Hammerjack (53 page)

Trevor Bostic turned away from the monitor in the commandant’s office, where he had watched the drama every day for the last six weeks.

“That’s enough,” he said.

They gassed her, a potent neuralstetic that rendered her unconscious for several hours. When she woke up, she was in an apartment—an opulent suite of rooms adorned in black and white marble, like something out of a dream. Rising out of bed, she realized she was dressed in a silk nightgown. Her skin had been delicately scrubbed and smelled of lilac. Through the windows in her room, the familiar skyline of Manhattan revealed itself, sparkling lights outfitted for the gathering dark. Then she realized she
had
dreamed about this place many times throughout the course of her life. It had been her oasis of peace—an art deco fantasy she had promised herself if she lived long enough to enjoy the rewards of her occupation.

Someone had plucked it out of her imagination and manufactured it for her.

Lea picked up a robe draped across a chair next to the bed and walked across the cool tile floor to the bedroom door. Opening it, she found an escort waiting for her on the other side. The man was dark, impeccably dressed in a silk suit—Japanese to the core. Lea knew he was a gangster the moment she saw him—probably a Special Services liaison. Spook masters used them for security when they didn’t trust their own inner circle.

“Good evening, Miss Prism,” he said, his tone businesslike—but latent with the threat of violence. “I’ve been assigned as shadow counsel for the duration of your deployment. Your presence has been ordered at corporate security headquarters—immediately.”

Lea studied him for a moment and decided she had no choice.

“I’ll be ready in a minute,” she said.

They traveled by private pulser, off the Port Authority routes so there would be no record of transit. It was standard procedure for a mission that was off the books, which told Lea all she needed to know about how she got back to New York. Special Services had smuggled her in—a considerable risk, given the penalties for abetting a rogue hammerjack in the incorporated territories. It also meant Lea Prism no longer existed. All traces of her would be burned out of the Axis by now, with Heretic not far behind. There would be talk—but even that would soon dissolve into the fragments of legend. Just like Vortex, she would become a story and nothing more.

If they only knew,
Lea thought—but they wouldn’t. Some faction of the Assembly had already seen to it.

The rooftop was empty when they landed at CSS. There was no clearance, no armed escort—only Lea’s shadow counsel, who bypassed approach control and slipped in during a programmed security downcycle. He whisked Lea over to a vaulted elevator, which took them several floors down to one of the executive levels. The doors opened upon an ornate suite, and her shadow stood aside to let her pass. Lea expected him to follow, but he remained behind. Apparently, it was to be a private meeting.

Lea entered without asking questions. She felt light-years away from that hole in the ground in Paris but still carried the dread that originated there. She hoped nobody else would notice.

“I trust that you slept well.”

The owner of that voice descended a spiral staircase on the other side of the room. Like her shadow, the man was dressed to perfection—though his style was less modern and spoke of wealth as if it had always been a given. He had the look of a lawyer—the kind of man who gave orders but never got his own hands dirty. Lea disliked him on sight.

“Said the spider to the fly,” she replied.

The man smiled.

“Dramatic,” he observed as he stepped away from the stairs. He strolled over to the minibar and dropped some ice into a glass. “But it
does
convey an understanding of your position. That makes you somebody I can deal with.”

“Who are you?”

“Trevor Bostic,” he said, pouring himself a scotch. “I’m the reason you’re still alive.”

Lea raised an eyebrow.

“I stayed alive for a long time without your help,” she said. “What makes you think I’m interested now?”

“Because you’re smart,” Bostic told her. He walked away from the bar and took a seat on a nearby couch. “Resourceful, cunning—all the qualities that make for a superb hammerjack. If you hadn’t gotten mixed up in Alden’s business, it’s quite possible we never would have caught up with you.”

“Yet here we are.”

Bostic nodded.

“A situation we can put to our mutual advantage.”

Bostic pointed her to the seat across from him. Lea ignored the offer, going instead to the bar. She selected a very fine cognac and poured herself a generous glass. Lifting the snifter to her lips, she allowed the alcohol to tease her senses before taking a sip.

“I have questions,” she said.

“By all means.”

She retreated to the window and looked a hundred floors down into the street. Even at this hour, the city was alive. Traffic passed along the traverse grid, back and forth into forever. Lea wondered how long it had been since she saw the light of day.

“How did you know?”

Bostic considered how much to tell her.

“We had a go team deployed in every incorporated sector, awaiting word on Dr. Alden,” he said. “When we got the word on your location, we went in.”

“Who told you?”

“We don’t know that for certain,” Bostic admitted. “The source was an anonymous transmission jacked into our private communications band. It set off every intrusion countermeasure we have. Whoever it was wanted to get our attention.”

Lea didn’t believe him.

“Just like that?” she asked, turning around to face him. “Some hammerjack drops a dime and you come running.”

“Not quite,” Bostic said. “A feedback trace isolated the source to somewhere in the research district—right in the vicinity of the Works.”

