“This StopCollar thing,” I said. “What exactly is it?”
“Consider how Nathan’s interference generator scrambles listening devices.” Spare14 tented his fingers and considered me over the arch. “The collar works in a somewhat
similar way. It prevents the exercise of psychic talents by generating a supra-magnetic barrier field.”
“So it causes countercurrents in the aura. Does it suppress all of the person’s talents?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so. It’s a nasty bit of work, really. On Terrae One and Five it can legally be used only on world-walkers and polyshifters—the two classes of the talented who might escape justice without it.”
Polyshifters? The term was a new one on me.
“If the effect is anything like the procedure the Agency calls a Shield Persona,” I said, “then Dad’s miserable.”
“No doubt. That’s why its use is so restricted.”
“What’s the collar made of?” Ari leaned forward. “Some sort of metal, I’d assume.”
“Yes, primarily platinum, but it’s an alloy with silver. It has a nickel coating of some sort as well. The most common shape is a narrow torus. They all lock on.”
A kind of necklace, like the one Aunt Eileen had seen Sean wearing in her dream? It was possible, I realized, though why the gang would collar Sean instead of Michael puzzled me. I listened to the technical details with only half a mind. I needed to sort out my reactions.
Whether Sean was wearing one or not, we knew that Dad was. I was furious with my father. At the same time, the thought that he was living a tortured existence thanks to white gold locked around his neck made me furious as well, just in a different direction. My deduction: although I could never forgive him, I still loved him under the rage.
I realized that Spare14 had just asked me a direct question.
“Sorry,” I said. “Could you ask that again?”
“I was wondering if any other members of your family were finders. If so, perhaps one could accompany us.”
“No, unfortunately. Sean’s the only one. I’ll need to bring my crayons instead.”
Spare14 gave Ari a furtive glance, as if he was perhaps wondering if I were crazy.
“For an LDRS,” I said, “Long Distance Remote Sensing. Automatic drawing is a part of it, and the crayons are an easy way to add color.”
“Oh.” Spare14 smiled in deep and evident relief. “Yes, by all means, bring whatever you need.” He let the smile fade. “Now, we have a problem that concerns you, a complication, we might call it. A woman who must have been one of your doppelgängers was quite an important personage in the city. She was the mistress of the current chief of police.”
“Was?” Ari said.
“Yeah, she’s dead,” I said. “She told me so earlier today.”
Both men stared at me. Spare14 took off his glasses and rubbed his forehead as if it hurt.
“Well, she did.” I shrugged. “It took me by surprise, too. Especially since she knew Latin.”
“Nuala?” Spare looked up and peered with glasses still in hand. “Latin? Hardly! Are you sure—”
“She had short spiked hair and too much makeup, but otherwise she looked just like me.”
“That must have been her, then.” Spare14 put his glasses back on. “But Latin? No. She really did rise from the streets, poor girl. Some say she could barely read English.”
Very interesting, I thought. Someone or something masquerading as Nuala had given me a tip. The question: could I trust it?
“So, this problem,” I continued. “What if someone sees me and thinks I’m Nuala who’s not dead after all. Is that it?”
“Precisely. At the moment, the Chief of Police has no idea who murdered his woman. The circumstances were very odd, and her body was never found. Or at least, not all of it.”
“What do you mean, not all of it?”
“Just that. Someone put a woman’s leg, wrapped in Nuala’s bloodstained clothing, on the Chief’s doorstep one night. They have no way of doing DNA testing in SanFran, so a positive ident was impossible, though apparently the leg seemed to be hers. She had tattoos, you see. When I read over the file, it seemed clear that the murder was meant as a slap at the Chief. The poor girl meant nothing in herself.”
“They play for keeps over there, huh?”
“Yes, it’s really not a very nice place.”
“I’ve noticed. How did this chief guy take it?”
“Badly. He seems to have been honestly fond of her, odd, really, for a man like that, but I suppose even the worst of us have our good qualities. Be that as it may, what if word reaches him that she’s been seen alive?”
“Will he want her, I mean me, back?”
“Possibly. Unless he feels that she’s somehow double-crossed him, or pretended to die to get away from him, or some such thing. If so, he’s likely to want you killed.”
Ari growled.
