Final Reckoning: The Fate of Bester (12 page)

He shot the rogue for saying that, shot him until the fist holding the gun clenched permanently, into a useless, dead…

“C’laude? What is it? What’s wrong?”

He blinked. Louise was watching him with a look of concern in her face.

“Nothing. I… just a memory.”

“Must have been some memory. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I… yes. Don’t worry about me. You just keep painting.”

“I can’t. I’m not seeing what I want to-that thing in you I wanted to capture. I think it’s never been farther from your face.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

“I’m disappointed in myself, not in you. But I’ll find it eventually.”

“May I see the painting?”

“Not until it’s done. Old tradition. Still, we’re done for the day, I think.”

“Now I’m disappointed,” he blurted, and was instantly sorry he had done so.

She didn’t answer, though he thought he felt a mental blush from her. The air seemed to dance, and not in a good way. He was getting worse. He had to see Jem.

“I’m not sure we can do it,” Jem explained.?

“Why?”

“They went the whole nine yards and made it a smart building. Anybody goes in there gets detected by motion, sniffers, and sound. Sends an alarm to the security company and the cops. The response time was only six minutes last time somebody tried to get in, and it could be even quicker.

The whole thing is run by an AI, so there’s no way to fool it. It’s wireless and has its own power supply, so there are no lines to cut. Plus, there’s a live guard. Even if we get the job done fast enough, it’ll take records of us-the damn thing is lousy with eyes and sniffers, and most of him are probably hidden.”

“I think I can solve that problem,” Bester said.

“How?”

“With this.”

He held out a small black chip, about the size of a book of matches.

“What’s that?”

Bester tumbled the object between his fingers. It was one of the things that had gotten him to Earth through the tight security and quarantine. A bit of Shadow technology that Psi Corps had been able to copy and make use of.

“Have you ever read Descartes?”

“Uh, no.”

“You should broaden your mind, Jem. It’s good for you. He said, ”I think, therefore I am.””

“Yeah, I’ve heard that.”

“You understand it?”

“I guess so.”

“It was part of a larger point Descartes was making. I know I exist, but how do I know anyone or anything else does? Can I really trust the information I receive from my senses? Maybe not. It could all be an illusion, or a delusion. I might be imagining all of it.”

“I know the feeling,” Jem said.

“What’s this got to do with the security system?”

“Just this. The building is an artificial intelligence that examines the information provided by its sensors, decides what it has seen, heard, smelled, and then acts upon that data. This device…” he held up the black chip “…can map the Al’s system, then impose its own logic. In effect, it will make the AI unable to act upon the data it receives-because the AI won’t ”believe” it.”

“You’re going to screw with the computer’s head.”

“Exactly.”

“I’ve heard of that kind of thing. Usually it doesn’t work-the computer recognizes it as a virus or whatever.”

“This isn’t a virus. It can perfectly mimic the Al, which won’t recognize that any foreign intervention is involved. The internal alarms won’t go off, and the ”OK” signals will go out just as before.”

“I guess I’ll take your word for it.” Bester smiled.

“As in so many things, Jem, you don’t have a choice.”

The street was quiet enough at two in the morning, but Paris was never truly quiet. In the distance, ground-car horns blared voices rose in protest, anger, and joy, adding to the background noise that was building in his head.

The April rain was a godsend. Oh, it was miserable and cold, winter having its last say, but it drew a beaded curtain across the world. In the rain, people put their heads down and hurried to wherever they were going. People missed things, in the rain.

Bester found that he liked it. Years-maybe decades, now that he thought about it-had passed in his life without him ever feeling a drop on his cheek. The closest thing to rain that Mars ever got was a subtle condensation, a frost. Nothing like this, this smell of wet pavement, of the air itself being washed clean.

Jem seemed less happy. He hunkered against the downpour. He was probably one of those people who tried to calculate whether he would get wet faster running or walking. As if it mattered, Bester mused. As if a tiny bit more or less wet could make a difference.

A car passed, and the rain became gems, falling in slow motion, white-hot metal, dripping…

Get a grip, Bester, he thought.

