Lock In (3 page)

“I know what a Dodger Dog is,” Davidson said. “I don’t think I get how you get from us to them.”

“Two ways,” I said. “One, you guys are basically meat stuffed into skin. So are hot dogs. Two, hot dogs are mostly lips and assholes, and so are you guys.”

“Nice,” Davidson said.

“You asked,” I said.

“Yeah, but why
Dodger
Dogs?” Davidson said. “This is a lifelong Nationals fan asking.”

“Got me,” I said. “Why ‘threep’? Why ‘clank’? Slang happens.”

“Any slang for him?” Davidson pointed to Bell, who was still sitting there, quietly.

“He’s a ‘mule,’” I said.

“Makes sense,” Davidson said.

“Yeah.”

“Ever use one?”

“An Integrator? Once,” I said. “I was twelve and my parents took me to Disney World. Thought it would be better to experience it in the flesh. So they scheduled me an Integrator for the day.”

“How was it?”

“I hated it,” I said. “It was hot, after an hour my feet hurt, and I nearly pissed myself because I had no idea how to do it like you guys do, right? That’s all taken care of for me, and I got Haden’s so young that I don’t remember doing it the other way. The Integrator had to surface to do it, and they’re not supposed to do that when they’re carrying someone. After a couple of hours I complained enough that we went back to the hotel room and swapped back out with the threep. And
then
I had a good time. They still had to pay the Integrator for the full day, though.”

“And you haven’t done it since.”

“No,” I said. “Why bother.”

“Huh,” Davidson said. The door to the interrogation room opened and Vann came through it, carrying two cups of coffee. He pointed to her. “She’s one, you know.”

“She’s one what?”

“An Integrator,” Davidson said. “Or was, anyway, before she joined the Bureau.”

“I didn’t know that,” I said. I looked over to where she was sitting down and getting comfortable.

“It’s why she’s got this beat,” Davidson said. “She gets you guys in a way the rest of us don’t. No offense, but it’s hard for the rest of us to wrap our brains around what’s going on with you.”

“I understand that,” I said.

“Yeah,” Davidson said. He was quiet for a second, and I waited for what I knew was coming next: the Personal Connection to Haden’s. I guessed an uncle or a cousin.

“I had a cousin who got Haden’s,” Davidson said, and internally I checked off the victory. “This was back with the first wave, when no one had any idea what the fuck was going on. Before they called it Haden’s. She got the flu, and then seemed to get better, and then—” He shrugged.

“Lock in,” I said.

“Right,” Davidson said. “I remember going to the hospital to see her, and they had a whole wing of locked-in patients. Just lying there, doing nothing but breathing. Dozens of them. And a couple of days before, all of them were walking around, living a normal life.”

“What happened to your cousin?” I asked.

“She lost it,” Davidson said. “Being locked in made her have a psychotic break, or something like that.”

I nodded. “That wasn’t uncommon, unfortunately.”

“Right,” Davidson said again. “She hung in for a couple of years and then her body gave it up.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“It was bad,” Davidson said. “But it was bad for everyone. I mean, shit. The first lady got it. That’s why it’s
called
Haden’s.”

“It still sucks.”

“It does,” Davidson agreed, and pointed to Vann. “I mean, she got Haden’s too, right?” Davidson asked. “At some point. That’s why she’s like she is.”

“Sort of,” I said. “There was a tiny percentage of people who were infected who had their brain structure altered but didn’t get locked in. A tiny percentage of
them
had their brains altered enough to be able to be Integrators.” It was more complicated than that, but I didn’t think Davidson actually cared that much. “There’s maybe ten thousand Integrators on the entire planet.”

“Huh,” Davidson said. “Anyway. She’s an Integrator. Or was. So maybe she’ll get something out of this guy after all.” He turned up the volume on the speakers so we could hear what she was saying to Bell.

*   *   *

“I brought you some coffee,” Vann said, to Bell, sliding the coffee over to him. “Knowing nothing about you, I guessed you might want cream and sugar. Sorry if I got that wrong.”

Bell looked at the coffee, but otherwise did and said nothing.

“Bacon cheeseburgers,” Vann said.

“What?” Bell said. Vann’s apparent non sequitur had roused him out of complete silence.

