Metal Fatigue (11 page)

But what, then, had he taken?

Roads' excitement faded rapidly in the face of oppressive tiredness. Five weeks of night shift were finally taking their toll. As he took out his contact lenses and stumbled to bed, he promised himself that he would look more closely at his discovery in the morning, if he could find the time among the preparations for Blindeye. He had yet to work out why the Mole had waited three weeks before taking what he wanted from Old North Street. If he had needed it so badly, why the delay?

One question turned constantly through his mind as he tried to sleep. It was a question he feared he would never be able to answer, let alone in the few short days remaining to him — but he knew instinctively that the success of his investigation hinged upon doing just that.

When he finally succumbed, he dreamed that a large man dressed in an overcoat and hat had given him an EPA44210 — and it was nothing at all.

11:45 p.m.

The night cooled rapidly. High above the street, among the wires and chimneys of the city, a subtle wind blew. It crept through clothing without being strong; it robbed warmth despite a lack of ice.

He drew his overcoat closer about him and thought of heat, waves of heat flowing from the core of his body. A long and uncomfortable night stretched ahead of him. The ledge upon which he lay was narrow and exposed to the wind, but also the only one which granted him an unobstructed view of the house below. He would be forced to rely upon abilities he had not exercised for many years to remain alert.

He had been designed neither to sleep nor to dream, and although experience had taught him that he needed both to function at optimal efficiency, he could still manage stretches of up to seventy-two hours without either. Sometimes he had micro-dreams — vivid, disturbing hallucinations that encroached upon his waking life until he could no longer function at all. But that only happened under extreme stress. At times like the present, when all he had to do was wait, a halfway state was sufficient: neither asleep nor awake: ready to act if anything changed below, but not wasting energy.

Unblinking, he watched. His pulse slowed; his fingertips began to tingle. Within minutes he was no longer cold, and he had entered a state not dissimilar to deep meditation.

As his thoughts stirred, sluggishly, one name recurred with regular frequency:

Roads:
the moustached man he had seen entering the building next door to his; the same man who had chased him upon his return three hours later; the man he remembered to be a police officer, based on a news report he had glimpsed in a market some days ago; the man he had followed in turn from RSD HQ, and for whom he now waited, again.

Roads:
the name by which the moustached man had referred to himself.

Roads
...

He could not return home. The area had been swarming with police the last time he had tried. Had he been recognised at last, after all the years of Sanctuary? He couldn't risk returning until he knew for sure that he hadn't. The witch-hunts of his distant memories were a harsh but accurate reminder of what would happen if he did.

The wind grew stronger as the night deepened. Curfew came and the lights went out. This did not bother him; he could see just as well in infra-red as he could in other spectra. If anything, it relieved an ever-present concern. Had anyone looked up from one of the very few positions from which he could be seen, prior to curfew, they would have caught a peculiar sight. What they would not have seen lay beneath his disguise, of course, and was far more disturbing. But that he could have been seen
at all
made him restless; after so long hiding, it felt strange to be moving of his own will out in the open again.

The moon, half full, rode silently across the field of stars.

He waited.

At some point during his timeless meditation, a timber wolf paced the street below. Its fur shone in the moonlight; its bearing was proud and noble. Unaware that it was being watched, it stalked silently back and forth along the opposite pavement like a restless spirit, a passing visitor to the world of flesh.

The wolf disappeared before dawn, leaving him to his lonely vigil. Sooner or later, he knew, Roads would emerge, and only then would he have to decide what to do.

Sunday, 16 September, 5:45 a.m.

Roads woke before dawn feeling as though a truck had run over him during the night. Without quite getting up, he fumbled for his coat and found a cigarette. The smoke was acrid and thick, but had the required effect on his circadian rhythms: the various parts of his mind got their act together and allowed him to be
him
again.

Still, he waited until the sun had risen before climbing out of bed. The room was stuffy and stale, and the feeble light that ventured through the blinds did little to enliven it. He took a shower, only to be irritated by the water pounding his shoulders. Although pleasantly hot, it felt wrong. Not for the first time, he wished for sonics and a thorough dermal scrub. But he was stuck on the far side of the Dissolution in a shabby remake of the twentieth century. Only a few anachronisms remained to remind him of what had once been.