Just a little longer, and this particular problem will be solved.

What then? Byron asked.

Will you go somewhere else and pretend not to be a monster?

“Shut up,” he muttered.

“Eh?” Jem asked.

“Nothing.”

“Well, we’re here. This is the back door I was telling you about.”

“Oh.”

He fumbled the black chip out of his pocket, touched one of the contacts. Almost immediately, a green light flicked on.

“That’s got it,” Al said.

“You can open the door now.”

Jem opened his heavy black bag and pulled out a bulkhead drill. He stuck it against the lock and turned it on, pulsing bursts of coherent X rays in rapid cycles. Rain began to hiss against the door as the metal heated up. A few moments later, Jem pushed it open. It went with a sigh, the loudest sound either of them had made so far.

Al pulled a Colt 9 mm from his coat pocket and made sure the silencer was in place. Not the PPG he was used to, but those were hard to come by on Earth. In space they were great, because the phased helium plasma they fired could wreak terrific havoc on flesh and bone without punching a hole through a bulkhead. But PPGs were expensive, generally limited to security and military personnel, and in the end no better for killing quickly than a slug thrower. Less so, in fact, in many ways.

As they ghosted into the building, Bester concentrated and probed for the guard, but came up with nothing. That was odd. His senses should be heightened by his condition, not dulled.

Maybe that was the problem. The city was practically shouting at him. The gentle murmur and cadence of minds-which had once so intrigued him-had, in the past few days, become a loathsome racket. What was that line from Poe?

Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad?

Yes, if he didn’t get the serum soon, he would end as the protagonist of that story, screaming madly about some imaginary telltale heart…

He shook his head to clear it, and scanned again. This was no time for slip-ups. Still nothing. Maybe the guard had the night off.

Jem could move with admirable grace when he wanted to, like some sort of big cat. And Bester, of course, had the benefit of long years of practice, from that first time he had gone after Blips, on his own, when he was only fifteen. That had been in Paris, too… He caught it, then, the sudden feeling that someone was walking on his grave.

And the almost forgotten sensation of brushing across someone’s blocks. Blocks. Blocks. The guard was a telepath.

Of course. Telepaths could do almost anything these days, couldn’t they? The possibility had never occurred to him.

“Hold it. Hold it right there.”

No. It had never occurred to him, and as a consequence, the telepath guard was right behind them.

“Don’t make it worse on yourselves. So far it’s just breaking and entering, not theft or possession. The police are already on their way. I know one of you is a teep, but don’t think you can get away with any funny stuff. I’m a P10, and I’m well-trained for psi combat.”

Bester suddenly felt absolutely absurd. Caught napping by P10.

Kill him, Jem, he sent.

Jem dropped and spun, pulling two pistols, like a cowboy from some ancient vid. Muzzle flashes lit the scene.

Bester got a glimpse of the teep ducking behind a row of shelves, letting one round go as he did so. As Bester jumped up and ran the other way, Jem came back to his feet, firing into the shelving, obviously hoping a blind bullet would punch through and hit his target. Bester ducked low and scuttled down the row. He must have been leaking and not known it. The teep had been on to them from the beginning. He had called the cops, which meant they had a few minutes, at best. Behind him, the firefight continued. The guard’s gun wasn’t silenced-it cracked, loud and brassy. Jem’s weapons were almost inaudible-the thunk and whine of his bullets, whizzing into and through things, had a ghostly quality.

Bester reached the vault. The choline ribosylase would have to be stored there. How many minutes left? He needed the drill. Jem had it. Not for the first time he cursed the Corps gene-whizzes, the scientists who had created his damnable condition. They’d been too technology-happy, in those days. Enhancements-dust, for God’s sake! Whose bright idea had it been to give nornals the gift of telepathy? Not his. He had fought tooth and nail against it, but that was before…

Concentrate. Byron was laughing at him. Ignore it. Concentrate. He slipped back though the aisles, searching for the guard, but his pistol had stopped firing.

So had Jem’s. Was it over? He reached out, felt Jem. The big man was radiating pain. He was probably hit. But the guard…

Behind him again.