Lea felt weak. That old fear revealed itself again—only now Bostic was around to see it. The game was up.

“Lyssa.”

Bostic stood and joined her at the window. He was close, but not so close that he gave anything away. The lawyer danced along the edge of what he wanted, revealing only what was necessary.

“It’s a possibility,” he said, a bait for her interest. “Truth is, there’s a lot we don’t know about her. How she was connected to Alden is only one of those questions. The Assembly wants answers. That’s where
you
come in.”

Lea shook her head.

“No way,” she said, and retreated to the bar.

“Alden was already working on the problem when all this started,” Bostic said, his tone getting edgy. “He was the best we had—but even he didn’t know a tenth of what you know about bionucleics. For Christ’s sake, you
invented
the technology. You handed it over it to the
Inru,
not even caring what they did with it.”

Lea’s hands trembled as she put down her drink.

“That was a long time ago.”

“The Assembly has a long memory,” Bostic shot back. “They know a lot about your activities over the last few years. Alden mapped the whole thing out. You’ve been sabotaging them—as much as you’ve been sabotaging Collective research. You don’t want anybody to have this thing.”

“Then why the hell should I help you?”

“Because you can’t stop it,” he said. “And being close to it is the next best thing.”

Bostic sounded desperate, even though he was trying to hide it. Lea closed her eyes, getting herself together so she could take the advantage. It was the hammerjack persona that came through when she faced him again—the Heretic the Collective had hunted and now needed so badly.

“They’re afraid,” Lea said. “Afraid of losing all that money they poured into bionucleics. But they’re more afraid of the
Inru,
aren’t they?
That’s
why they want me. They’re afraid this revolution of theirs will catch on.”

“They have considered it.”

“Why?” Lea asked. “Phao Yin is dead. His people are gone.”

Bostic was quiet for a long while. It gave Lea time to think, and ponder the implications of his silence.

“What makes you think Yin was the only one?”

Lea went numb.

“There are as many factions as there are street species,” he went on, “isolated cells that have only limited contact with one another. Yin’s was, by far, the most advanced—but now he’s dead, and his death has turned him into a martyr. Others will follow in his footsteps.”

“And you think I can stop them?”

“You used to
be
one of them,” Bostic pointed out. “Who better than you to finish what Alden started?”

Lea saw firsthand what that kind of life had done to Cray. It made him rich, but it landed him in purgatory—one that probably resembled the Midtown apartment where she had awakened. In the end, Cray had died rather than go back to it. How long would it be before Lea reached the same extreme?

“It’s your choice,” Bostic finished. “You can either go home to your place in Manhattan, or you can go back to prison.”

The words came out easy, though the decision was not.

“When do you want me to start?”

The Works had transformed itself.

Work crews were still in the process of erasing all the damage, traces of which were still visible like scars from old wounds. The blood, however, was gone, and with it the pall that saturated these corridors and chased away the living. All that remained was the memory, which echoed throughout the building—but only for those who were willing to listen.

Then there was Lea.

Nobody recognized her. She passed through the security checkpoints without anyone giving her a second glance. The credentials Bostic supplied gave her unlimited access to all levels, so nobody asked any questions. She took her time, searching faces in every corner of the Works for somebody who might understand—but there was no one who had been here before Cray had arrived. They only knew Lyssa as a vague concept, not the living entity who spoke to her the moment she entered the research complex.

But that would change.

They would watch her go to the hundredth floor, into the laboratory few were allowed to see. They might wonder who she was, this woman with no name. And they would speculate about who sent her and why she was there. But they would never approach her—not after she went into the Tank, because after she emerged there would be no doubt.

She was a spook. That was all they needed to know.

Lea felt it even then, through layers of shielding as the entry door closed behind her. She heard it in their breathing and whispers that escaped with the hissing air when the chamber pressurized. It had been the same for Cray, whenever they had seen him coming: that apprehension, coupled with uncertainty—as if he were there to deliver or destroy them. In a way, Lea supposed it was true.

Technology has superseded itself to become the new religion.

It wasn’t her own thought—just a familiar voice, broadcasting out of the dark as the door to the Tank opened. Then the lights came on, slowly at first, rising to a dim invitation. Lea stepped inside and sensed that the vibe had shifted, as if her presence was the catalyst; but then she saw the colors, red shifting to blue as galaxies had done since the beginning of creation, moving ever outward toward that day they would oscillate back in on themselves.

And Lea knew.

Before she reclined in the interface chair, she knew. Before electrodes delivered his presence to her cortex, she knew. More than anything, it was the power that had drawn her here, infused by the simple memory of what Cray had told her:
Survive, Lea. It’s all you can do.

She then rose, away from the chair because she no longer needed it. Hands reaching the surface of the Tank, Lea watched the swirling patterns react to her touch and gather form. She smiled, and the elements smiled back.

With the soul—and the face—of a man behind the glass.

“Hello, Vortex,” Lea said to him.