Anachronisms like Keith Morrow. And hot dogs. And Sundays. He'd been working a seven-day week for so long he'd quite forgotten that weekends had ever existed.

He shaved, dressed in a casual jumpsuit and made breakfast. Taking a cup of coffee with him, he succumbed to a nagging sense of duty and checked the computer.

There were two messages waiting. One was from Barney, asking him to call. He tried her home, but she didn't answer. The other was a short, encrypted file from Chappel. He opened it and scanned its contents.

The Mole had struck again during the night. Shortly before one, the thief had availed himself of data from the Kennedy Prototype Fusion Reactor; he now knew the design tolerances of the facility, plus a few relatively irrelevant details concerning the facility's chief administrators. Officer Jamieson's preliminary report had already been filed: no new evidence and no eyewitness accounts.

The latter alone was noteworthy. KPFR was staffed twenty-four hours a day by in excess of three hundred people. Quite apart from an extensive array of anti-intrusion devices — including pressure-sensitive pads in major hallways and a video camera network that was constantly monitored — the open spaces themselves must have been difficult to navigate without being seen.

Difficult, but obviously not impossible. Not one alarm had been triggered, and no-one had seen the Mole enter or leave. That the Mole had actually entered the grounds, and not accessed the data from elsewhere, was beyond doubt; the address the stolen data had been routed to lay within the main complex building.

Roads could see DeKurzak's point: it smacked of collusion somewhere along the security chain. The possibility could hardly be ignored that someone had prepared the thief's path by deactivating certain alarms or turning off cameras at prearranged times, or by erasing information after the fact. But, if such collusion existed, who was the Mole's silent partner? Or
partners:
the KPFR break-in was just one of many, and the security of each target must have been compromised. For such a feat to be possible, the Mole had to be part of a massive conspiracy.

But to what end? What would such a large organisation possibly hope to gain from such activities? And how had it managed to keep its existence a secret for so long?

He shook his head. The MSA liaison officer was getting to him. Before long, he told himself, he'd be believing in the mythical Old Guard as well.

His computer winked urgently to announce incoming data. He toggled for video and took the call.

It was Barney. In the background, he made out the blurred buzz and bustle of HQ.

"Morning, boss." She waved cheerily. "Deep peace of the running wave, and all that."

"Say what?"

"Philistine. How's the leg?"

He shrugged. It had healed cleanly during the night. "I'll live."

"Good. The Mantis wants you in here as soon as possible."

"Bully for her. Tell her I died peacefully in my sleep."

"Come on, Phil." She chided him with a motherly pout. "What else have you got to do?"

She had him there. He sighed, resigning himself to the fact. "Anything I should prepare myself for?"

"Ah, let's see." She skimmed through the files on her desk. "You heard about last night?"

"Yes. Margaret sent me Jamieson's report."

"Okay ... How about Blindeye?"

"Yes again, but fill me in anyway."

"Well, the Mantis gave the word before I got here. We're going ahead. She's down at Data Processing supervising the transfer with a horde of Mayoralty nobs peering over her shoulder. You'll be glad to miss that, I'm sure. David Goss is getting things ready at the uni, at least as far as the security side of it goes. It looks like they've made you the night watchman."

"I thought they might." That meant he would have to find time for a work-out sometime during the day; a session of target practice wouldn't go astray either. It wasn't a matter of toning up, but a mental discipline he wanted to perform. If Blindeye worked, he would come face to face with his dark half within twenty-four hours.

"What about DeKurzak, Barney? Has he wandered in yet?"

"I haven't seen him, but Margaret told me to tell you that he'll be out of your hair for the day. Seems he's right into info management and all that shit, so he's down with her in DP."

"Any idea how he went at the Yhoman site?"

"No, but Roger's been in a foul mood all morning."

