Lock In (6 page)

“Right,” I said, and motioned to the corpse. “That’s his client.”

“That’s just it,” Vann said. “He’s
not
a client.”

“I’m not following you.”

“Integration is a licensed and regulated practice,” Vann said. “You take on clients and you have certain professional obligations to them, but only a certain class of person is allowed to be your clientele. Only Hadens are supposed to be clients of Integrators. This guy”—she indicated the corpse—“is a tourist. He’s able-bodied.”

“I’m not a lawyer, but I’m not a hundred percent behind this theory here,” I said. “A priest can hear a confession from anyone, not just a Catholic, and a doctor can claim confidentiality from the second someone walks through the door. I think Schwartz is probably making the same claim here. Just because the dude’s a tourist doesn’t mean he’s not a client. He is. Just like someone who’s not a Catholic can still confess.”

“Or Schwartz slipped up and let us know that someone was riding Bell,” Vann said.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” I countered. “If Bell was already integrated then why would he be meeting with a tourist?”

“Maybe they were meeting for something else.”

“Then why bring that?” I pointed to the headset.

Vann was silent for a minute. “Not all of my theories are going to be gold,” she said, eventually.

“I get that,” I said, dryly. “But I don’t think it’s you. None of this makes much sense. We’ve got a murder that probably isn’t, of a man we haven’t ID’d, who had a meeting with an Integrator who may have already been integrated, who says he can’t remember things he should. That’s a mess, right there.”

“Your thoughts,” Vann said.

“Shit, I don’t know,” I said. “It’s my second day on the job and already it’s gotten too weird for me.”

“You guys gotta wrap it up,” Diaz said. “I’ve got another agent who needs the room in five.”

Vann nodded at this and turned back to me. “Let me put it another way,” she said. “What are our action items?”

I looked over to Diaz. “Any matches on our corpse yet?”

“Nothing yet,” Diaz said, after a second. “That’s a little weird. It doesn’t usually take this long to process a match.”

“Our first action item is to find out who our dead guy is,” I said, to Vann. “And how he’s managed not to have any sort of impression on our national database.”

“What else?”

“Find out what Bell’s been up to recently and who is on his client list. Maybe that’ll pop up something interesting.”

“All right,” Vann said. “I’ll take the stiff.”

“Oh, sure,” I said. “You get the fun gig.”

Vann smiled at this. “I’m sure Bell will be tons of fun.”

“Do I need to be here while I’m doing this?” I asked.

“Why?” Vann asked. “You have a date?”

“Yes, with a Realtor,” I said. “I’m looking at apartments. Federally approved. Technically I’m supposed to have a half day today for it.”

“Don’t expect too many more of those,” Vann said. “Half days, I mean.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m kind of figuring that out on my own.”

Chapter Five

T
HE REALTOR WAS
a small, elegant-looking woman named LaTasha Robinson, and she met me directly outside the Bureau building. One of her realty specialties was the Haden market, so the Bureau connected me with her to help me find an apartment.

Given her clientele, the chances that she might not know who I was were close to nil, a suspicion that was verified as I approached. She smiled a smile I recognized from years of being trotted out as the official Haden’s Poster Child, part of the official Haden’s Poster Family. I didn’t hold it against her.

“Agent Shane,” she said, holding out her hand. “Really lovely to meet you.”

I took the hand and shook it. “Ms. Robinson. Likewise.”

“I’m sorry, this is kind of exciting,” she said. “I don’t meet that many famous people. I mean, who aren’t politicians.”

“Not in this town, no,” I agreed.

“And I don’t think of politicians as being
famous,
do you? They’re just … politicians.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” I said.

“My car’s right over here,” she said, pointing to a relatively unflashy Cadillac parked where it would get ticketed. “Why don’t we get started?”

I got into the passenger side. Robinson got in the driver’s seat and pulled out her tablet. “Amble,” she said, and the car slid out from the curb, just ahead, I noted as I glanced in the rearview mirror, of a traffic cop. We headed east on Pennsylvania Avenue.

“The car’s just going to drive around for a few minutes while we get set up here,” Robinson said, tapping her tablet. For all her gushing a few seconds before, she slipped into business mode pretty quickly. “I’ve got your basic request list and personal information”—she looked over as if to acknowledge I was, in fact, a Haden and she knew it—“so let’s get a few things narrowed down before we start.”

