Haywire (35 page)

“
I had no idea it was this bad. I thought Mars . . .” He couldn’t bring himself to finish his sentence.

Artemis checked a pockmarked street sign, glanced down the crossing road, and said, “You’re not supposed to. It’s wha-at nethers are for – hiding all the things the people in power don’t want the gentry to see.”

He wanted to argue with her, prove her wrong, but the stinking truth of it couldn’t be denied. “I was always told that one of the missions of the Union was to do away with things like this. ‘A purpose for every life,’ they said.”

“
There’s blame enough for things like this to go-o-o around to everyone, Shawn,” she told him as she turned right and walked further into the sub-city. “Some people don’t want a purpose, or hope, or help. Hell, some of ‘em would fi-i-ight you if you tried to hand it to them. Don’t try to make sense out of it. There’s no point.”

“
But this isn’t what you fought for,” he replied, stopping and putting his hands on his hips.

Artemis sighed and turned to face him. “Shawn, I stood up and f-fought so humanity could have a chance. If that means some of them squander that chance and let themselves end up in a pla-a-ace like this, that’s their business. You can’t save everyone, especially from-m-m themselves.”

“
I don’t believe that,” he replied, frustrated at the stink and sadness all around him.

Artemis shook her head and offered him a sympathetic look before turning and resuming her trek through the nethers. Knowing it was pointless to stay where he was and force her to argue her point, he dropped it and followed after her. After several turns and one dead end they eventually made their way to Horkos Square.

Unlike so much of what they’d walked through, the square had light and life to it. The smell wasn’t much better, but the scent of grilling meat that boiled up from food vender stalls didn’t turn his stomach, and the pungent odor of homebrewed alcohol masked the stink of sweat. Music from various shops fought against each other for dominance, with the outcome being a strange medley of sound that somehow flowed around itself without becoming pure noise. He also heard laughter, something missing throughout the rest of the nethers, though not all of it was kind.

“
Do you remember wh-what Dr. Hofstadter looks like?” Artemis asked.

A recorded still image appeared in the upper right of Shawn’s sight. It was from the comm booth monitor on Hygeia. He knew he should have been surprised by his enhanced mind acting of its own accord, but he wasn’t. “Yes.”

“
Good. He’s here somewhere. You keep an eye out on the right, and I’ll watch the left. Let’s go.”

They dove into the press of bodies in the square. Hawkers yelled out from every stall. Some were selling rags that had been falsely elevated to the status of clothing, other sold bags, wallets, and dingy jewelry. More than one cooked rat was dangled in Shawn’s face, and when he dodged them they were replaced with meat from animals he couldn’t begin to guess at. It was a cacophony of sensation that made the last gig his band played seem like a tea party.

“
I see him,” Artemis said, coming to an abrupt stop and pointing down a slim alley between stalls.

They barely fit as they turned and trudged between the canvas flaps that served to divide the vendors. As they broke through to the other side, his eyes zeroed in on the doctor, the trimmed beard and clean jacket making Hofstadter stand out from the unwashed crowd. When they approached, the doctor gave them a nervous look before turning away and looking elsewhere, obviously not recognizing the Titan in her borrowed clothing. He jumped when Artemis spoke.

“
Dr. Hofstadter,” she said. “My name is Artemis. We… spoke earlier.”

Hofstadter’s head snapped around so quickly his glasses slid down his nose, and he pushed them back up as he looked at her, recognition now clear in his eyes. He tilted to look around her.

“
Dr. Campbell isn’t with us,” she said. “There have been… complications.” She then gestured to Shawn. “This is her son.”

The doctor’s eyes pinched together tightly. “Oh dear lord, I hope she’s alright.”

“
She’s in good hands,” Shawn replied, hoping his fear didn’t filter into his voice.

“
What happened?” Hofstadter asked.

Artemis shook her head. “I know she’d appreciate your concern, Doc, bu-u-ut right now we need to focus on the task at hand – finding any hidden caches that Groesbeck might have left here. Will you still help us?”