“Quite,” Spare14 said. “He’s really a very suspicious fellow, I gather. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown and all that. He’s surrounded by armed guards at all times.”
“And this is the job that the Storm Blue head guy wants,” I said. “Is he crazy or something?”
“The Axeman?” Spare14 paused for a look of faint disgust. “That’s what he calls himself. It’s a joking reference to a taxman. His actual name is Allan Moore. What? O’Grady, you look so shocked.”
“You can’t mean this gangster is Alan Moore’s doppelgänger. You know, the guy who wrote
Swamp Thing
.”
Both Ari and Spare14 stared at me in some distress.
“And
Watchmen
.” I was trying to be helpful, but I got the same stares. “Uh, you don’t know, do you? The Alan I mean is an author. A comic book writer.”
“Oh.” Spare14’s voice stayed polite out of sheer will power, or so his SPP told me. “I doubt it very much. The Terra Three Allan Moore is not the creative sort, except perhaps when it comes to extortion.”
“Comic books again.” Ari looked at me with eyes loaded with reproach. “Nola!”
“You don’t need to be such a snob about it. You’re the one who’s culturally deprived.”
We glared at each other.
“Um, well,” Spare14 broke in, “let’s move along, shall we? The gangster Allan Moore is also known as the Moore of SanFran. He’s rather fond of ghastly puns.”
“He’s read
Othello
?”
“Yes, he comes from an educated background of sorts, not that education seems to have improved his character. He runs a protection racket among other nefarious activities.
He comes to my office regularly.” Spare14 shuddered at the memory. “I pay him, of course. Otherwise his assistant might set the office on fire, quite possibly while I’m inside it.”
“Right,” Ari said. “He knows you’ll pay up because of your supposed numbers racket.”
“Yes, exactly.” He shuddered again. “I’ll reach my radiation limit soon, and then a younger man will take over the SanFran office. I shall be very glad to leave it behind.”
“Yeah, I bet,” I said. “Um, about this radiation—”
“I’ll make sure that you each have a standard TWIXT radiation badge. We’ll leave if the levels become dangerous. There is medication for excessive dosages, but it has rather painful side effects, I gather. I’d prefer that none of us verify that from personal experience.”
“So would I. I just hope we can get Michael and Sean out of there before they need the meds.” A worse thought occurred to me. “And before the radiation causes permanent damage.”
Ari winced. Spare14 looked grim and nodded his agreement. Rather than brood on the worst-case scenario, I returned to the Nuala problem.
“It’s too bad I’ve got this real dark hair. If I try to bleach it, it’ll just turn that weird orange that screams ‘fake’ to every woman around. And I’ll need a new name. Nola’s too close to Nuala. How about Rose? That’s my middle name.”
“Very good, yes.” Spare14 grinned at me. “On Terra Three I’m afraid I’m known as Sneak.”
I laughed. Ari merely smiled.
“Should I take a new name?” Ari said. “Are there any Jews in SanFran?”
“Some, yes, though I doubt if any member of any religion is very observant. I think you’d best pretend to be a relative of mine. We have similar accents. Everyone thinks I come from Jamaica.”
“Jamaica?” I said. “Why Jamaica?”
“The disaster that created Interchange destroyed Great Britain along with the rest of northern Europe. That was back at the end of World War One. Just as here, there was a British colony in Jamaica, and quite a few refugees arrived
to swell the ranks. Ever since, the colony’s clung to the old ways. They sound more British now than the actual British ever did.”
“Got it.” I glanced at Ari. “So you need a British-y sounding name.”
“What about Eric Spare?”
“Very good.” Spare14 nodded at him. “Now all we need is the world-walker. I do hope the Head Office can send one soon.”
I considered mentioning Dad’s set of boxes but decided against it. For all of Spare14’s relentlessly avuncular persona, I didn’t quite trust him where my father was concerned. The boxes, I figured, might come in handy later if I needed to strike some kind of bargain.
For a while that afternoon, we continued to discuss strategy for our move onto Interchange. We needed to have everything in place before our transportation became available. Thanks to the demand, TWIXT agents had only a brief window to use a world-walker’s services before the psychic had to move on to the next job.