“Bacon cheeseburgers,” Vann repeated. “When I worked as an Integrator I ate so many goddamned bacon cheeseburgers. You might know why.”

“Because the first thing anyone who’s been locked in wants when they integrate is a bacon cheeseburger,” Bell said.

Vann smiled. “So it’s not just me it happened to,” she said.

“It’s not,” Bell said.

“There was a Five Guys down the street from my apartment,” Vann said. “It got so that all I had to do was walk through the door, and they’d put the patties on the grill. They wouldn’t even wait to take my order. They knew.”

“That sounds about right,” Bell said.

“It took two and a half years after I stopped integrating before I could even look at a bacon cheeseburger again,” Vann said.

“That sounds about right, too,” Bell said. “I wouldn’t eat them anymore if I didn’t have to.”

“Be strong,” Vann said.

Bell grabbed the coffee Vann brought for him, smelled it, and took a sip. “You’re not Metro,” he said. “I’ve never met a Metro cop who’d been an Integrator.”

“My name is Agent Leslie Vann,” she said. “I’m with the Bureau. I and my partner investigate crimes that involve Hadens. You’re not typically what we consider a Haden, but you
are
an Integrator, which means a Haden might have been involved here. If there was, then you and I both know this is something you may not be responsible for. But you have to let me know, so I can help you.”

“Right,” Bell said.

“The police tell me that you’ve not previously been forthcoming on the whole talking thing.”

“I’ll give you three guesses why,” Bell said.

“Probably because they zapped you as soon as they saw you.”

“Bingo.”

“Not that it means anything, but I apologize to you for that, Nicholas. It’s not the way I would have handed it if I were there.”

“I was sitting on the bed,” Bell said. “With my hands up. I wasn’t doing anything.”

“I know,” Vann said. “And like I said, I apologize for that. It wasn’t right. On the other hand—and this isn’t an excuse, just an observation—while you were sitting on the bed with your hands up, not doing anything, there
was
a dead guy on the floor, and his blood was all over you.” She moved a single index finger to point. “Still all over you, come to think of it.”

Bell stared at Vann, quiet.

“Like I said, not an excuse,” Vann reiterated, after fifteen seconds of silence.

“Am I under arrest?” Bell asked.

“Nicholas, you were found in a room with a dead guy, covered in his blood,” Vann said. “You can understand why we all might be curious about the circumstances. Anything you can tell us is going to be helpful. And if it clears your name, so much the better, right?”

“Am I under arrest?” Bell repeated.

“What you are, is in a position to help me out,” Vann said. “I’m coming into this late. I’ve seen the hotel room, but I got there after you were taken away. So if you can, clue me in to what was happening in that room. What I should be looking for. Anything would help. And if you help me, I’m in a better position to help you.”

Bell gave a wry smile to this, crossed his arms, and looked away.

“We’re back to the not talking,” Vann said.

“We can talk about bacon cheeseburgers again, if you like.”

“You can at the very least tell me if you were integrated,” Vann said.

“You’re kidding,” Bell said.

“I’m not asking for details, just whether or not you were working,” Vann said. “Or were you
about
to work? I knew Integrators who did freelancing on the side. A Dodger wants to do something he can’t be seen doing in public. They’ve got those gray-market scanner caps that work well enough for the job. And now that Abrams-Kettering’s passed, you’ve got a reason to go looking for side gigs. The government contracts are drying up. And you’ve got family to think about.”

Bell, who had been sipping his coffee, set it down and swallowed. “You’re talking about Cassandra now,” he said.

“No one would blame you,” Vann said. “Congress is taking away funding for Hadens after the immediate infection and transitional care. Said that the technology for helping them participate in the world has gotten so good that it shouldn’t be considered a disability anymore.”

“Do you believe that?” Bell asked.

“My partner is a Haden,” Vann said. “If you ask me, it means now I have an advantage, because threeps are better than the human body in lots of ways. But there are a lot of Hadens who slip through the cracks. Your sister, for example. She’s not doing what Congress expects her to do, which is to get a job.”

Bell visibly bristled at this. “If you know who I am then you certainly know who
she
is,” he said. “I’d say she has a job. Unless you think being one of the prime movers behind the Haden Walkout this week and the march they have planned for this weekend is something she’s doing in her
spare time
.”