"That's a bad sign. I guess they didn't find anything, then."

"Safe bet."

"I'll try to catch up with him later, if I get the time." Roads scratched the back of his neck and yawned. "What else should I know?"

"Just one little thing." She smiled coyly.

"And this is...?"

"The States rep, Captain Martin O'Dell, has arrived."

He groaned. "Oh great."

"No, Phil. He's okay. I think you'll like him, if you give him half a chance. Not what I was expecting at all."

"What does that mean?"

"No horns, pointed tail, cloven hoofs, or the like. He looks just like everyone around here, except ..." She leaned close to the screen, whispered conspiratorially: "Boy, is he cute!"

He couldn't help it; he laughed.

She leaned back in her chair and adopted a self-satisfied expression. "There, Phil. That didn't hurt, did it?"

"Not much, I'll admit. Are you really trying to make me jealous?"

"Maybe I am, maybe I'm not." She winked. "But he
is
cute, nonetheless."

"That does it. I'll be there in five minutes. Someone has to warn him of the terrible danger he's in."

She waved. "Mission accomplished. See you soon."

He cut the connection with a grin and went to get suitably dressed.

HQ was on the upswing of a busy day when he arrived. On top of the usual shift changeover, extra staff were on hand to assist with a few extra projects currently under preparation. One of them was Blindeye; another was the arrival of General Stedman and his entourage, scheduled for two days time. Roadblocks and security sweeps had to be organised. Mayor's House was already under surveillance to prevent the importation of assassins and potentially deadly weapons.

Roads entered by the ground-level foyer and was promptly brought to a halt by a pair of heavily-armed guards. They checked his hand-print in a portable scanner and waved him on, satisfied that he really was Senior Officer Phil Roads and not the Mole.

Security was tight, but that pleased him.

The fourth floor was a maze of partitions over which rose the combined chatter of fifty busy people. Roads negotiated his way to Barney's cubicle, nodding at faces he knew along the way. As much as he valued privacy, he enjoyed the communal environment of the fourth floor. It was vital and vigorously social. The lonely solitude of the higher levels was, by comparison, sterile.

He stuck his head into Barney's workspace, and immediately pulled it back out. She was deep in conversation with an attractive brunette from four desks down. He "knocked" for attention and waited until she called him in.

"Oh, hi." Barney waved at a chair. "Shelley and I were just discussing the new arrival."

Shelley looked embarrassed. "Have you met him yet, Officer Roads?"

"No. Is he as cute as I'm told?"

"He's — " Shelley rolled her eyes " — simply fabulous, in a weird kind of way."

"Weird how?"

"Well, he looks normal enough — better than normal — but his accent, and some of the things he says ..."

"I get the idea." Roads smiled reassuringly.

Barney tried to hide a grin. "Shell, do you know where he is right now?"

The brunette looked forlorn. "Last time I saw him, Angela Fabian was making him a coffee."

"Could you tell him that Phil is here?"

"With pleasure." The brunette left the cubicle and hurried off through the maze. Roads raised an eyebrow, but did not comment.

"He's been asking for you," said Barney. "He wants to go over a few things before Chappel takes him away."

"Fair enough." Roads shook his head. "Should I feel honoured?"

"If you like. He's really turned this place on its head, let me tell you."

"I can imagine. He's the first official Outsider in more than forty years."

"That he's here at all isn't public knowledge, yet. But you know exactly what I meant."

"All too well, I'm afraid."

Shelley returned with a sandy-haired young man firmly in tow. He looked freshly-tanned and superbly polished, somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties with a firm, athletic build. His uniform, a standard military khaki, was little different from those Roads was used to. O'Dell smiled cheerfully and with no small amount of bemusement upon entering the cubicle, as though overwhelmed by the hospitality he was being shown.

Roads, studying him, grudgingly admitted that he really was handsome, from his close-cropped hair down to the tips of his polished boots. His uniform on closer inspection was of a better cut and made of finer fabric than anything Kennedy had seen for years. The only flaw to his perfection lay in his left hand: the last two fingers were missing.