Because of this Corvan felt a certain kinship for Saxon. Even though his own disfigurement was voluntary, it still made him different and caused people to stare. In Corvan's case they were simply curious, wondering how someone could do it, but they pitied Saxon. And for a man like Saxon, pity would act like a corrosive acid, burning away at his self-image, destroying his confidence. So when Saxon approached, Corvan made no attempt to get out of the way. The wheelchair hummed softly as it rolled around Corvan and stopped at the head of the table.
"What the hell happened to you?" Saxon asked cheerfully. "You look like victims of an exploding cosmetics store."
Corvan grinned. There was some truth in the other man's comment. Sid had cut off most of Kim's long black hair, leaving her with a modified pageboy and a press-on tattoo which covered the entire left side of her face. The tattoo was a vivid three-color rendition of a muscular warrior trapped in the embrace of a sinuous dragon. That, plus a flashy piece of jack jewelry, made her look like a completely different person.
Corvan had been a little more difficult to disguise, since he was tall and his eye cam was almost impossible to hide. Nonetheless Sid had risen to the occasion by fitting Corvan with the latest in electro-goggles. They hid the eye cam and looked like rather pretentious sunglasses. Originally developed to counter certain kinds of congenital blindness, electro-goggles had since given birth to a variety of spin-offs, which sighted people used like zoom-lens-equipped binoculars. Like most advanced prosthetics, they required an implant and were plugged into Corvan's temple stud. Although the goggles were deactivated so that he could use his eye cam, they looked real enough. That, plus a bleach job and the latest in flashy clothes, made him a fitting companion for someone who looked like Kim.
"Here's where she is," Saxon said, dumping a map and some photos onto the rough wood. Like the rest of the furniture, the dining room table was strictly makeshift. It consisted of some beat-up planks on a couple of sawhorses. The table was sway-backed in the middle and heavier items had a tendency to slide that way.
Corvan pulled the photos over and took a look. What he saw was a somewhat older apartment house. The kind which had seen better days, when young families had occupied two- and three-bedroom apartments and frolicked in the pool. But the pool was packed with trash now, and the two- and three-bedroom apartments had been sub-divided into studio singles, all of which housed three or four people. A growing trend all over the world.
"Any sign of surveillance by the police or WPO?" Kim looked over Corvan's shoulder. Ever since their arrival at the safe house she'd been somewhat distant, answering when spoken to, but keeping her interaction to a minimum. It was Saxon who answered:
"No, there's no sign of surveillance, but that doesn't mean much. Normally they aren't as clumsy as they were last night. There could be a battalion of cops in the surrounding buildings and we wouldn't know. Assuming they searched Kim's editing suite prior to setting it on fire, then it's fair to assume that they saw Neely's disk. If so, they know about Bethany Bryn and might use her as a trap."
“A comforting thought,” Corvan said dryly. "I trust we'll have some sort of escape route?"
"Two, actually," Saxon replied, placing two remotes on the plywood and allowing them to slide in Corvan's direction. "Button one brings a fast van to the front door. Button two puts a chopper on the roof. Don't use button two unless you absolutely have to. Choppers aren't cheap, and once we use it for an escape we'll have to destroy it."
"Understood," Corvan replied, taking a remote for himself and handing the other to Kim. "With any luck at all we'll tape an interview with Ms. Bryn and walk home."
Saxon laughed. "I wouldn't advise that. We're fairly sure that the WPO has access to everything the chip heads send in. And if you spend a lot of time on the street some of those images are bound to include you. A computer-aided skim would select you for body type, match you for size, and strip away those disguises in a matter of minutes. That's why you won't find any chip heads in the Exodus Underground."
"Oh goody," Kim commented sarcastically. "I'm dressed up as a mentally disturbed hormone case for no reason at all."
"They do what?" Corvan demanded. "If what you're saying is true, that's a big story in and of itself!"
"Sure it is," Saxon agreed calmly. "But still not on a par with secretly assassinating the president of the United States."
Corvan shook his head in amazement. One more assumption stripped away. Like most reporters, he regarded himself as somewhat sophisticated, wise to the ways of the world, and surprised by nothing. He hated to admit it, but with each passing hour there was more and more evidence that he'd been incredibly naive.