“All right,” I said.

“How close do you want to be to work?”

“Closer is better.”

“Are we talking walking distance close, or Metro line close?”

“Metro line close is fine,” I said.

“Do you prefer a neighborhood that’s hip, or one that’s quiet?”

“It doesn’t really matter to me.”

“You say that now but if I get you an apartment over a bar in Adams Morgan and you hate it, you’re going to blame me,” Robinson said, looking over at me.

“I promise noise isn’t going to bother me,” I said. “I can turn down my hearing.”

“Do you plan on using the apartment to socialize?”

“Not really,” I said. “I do most of my socializing elsewhere. I might have a friend over from time to time.”

Robinson looked over again at this, and seemed to be considering whether to ask for clarification, and decided against it. It was a fair call. There were threep fetishists out there. They really weren’t my thing, I have to say.

“Will your body be physically present, and if so, will you need a room for a caretaker?” she asked.

“My body and its caretaking are already squared away,” I said. “I won’t be needing space for either. At least not right away.”

“In that case I have some Haden efficiency flats on my availability list,” she said. “Would you like to see those?”

“Are they worth my time?” I asked.

Robinson shrugged. “Some Hadens like them,” she said. “I think they’re a little small, but then they’re not designed for non-Hadens.”

“Are they close by?”

“I’ve got a building of them on D Avenue in Southwest, right by the Federal Center Metro,” Robinson said. “The Department of Health and Human Services hires a lot of Hadens, so it’s convenient housing for them.”

“All right,” I said. “We might as well check them out.”

“We’ll go there first,” Robinson said, and spoke the address to the Cadillac.

Five minutes later we were in front of a depressing slab of anonymous brutalist architecture.

“This is lovely,” I said, dryly.

“I think it used to be a government office building,” Robinson said. “They converted it about twenty years ago. It was one of the first buildings redesigned with Hadens in mind.” She nodded me into the lobby, which was clean and plain.

A threep receptionist sat behind a desk. The threep was set to transmit ID data over the common channel. In my field of vision its owner’s data popped up above the threep’s head: Genevieve Tourneaux. Twenty-seven years old. Native of Rockville, Maryland. Her public address for direct messages.

“Hello,” Robinson said to Genevieve, and showed her her Realtor’s ID. “We’re here to look at the vacancy on the fifth floor.”

Genevieve turned to look at me, and I realized belatedly that I didn’t have my own personal data out on the common channel. Some Hadens found that rude. I quickly popped it up.

She gave me a quick nod as if in acknowledgment, did a small double take, then recovered and turned her attention to Robinson. “Unit 503 is unlocked for the next fifteen minutes,” she said.

“Thank you,” Robinson said, and nodded over to me.

“Hold on a second,” I said. I turned back to Genevieve. “May I have guest access to the building channel, please?”

Genevieve nodded to me and I saw the channel marker pop up in my view. I connected to it.

The lobby walls exploded into signage.

Some of the notes were your basic corkboard notes: people looking for roommates or to sublet or asking after lost pets. At the moment, however, signs about the walkout and march dominated—signs reminding tenants to stay home, plans for walkout activities, requests to let Hadens coming into town for the march crash in apartments, with the sardonic notation that they won’t need much space.

“Everything okay?” Robinson asked.

“It’s fine,” I said. “I’m just taking in the posters on the wall.” I read a few more and then we walked over to the elevator bank and took the next lift up to the fifth floor.

“Extra-large elevators,” Robinson noted, as we rose. “Hydraulic lift. Makes it easier to bring bodies up to the rooms.”

“I thought these were all efficiency apartments,” I said.

“Not all of them,” Robinson said. “Some are full-sized and have dedicated medical suites and caretaker rooms. And even the efficiencies have cradle hookups. Those are supposed to be used on a temp basis, although I hear some Hadens are using them full-time now.”

“Why is that?” I asked. The elevator stopped and the doors opened.