“
I…” Hofstadter looked at Artemis, then at Shawn, and then at the crowd just beyond the line of stalls that cut through the square. “Yes, okay. If things are so serious that a son would abandon his mother, then I will do what I can.”

A growl rose up in Shawn’s throat. “I didn’t ‘abandon’ my mother.”

The tone of his voice caused the doctor’s face to lose all color. “Oh, of course not. Poor choice of words, my dear boy.”

“
We have to go,” Artemis said as she took a step between them.

“
Yes, yes, okay.” The doctor nodded quickly and walked toward an alley on the left. Once they were through it he led them down a wide avenue, then turned down two smaller streets until they came to a building that was clear of trash and squatters. Shawn couldn’t see anything special about it from the outside.

“
Is this site uns-s-secured?” Artemis asked. “That’s reckless.”

Hofstadter gave her a confused look, then shook his head. “We have a private security firm that oversees the protection of this area, but I figured your mother wouldn’t want any witnesses to whatever it is she’s looking for, so I changed the schedule to give us privacy. The next shift isn’t due to arrive for another…” He pulled out his mobile computer and checked the small display. “Three hours.”

“
That isn’t a lot of time,” Shawn replied.

“
Then we’d better get started,” Hofstadter said. “Follow me.”

The interior of the building was completely bare. There wasn’t any furniture, or trash, or pictures. All the floors had been scrubbed clean, and the walls were graffiti free. It was a stark contrast to the abysmal state of the city around it, and Shawn wondered how that could be.

“
As you can see,” Hofstadter said, gesturing to the walls around them, “we’ve been quite thorough in our investigation of this site. The amount of abuse it had sustained since Groesbeck was last in it was… well, you can imagine. I’m still hesitant to touch anything up here without the protection of a haz-mat suit.”

“
How did you find it?” Shawn asked.

“
This site used to belong to one of Groesbeck’s many mistresses,” Hofstadter replied, glancing down and adjusting his glasses as he spoke. “Dr. Groesbeck viewed marriage much like he did everything else in his life – as an experiment. So, perhaps you could think of his wife as the control group, and all of his mistresses as test subjects.”

Hofstadter laughed, but when no one joined him he sniffed and said, “Yes, well, as I said, he had a great number of lovers. Some were former students, some were colleagues, and some were just women he met randomly. He was, from all reports, quite the lothario. This site was the home of Gabrielle Harris, a student of his before his illegal research forced him out of academia and into hiding. Their relationship was a secret that was only just uncovered a year ago. It was… quite surprising to all of us.”

“
Yes,” Artemis replied, a sour expression unfolding across her lips. “I’m s-sure. Can we get to the heart of the matter? The clock is-s-s ticking, Doc.”

“
Right,” Hofstadter said. He gave the Titan another puzzled glance before turning away.

Shawn figured the doctor had to have noticed something was wrong with her, but Hofstadter either didn’t have the courage to ask, or he didn’t want to know. Shawn’s mother had been full of questions, her curiosity more powerful than her awe of the Titan, but Hofstadter was different. Because his parents were people who travelled in learned circles, Shawn had met more than his fair share of academics, and he knew that for some of them the present was too real, too messy, so they preferred to surround themselves with things covered in dust and long forgotten. Hofstadter was probably like that.

“
This way,” the doctor said, waving them on.

Hofstadter walked down a hallway, then turned right and took a set of stairs down to a lower floor. Lighting rigs bathed the area in bright pools of radiance. They passed though an archway and came to a metal wall with an open hatch.

“
This is where Groesbeck did some of his Titan research,” Hofstadter said as he took them through the hatch. “As you cross the threshold you might notice that there is a sonic barrier in place along the metal wall. We imagine Groesbeck installed it to make sure no one could hear the work he was doing in here.”

When Shawn passed through the hatchway, a sudden pressure made his ears pop, like when he was in a shuttle about to take off. After getting accustomed to his enhanced hearing, the sudden lack of sound from the outside world was shocking.

Inside the hidden room were rows of cabinets housing old pieces of lab equipment and computers. Areas free of dust showed where some of the equipment had already been removed. Lights blinked from various machines, indicating power had been restored to the building.