Bester didn’t drop, or roll, or dodge. He just turned around and fired, as thunder exploded a few feet from him. He felt something hot graze his face, but he didn’t flinch. Why should he flinch? Who could dodge a bullet? Might as well try to avoid getting wet in the rain. Then the teep was squirming on the ground. He’d been hit in the chest, probably not a mortal wound. For a moment, Bester felt a sudden pang. This was one of his own, one of his family. A telepath.

Then he remembered Byron, and the war, and the hearing.

He shot the man in the head, twice. The body twitched grotesquely and stopped moving. Jem was hit. Bester couldn’t tell how bad.

“Jesus, it hurts,” the big man grunted.

“I know. We’ll get it looked at, soon. But first we have to get what we came for. Can you walk?”

“Yeah.”

He came jerkily to his feet. They found the satchel and went back to the vault. Outside, Bester could hear the weird sound of Parisian police cars, that undulating call that hadn’t changed much in centuries. The vault took a tad longer than the door, and once they were inside, it took Bester a few minutes to locate the serum. Meanwhile, as instructed, Jem stuffed his bag with the drugs that had street value.

“Got it,” Bester said.

His fingers were shaking. There were four ampoules. He took them and slipped four similar ampoules filled with water in their place.

“I’m going now, Jem,” he said.

“Take care.”

“Okay,” Jem replied.

He sounded unsure, his voice shaking.

“What’s happening? What am I doing?”

“It’s okay, Jem. You’ll be okay. And you won’t have any more nightmares, just like you asked. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Bester left him then, back out the door they had come in. Cars were everywhere. Most were out front-he had seen their lights through the window. But there was one here, in the side alley. Two uniforms held guns pointed at him, shielded by their car.

“Don’t move,” one of them said.

“I’m unarmed” Bester replied.

“Put your hands where I can see them.”

“Okay, okay - just don’t shoot.”

He walked slowly toward the car.

“I said stand there!” the cop commanded.

Bester continued to sidle away from the door. One of the cops got up and came forward, his gun unwavering.

“Down on the ground. Hands behind your head.”

“As you say, Officer.”

It wasn’t a loud explosion-but it was a bright one, and very hot. Six grams of Kerikan-X in Jem’s bag. The doorway into the building might as well have been a tunnel into the sun. Bester had his eyes closed and was facing the ground, and he still saw the light, felt the heat lick across his back.

The cops weren’t so lucky. Still, they would have had a slightly better than even chance of recovering their sight if he hadn’t carefully placed a bullet in the brain of each before he walked off into the night. He wasn’t followed-there were no other cops on this side of the building, and the ones out front had their own worries to occupy them.

“No more nightmares, Jem,” he murmured, feeling the ampoules in his pocket.

“No more.”

Chapter 11

“You’re sitting well today, Mr. Kaufman,” Louise said.

“Thank you,” Bester replied.

“I feel better today than I have in a while. I think I had a touch of something.”

“I thought so, too. I was starting to get worried about you.”

She dabbed at her palette, scrunching her face and twisting her nose to one side.

Bester found himself watching her, not for the first time.

Yes, he felt a hell of a lot better, as a matter of fact. His symptoms had faded entirely, leaving him only with a slightly jumbled memory of what he and Jem had done, two nights before.

Looking back on it, he was amazed he hadn’t been caught, so close had he been to the edge of reality. Still, his instincts had pulled him through, if not his intellect. He knew about trails, had been following them all his life, and so he knew how not to leave them.

There were three possible complications, of course. Someone might have seen him and might be able to describe him. That was the one he was least worried about, given the rain and the general mayhem that had been involved. His second was that when they began to investigate Jem-if they ever managed to figure out who he had been-it could bring inspectors around who might recognize him.

The third-and the one that most worried him-was that Garibaldi would somehow notice the caper. True, when they found what remained of the ampoules where they ought to be, and a drug dealer’s body in the shop, they would have no reason at all to check for traces of the serum among the melted glass. But they might. He really should leave. Leave Paris, leave Earth.