“Abrams-Kettering,” Robinson said. She walked out of the lift and down the hall. I followed. “Assistance is getting slashed so a lot of Hadens are downsizing. Those in townhomes are moving into smaller apartments. Those in apartments are moving into efficiencies. And some of those in efficiencies are taking on roommates. They’re using the chargers in shifts.” She glanced back to me and her eyes flickered over my shiny, expensive threep, as if to say
not that
you
have to worry about that.
“It’s been bad for the market, to be honest, but that’s good for you as a potential renter. Now you have a lot more options, a lot cheaper.” She stopped at apartment 503. “That is, if
this
doesn’t bowl you over.” She opened the door and stood aside to let me pass through.

Haden Efficiency Apartment 503 was two meters by three meters and entirely bare, save for one small built-in countertop. I stepped inside and immediately got claustrophobia.

“This isn’t an apartment, it’s a closet,” I said, stepping forward to let Robinson in.

“I usually think of it as a bathroom,” Robinson said, and pointed to a small tiled area, which had a bank of electrical outlets and a couple of covered drains on the floor, flush with the tile. “That’s the medical nook, by the way. Right where the toilet would be.”

“You’re not exactly giving me the hard sell on this apartment, Ms. Robinson,” I said.

“Well, to be fair, if all you’re looking to do is park your threep every night, this isn’t a bad choice,” Robinson said. She pointed to the back right corner, where grooves and high-voltage outlets were set into the wall, ready to receive inductive chargers. “It’s designed with standard threep cradles in mind, and the hardwired and wireless networks are fast and have deep through-put. The space has been designed with threeps in mind, so you don’t have inessential things taking up space, like closets and sinks. It’s everything you need and absolutely nothing you don’t.”

“I hate it,” I said.

“I thought you might,” Robinson said. “It’s why I showed it to you first. Now that we have it out of the way, we can look at something you might actually be interested in.”

I stared back at the spot of tile and thought about putting a human body there, more or less permanently. “These kinds of apartments are hot right now?” I asked.

“They are,” Robinson said. “I don’t usually deal with them. Not enough commission on these. They usually get rented through online want ads. But yes. Right now, this kind of apartment is selling like hotcakes.”

“Now I’m feeling a little depressed,” I said.

“
You
don’t have to feel depressed,” Robinson said. “You’re not going to live here. You’re not going to have your body in here.”

“But apparently some people are,” I said.

“Yes,” Robinson said. “Maybe it’s a blessing the bodies don’t notice.”

“Ah, but that’s not true,” I said. “We’re locked in, not unconscious. Trust me, Ms. Robinson. We notice where our bodies are. We notice it every moment we’re awake.”

*   *   *

I felt like Goldilocks for the next several stops. The apartments were either too small—we didn’t look at any more apartments that were officially efficiencies, but a couple were at least informally around the same square footage—or too large, too inconvenient, or too far away. I began to despair that I would be destined to store my threep at my desk at the Bureau.

“Last stop of the day,” Robinson said. By now even her professional cheeriness was wearing through. We were in Capitol Hill, on Fifth Street, looking at a red town house.

“What’s here?” I asked.

“Something off the usual menu,” Robinson said. “But it’s something I think you might be a good fit for. Do you know what an intentional community is?”

“‘Intentional community’?” I said. “Isn’t that another way of saying ‘commune’?” I looked up at the town house. “This is a weird place for a commune.”

“It’s not exactly a commune,” Robinson said. “This town house is rented out by a group of Hadens living together and sharing the common rooms. They call it an intentional community because they share responsibilities, including monitoring each other’s bodies.”

“That’s not always a great idea,” I said.

“One of them is a doctor at the Howard University Hospital,” Robinson said. “If there’s any substantial problem, there’s someone on hand to deal with it. I understand it’s not something you’ll need, of course. But there are other advantages and I know they have a vacancy.”

“How do you know these people?” I asked.

Robinson smiled. “My son’s best friend lives here,” she said.

“Ah,” I said. “Did your son live here too?”

“You’re asking if my son is a Haden,” Robinson said. “No, Damien is unaffected. Tony, Damien’s friend, contracted Haden’s when he was eleven. I’ve known Tony all his life, before and after Haden’s. He lets me know when they have a vacancy. He knows I won’t bring over anyone I don’t think would be a good fit.”