“
So far we haven’t found all that we’d hoped for here,” Hofstadter said. “Some of the computers have archives of his early work, but nothing that can be put to use. However it was he did it, the creation of Titan nanites are still beyond our reach.”

Hoping the doctor was wrong, Shawn ran his enhanced eyes over the room in search of hidden compartments or concealed doors, but nothing was out of order or special. “Where do we start looking then?”

“
For all his eccentricities,” Artemis said, “he was still a cr-r-reature of habit. Agent Delgado said he was able to find the elevator leading beneath the museum because of a suppression field. If Dr. Groesbeck u-used one there–”

“
Then it is more than likely he’d use one here,” Dr. Hofstadter said, cutting her off in sudden excitement. He ran his fingers along his beard and looked around, then walked over to a counter. On it were several electronic devices. His hands reached for the smallest one, picked it up, and flipped the power switch. A moment later he pointed it at the walls and waved it up and down in methodical sweeping gestures. “I don’t know how closely my scanner matches what an Alliance agent has at his disposal, but it should do the–”

A loud screech split the air, and a light blinked on the scanner’s display. Hofstadter twitched like he’d been zapped with electricity, tapped on its screen, then scanned the wall again. The electronic screech and light returned. “Incredible! It seems we’ve found a secret within a secret.”

The Titan walked over to the area the scanner was beeping at, leaned forward, and pressed her hand against the wall. When nothing happened, she closed her eyes and tilted her head down in concentration. Shawn expected the hiss of escaping air and a section of wall to swing open on hidden hinges, but it didn’t. Whatever was there refused to reveal itself.

“
I can sen-n-nse it,” Artemis said. “There’s a doorway here, but I don’t know how to access the lock. Looks like I’ll have to do it the old fashioned way.”

The Titan drew back her hand, and a long blade burst through the glove of her jumpsuit. Hofstadter’s eyes went round as coffee cups as he saw ancient history brought to life in front of him. She placed the tip of her blade against the wall, adjusted her arm a centimeter to the right, and then plunged it forward. Suddenly her screams filled the air and her body vibrated.

Instinctively Shawn leapt forward to grab her and pull her away, but before he could lay a hand on her she looked back at him with a stare that was pained and maniacal. “Don’t touch me!”

He wobbled as he forced himself to a stop, and then watched in horrified amazement as she withdrew her arm and pounded on the wall with her fists. As soon as her arm was free her electrified shaking stopped, but the frenzy with which she pounded on the wall didn’t leave her. She hammered at it with enough force to send tremors through the walls and floor. Hofstadter looked up at the ceiling as though expecting it to fall on him at any moment. Seconds later a section of the wall crumbled inward, revealing a dark corridor beyond it. Artemis fell to the floor in exhaustion, her armored chest heaving.

“
What happened?” Shawn asked. “What… what did that to you?”

She didn’t look up as she replied, “I think… I think he-he has a barrier up. Some kind of… EM field targeted directly at my na-nanites.”

“
That would make sense,” Hofstadter said, shuffling forward to peer into the newly opened area. “Alicia said that part of what you were looking for was a weapon to use against Titan nanites. If Groesbeck indeed had something like that here, it would make sense for him to put it in a place you couldn’t get to.”

“
Yeah, well,” Artemis said, finally strong enough to raise her head, “I’m not the s-s-same old Titan I used to be, but I can’t take another hit like that. This is as f-far as I or Shawn can go. Hopefully whatever’s back there is worth it.”

Hofstadter pushed his glasses up his nose and waved dust from his face. “I cannot imagine how it couldn’t. Let me get my people down here, and if we’re fortunate it shouldn’t take more than... oh... a few days for us to break this area down and begin reverse engineer its secrets.”

“
That’s a few-few days we don’t have, Doc,” Artemis replied, pushing herself back to her feet. She was wobbly as she stood up, but the wall behind her helped. “We need something we can use here and now. And before you ask why, we don’t have time for that either. Trus-s-st me.”