“I don’t disagree with you, Nicholas,” Vann said. “She’s not exactly working at Subway, making sandwiches. But she’s also not making any money doing what she’s doing.”

“Money isn’t that important to her.”

“No, but it’s about to become important,” Vann said. “Abrams-Kettering means that Hadens are being transitioned out to private care. Someone has to cover her expenses now. You’re her only living family. I’d guess it falls to you. Which brings us back to that hotel room and that man you were with. And brings me back to my point, which is that if you were integrated, or were about to be integrated, then that’s something I need to know. It’s something I need in order to help you.”

“I appreciate your desire to
help,
Agent Vann,” Bell said, dryly. “But I think what I really want to do is wait until my lawyer arrives and let him handle things from here.”

Vann blinked. “I wasn’t told you’d asked for a lawyer,” she said.

“I didn’t,” Bell said. “I called him while I was still in the hotel room. Before the police zapped me.” Bell tapped his temple, indicating all the high-tech apparatus he had stuffed into his skull. “Which I recorded, of course, just like I record almost everything. Because you and I agree on one thing, Agent Vann. Being in a room with a dead body complicates matters. Being electrocuted before I could exercise my rights complicates them even more.”

At this, Bell smiled and looked up, as if paying attention to something unseen. “And that’s a ping from my lawyer. He’s here. I expect your life is about to get much more interesting, Agent Vann.”

“I think we’re done here, then,” Vann said.

“I think we are,” Bell said. “But it was lovely talking food with you.”

Chapter Three

“S
O, TO RECAP,”
Samuel Schwartz said, and held up a hand to tick off points. “Illegally stunning my client when he was not offering any resistance, detaining him without cause in a holding cell, and then two separate law enforcement agencies, one local, one federal, question him without making him aware of his rights and without his lawyer present. Have I missed anything, Captain? Agent Vann?”

Captain Davidson shifted uncomfortably in his desk chair. Vann, standing behind him, said nothing. She was looking at Schwartz, or more accurately, at his threep, standing in front of the captain’s desk. The threep was a Sebring-Warner, like mine, but it was the Ajax 370, which I found mildly surprising. The Ajax 370 wasn’t cheap, but it also wasn’t the top of the line, either for Sebring-Warner or for the Ajax model. Lawyers usually went for the high-end imports. Either Schwartz was clueless about status symbols or he didn’t need to advertise his status. I decided to run him through the database to see which was the case.

“Your client never expressed his right to remain silent or his desire for a lawyer,” Davidson said.

“Yes, it’s strange how getting hit with fifty thousand volts will keep a person from verbalizing either of those, isn’t it,” Schwartz said.

“He didn’t ask for them after he got here, either,” Vann noted.

Schwartz turned his head to her. The Ajax 370 model’s stylized head bore some resemblance to the Oscar statuette, with subtle alterations to where the eyes, ears and mouth would be, both to avoid trademark issues and to give humans conversing with the threep something to focus on. Heads could be heavily customized, and a lot of younger Hadens did that. But for adults with serious jobs, that was déclassé, which was another clue to Schwartz’s likely social standing.

“He didn’t have to, Agent Vann,” Schwartz said. “Because he called me before the cops stunned him into silence. The fact he called a lawyer is a clear indication that he knew his rights and intended to exercise them in this case.” He turned his attention to Davidson. “The fact your officers
deprived
him of his ability to affirm his right does not mean he refused his right, even if he did not
reiterate
that fact here.”

“We could argue that point,” Davidson said.

“Yes, let’s,” Schwartz said. “Let’s go to the judge right now and do that. But if you’re not going to do that, then you need to let my client go home.”

“You’re joking,” Vann said.

“You can’t see me smile at that comment, Agent Vann,” Schwartz said. “But I promise you the smile is there.”

“Your client was in a room with a dead body, the guy’s blood all over him,” Vann said. “That’s not the mark of complete innocence.”

“But it’s not the mark of guilt either,” Schwartz said. “Agent Vann, you have a man who has no previous police record. At all. Not even for jaywalking. His line of business requires him to surrender control of his body to others. As a consequence of that, from time to time he meets clients he does not personally know, who conduct business with others he also does not personally know. Such as the dead gentleman at the Watergate.”