Two hours later an Underground-controlled electro-cab dropped them a block from Bethany Bryn's apartment complex. It was evening and just getting dark. The streets were packed as usual, but a cool breeze blew in off the bay and made the air momentarily fresh.
As they walked up the block, street vendors tried to sell them outrageously priced mystery meat, grubby-looking children begged for money, and a couple of scraggly-looking gang members whistled at Kim. Not too surprising, Corvan decided, since Sid had fitted her out with some sort of skin-tight black body stocking and a light cape, neither of which did anything to hide her figure. A fact which he found hard to ignore.
Corvan had attempted to bridge the gulf between them more than once but with little success. Maybe time would accomplish what words couldn't. He hoped so.
A Pac Tel van was parked in the middle of the street, this one grubby enough to be authentic, and was surrounded by a barricade of flashing lights.
A trio of Virgin Marys eyed them suspiciously from the front steps of their commune. As Corvan and Kim walked by, they held up large chromium crosses and muttered the mantras which were supposed to prevent pregnancy. Just one of the many bizarre cults which had their origins in the population explosion.
Stopping in front of Bethany's apartment house, Corvan checked the address, nodded to Kim, and climbed a short flight of steps. An intercom panel was set into one wall and Corvan pushed the appropriate button.
There was a long wait before a whispery voice said, "Yes? Who is it?"
The tiny comscreen located over Bethany's name remained blank, but Corvan knew that she could see him. He smiled and hoped that the electro-goggles wouldn't intimidate her. "Ms. Bryn? My name is Larry Dixon. I'm sorry to bother you, but I represent News Network 56, and we'd like to talk to you about Frank Neely's death. I called, but couldn't get through. There was a fire in a cable vault or something."
Corvan knew this was true, since an Underground operative had started the fire some eight hours before, putting the entire block out of service. A fact which explained the Pac Tel van in the middle of the street.
There was silence for a moment and then she said, "Frank Neely's death? When did he die?"
"Interesting," Corvan thought to himself. Whatever Bethany did with her time, she didn't watch much news. Out loud he said, "A few days ago . . . Could we come in?"
There was silence for a moment as Bethany thought it over, followed by an audible click as she released the door lock.
"Thanks," Corvan said, and pushed the door open. Kim was right behind. There was a set of two elevators on the far side of the small lobby. Both were out of order and had been for years. Planks of wood had been nailed over them and spray painted with the words "KEEP OUT!"
Corvan turned to the stairs and began to climb. The air was stale and thick with the smell of cooked food. Graffiti covered the walls. One piece said "MAKE WAR NOT BABIES" in red letters five feet high. Trash littered the stairwell and got underfoot. They were halfway up when three teenagers came racing down, screaming with laughter, almost bowling them over.
Bethany was in apartment 221.
When Corvan reached the second floor he turned down the dingy hallway and found that hers was the second door on the left.
Corvan pressed the doorbell and nothing happened. He knocked softly and waited. There was momentary silence, followed by a whispery "Yes? Who's there?"
"Larry Dixon and my assistant, Linda Lastow."
"Just a moment."
Corvan activated his implant and began to record as he heard the sound of three locks being undone, followed by the creak of an unoiled hinge.
The woman who greeted them was Bethany Bryn all right, but a different person than the one they'd seen on Neely's desk. She was heavier, for one thing, and looked older, as if years instead of months had passed since the session with the VMG.
"Come on in," she said emotionlessly. "You're wasting your time if you plan to rip me off. I sold everything of any value a month ago."
Corvan had to admit that she was right. The room boasted a single window with no curtains and looked out onto the street. Outside of a pallet on the floor, some books stacked against one wall, and some filthy clothing, the room was almost bare.
Over in one corner a tiny sink was flanked by a two-burner hot plate and some empty fast-food containers. To his right the door to a tiny toilet/shower combination stood open, and Corvan saw a picture of himself in a cracked mirror. The blonde crew cut was a shock.
