardian angel who’d traded in her wings for wing-tip shoes. Her stoicism caused him to freeze and he held her glance for as long as he could. After a protracted moment, she turned and without a word, returned to her room and quietly shut the door.

Coe was uncertain what to do. If she were inviting him into her bed, he was certain she would have let the door open. He lay for some time, thinking about the incident—confounded by what he had saw—retracing the lines of her body in his mind. Finally, he convinced himself he had had some sort of lucid dream and it was enough to settle the dull aching that had begun to overtake him. He eventually fell back to sleep but to his disappointment, he did not dream of her. In fact, he dreamt of nothing at all.

He awoke to morning light flooding the room and the smell of frying bacon. He followed the smell to a narrow galley kitchen where he found Ms. Hunter still in her robe, standing over the stove, turning over the bacon strips sizzling in a pan. She turned slowly when he entered. Her face was expressionless.

“Smells good,” he said.

“The real thing,” she said. “I’ve been saving it in my freezer for—”

“I haven’t had real bacon since I was a child,” he said.

“Mr. Revis loved bacon.” She paused after she said this and took time to tend to breakfast. “We were in love.”

It should have surprised Coe, but it didn’t.

She was careful what she said after her admission. “Do you prefer it crispy or chewy?”

“It’s been so long—”

“Mr. Revis preferred it crispy.”

“Any way you prepare it will be fine.” He thought for a moment. “Did you always call him Mr. Revis?”

“Quantum prefers we maintain a formal—”

“We’re not at Quantum. We’re in your kitchen.”

“I called him Collin.”

Coe spied a pot of fresh coffee on the automated maker. “May I?”

“I made it for you,” she said. “I’m afraid it’s synthetic.”

He poured himself a cup. “What did he call you?”

“Delly.”

He gave her a puzzled look.

“It’s short for Delilah.”

“It’s pretty.”

“How do you like your eggs?”

“Any way—”

“They come from a box.”

“Scrambled is fine.”

“I’m telling you this because I trust you won’t go to the company about it.”

He looked at her.

“About Mr. Revis—about Collin and I.”

“Yes, of course. Your secret is safe.”

He sipped his coffee. She removed the pan from the stove top, carefully scooped equal amounts of eggs and bacon onto two plates. “Medium-light,” she commanded the kitchen. “Toast.”

It took only a moment for the toaster to turn out four slices of perfectly browned toast. Nearly all toasters were equipped with a sprayer that coated it with butter, but Ms. Hunter instead brought the toast to the table and buttered it herself.

“I prefer the personal touch,” she said.

She cut the toast into four triangles and placed it neatly on his plate. Then she sat and they ate breakfast.

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...

Mitchell asked Coe to the conference room. When he arrived, he found Mitchell seated at the head of the long table, with Lyme and Ms. Davenport flanking him on either side. Lyme nodded to Coe and gave a half-smile; Ms. Davenport did not look up from her notepad.

Mitchell said, “We’ve decided it best that we have these briefings with you daily until the Steele mole is found.”

“I don’t understand,” Coe said. “Yesterday you said I would only answer to you—”

“Mitchell is my subordinate,” Lyme said. “It’s implied, if you answer to him, you answer to me.”

Mitchell acknowledged Lyme’s explanation with a nod.

Lyme said, “This must be a difficult adjustment for you, Coe...and I do apologize. I realize you’re having to cope with a new position, a new city—in essence, a new life. Now, you’ve been thrown into this on-going intrigue of which you’re frankly—and let’s be frank—landing on top of a mess that begun before you ever even entertained thoughts of a promotion, I’m sure.”

Coe smiled nervously.

“I know I kind of sprung this new assignment on you rather abruptly yesterday,” Mitchell said, “And then sent you on a wild goose chase with little or no direction or instruction—”

“The Quantum way,” Lyme said, cynically.

They all shared a laugh at the inside joke—or rather, Lyme and Mitchell did; Ms. Davenport did not break character. Coe had begun to wonder why she was even at the meeting, when Mitchell addressed her presence, as if reading Coe’s mind.

“It’s no secret Ms. Davenport was instrumental in uncovering Revis’s involvement in the prior corporate espionage plot by Steele against Quantum. She’s got a nose for sniffing—”

“Bullshit,” she said, flatly and without so much as a hint of humor.

Lyme smiled.

“She’s got a nose for bullshit,” Mitchell said, also smiling.

“You’ll continue to work the Bruges file with Ms. Hunter,” Lyme said. “Have you found her acceptable?”

Ms. Davenport made an audible grunt but did not look up.

“Yes,” Coe said. “She’s very professional.”

“Good,” Lyme said. “As far as Ms. Hunter is concerned, your entire focus is on the Bruges file. Is that clear?”

“Is there a concern regarding Ms. Hunter?” Coe asked.

Mitchell and Lyme exchanged glances; Ms. Davenport looked up. “No,” they said in unison.

Coe said, “I mean, it would be beneficial to me if she—”

“Out of the question,” Ms. Davenport said in a loud voice before saying quietly to Lyme, “I beg your pardon, sir.”

“Ms. Davenport is right,” he said. “It’s better that the details of this operation be limited to the people in this room.”

Coe said nothing. The seething in Ms. Davenport’s voice still echoed in his brain. He realized he was standing all this time. No one had permitted him to sit. Finally he said, “Is that all, sir?” in the general direction of the trio.

Mitchell looked at Lyme and shook his head. “We understand there was an incident at your apt last night.”