“We’ll go directly to my office,” Spare14 said. “We’ll be safe there. It’s a lovely irony, in a way. Since I’ve paid the Axeman, no one will dare attack us on the premises. His gang would retaliate. He’s quite reliable, really, in his way.”
As he was leaving, Spare14 paused to ask me, “I don’t suppose you have any news for me concerning the liaison offer?”
“I do, yeah. The higher-ups are extremely interested. They’re thinking in terms of holding a face-to-face meeting as a next step.”
Spare14 smiled and followed Ari down the stairs.
I was going to boot up my desktop and file a report to the Agency, but I heard a claw-clicking noise in the kitchen and hurried in to look. Sure enough, Or-Something was pacing back and forth on the tiled counter. At the sight of me, it gurgled and produced two large wads of paper. I opened the refrigerator and found some moldy slices of pizza, half a can of tuna fish, and a plastic bag of arugula. When I put out the pizza, the critter wagged its long scaly tail and hunkered down to eat.
One wad of paper came from José, and the other from Sophie. I glanced through them, saw that they contained a lot of useful information, and put them on the coffee table to read later. I went into the bathroom to consider how to change my look. Although I never wore much makeup, I kept some in a drawer of the vanity. I was going through my stash when an image formed in the oval mirror over the sink. I could see Nuala standing behind me, her hands on her hips, her head tilted a little to one side as she worked on a piece of chewing gum.
“Okay,” I said, “who are you really?”
“Define really,” Nuala said.
“Cute. We don’t have enough time for me to stumble around trying to pin down reality. Are you Nuala’s ghost or not?”
“What do you think?”
“Not, that’s what.”
“What the hell else would I be?”
“A projection via the squid machine. An IOI carryover from someone who’s my genetic double. An angel in disguise. A demon in disguise. Is that enough possibilities for you?”
“None of the above.”
“The real Nuala never took a multiple choice test in her life.” I played my trump card. “Besides, you gave yourself away when you used Latin. She didn’t know any.”
The Nuala image snarled, then snapped her gum and disappeared.
“A bitch, that’s what,” I said. “Right answer, but it doesn’t help.”
I heard footsteps in the hall. In the mirror Ari’s image appeared in the bathroom door. When he walked in, I turned around and stroked his chest with both hands just to make sure I was seeing actual flesh and blood. He grinned. I was.
“I must admit,” he said, “that I’m glad you’re not going to bleach your hair.”
“Me, too. It would end up feeling like straw. I’ve got to do something about changing my look, though.”
The words “changing my look” began to repeat and reverb,
echoing around the tiled room. I heard Ari swear and felt his hands catch me by the shoulders.
I walked into the gray library where the bookshelves shot off multidimensionally. The angel with the pince-nez was standing at the lectern, but instead of a book, he was staring at a laptop screen. He looked up and smiled.
“You really might ask about those polyshifters,” he said.
The library began to sway back and forth. The bookshelves swung around me like the flaccid arms of a drunk, but not a single book fell.
I blinked and saw the hallway floor drifting under me. Ari had slung me over one shoulder, caveman style, and was carrying me into the bedroom. He took me to the bed and flopped me down with my head on the pillow.
“Thanks,” I said.
“You’re back? Brilliant! If you’d hit your head on the porcelain or the metal pipes—”
“Yeah, I know.”
Ari sat down on the edge of the bed and turned to face me. “What was it this time?”
“The library and the angel again. He prompted me to ask a question.” It occurred to me that my beloved darling might be holding out on me. “Ari, do you know what a polyshifter is?”
“No. I’ve been wondering ever since Spare14 mentioned them. Something like a werewolf, I’d suppose, but worse.”
His SPP made it clear that he honestly didn’t know.
“Yeah, that’s my guess, too,” I said. “Someone who can change into more than one shape. If they can do it at will, they’d be really tricky to deal with, and I suppose that’s why they can be collared legally.”
I considered the possibility that the Nuala I’d seen was a polyshifter, but she was basically insubstantial, an image, not flesh. No one could put a platinum collar on an apparition.
“But that reminds me,” I went on. “Don’t you have a data file on SanFran on that educational online location?”
He froze.
“You do, don’t you?” I said. “And you don’t want to tell me because it’s classified information.”
He merely stared at me.
“You’re incriminating yourself with silence,” I went on. “You might as well admit it.”