Bethany turned and made a sweeping gesture. "Welcome to the Ritz. I'd invite you to sit down, but the floor's kind of dirty. Now, what's this about Frank Neely?"
Corvan told her about the WPO's raid, Neely's death, and the disk. Being unsure of how far he could trust her, Corvan withheld all the information about the president's assassination and the attempt to establish a global government. When he was finished Bethany shrugged and turned toward the window. Stepping up to it, she looked down at the street below.
"I don't know what you want from me. Frank and I went together for a while. I thought he was kinda cute, so serious and all, but not somebody for the long run. He was working on some sort of experimental video thingâit had a complicated name, but I forget what it was. Anyway, he hired me to come down and do some exercises in the middle of this weird-looking gridwork. I remember that I had to wear this skintight blue body stocking. Frank said it was for special effects and he wasn't kidding.
"A few days later we're at his place and he drops a disk into his video player. 'Watch, this,' he says, and I did. Before I know it, I'm watching myself exercising in the nude. A few seconds later I'm fully clothed and playing the lead in that old Southern movieâyou know the one,
Gone With the Wind.
Then I'm making love to the mayor of San Francisco. All sorts of weird stuff."
Bethany shook her head and turned her back to the window. "I thought it was funny, a turn-on, and when the disk ran out we got naked for real. It's kinda freaky to see yourself doing it with people you never even met."
"What happened then?" Kim asked. Bethany reminded her of what it was like to be poor, what she'd worked so hard to get away from, and it scared her. This woman had been successful, an actress, if something could pull her down, it could happen to Kim as well. It was the same sort of feeling that makes people want to know
why
someone was murdered. If it's something strange, like a brother-in-law on dope, you can rule it out.
Bethany smiled sadly. Tears trickled down her cheeks. "Frank ran into some kind of trouble. One day he gave me some money and just disappeared. That's why I let you in. I miss him."
"Yes," Kim said gently, "but what about you? What happened to you?"
"I made a mistake," Bethany replied, and pulled up her right shirt sleeve. A length of black tubing was taped to the inside surface of Bethany's forearm. It disappeared under the surface of her skin just short of the elbow. Originally a bright pink, the auto injector had turned blue-black, signaling that her "snake" was dead. It took five to six thousand dollars to buy a "live" snake on the black market, along with the computer-designed narcotic which it contained, and she didn't have the money.
Her hollow-looking eyes, puffed-up body, and prematurely aged skin indicated that she'd been hooked for some time now. Without a new snake she would go into massive withdrawal and die. Not today, not tomorrow, but soon.
Across the street in a cramped hotel room, a man named Howard Johnson smiled as he squinted through a telescopic sight. The disguises didn't fool him for a moment. Not when subjected to computer analysis. The sight was plugged into a phone line which in turn connected the device to a WPO computer. Within 3.5 seconds the computer had processed the visual input, and based on a high degree of similarity between the subjects and the fugitives in question, had indicated a 79.3 percent match. And since Johnson regarded anything over a 75 percent match as worthy of a bullet, his decision was made. There were three traps to choose from and Corvan had chosen to visit his! Given the bounty, plus an unadvertised WPO bonus, this could be a profitable night's work.
Howard Johnson, better known to his friends as HoJo, thought of himself as a great white hunter. Not of animals, many of which were nearing extinction, but of humans, who needed some thinning out.
And like hunters of old, HoJo took pride in his work, in the
way
that he killed, always seeking a certain economy of effort and motion.
In spite of the breeze which occasionally found its way through the open window, it was hot. Careful to keep his eyes on Bethany's room, HoJo withdrew an immaculate handkerchief from the inside breast pocket of his linen jacket, and dabbed his shaved head. The targets were talking, which meant that he had a moment to consider his options.
Windows can be tricky, and for reasons known only to her, the Bethany woman kept hers closed. Glass will sometimes deflect even a perfectly aimed bullet, turning an otherwise certain kill into a near miss. Because of that, some snipers preferred to break the glass with the first bullet and hit the target with a second. Nice in theory, but all sorts of things could go wrong. A target with exceptionally fast reflexes might use that intervening second to hit the deck, a bodyguard might return fireâthere were all sorts of possibilities.