The Immortality Virus (7 page)

A shrill scream from the end of the alley made Grace quicken her pace. She could scarcely see anything now, away from the streetlights. All she could make out was a figure being pinned to the ground–female by the sound of her voice–one figure straddling her, and another nearby, holding a disruptor.

Vagrants didn’t usually carry disruptors. That should have been her first clue.

“Stop!” Grace ordered. “I want to see your hands in the air or I’ll shoot!”

Their heads turned towards her, but they did not move to obey. The woman on the ground began to plead. “Help me, please!”

“Shut up!” came the deep voice of the man straddling her.

“Get out of here,” said the man with the disruptor. “You don’t have any clue who you’re dealing with.”

“I’m dealing with criminals,” Grace said, a little more confidently than she felt.

The man with the disruptor raised the weapon. Grace fired hers with scarcely a moment’s indecision, then rushed forward to disarm him, though she needn’t have bothered to act so quickly. He was dead, and his friend was too stunned to react.

“I said get your hands in the air!” Grace ordered the other.

He complied, shaking as he stood. She smelled alcohol on his breath.

Alcohol?
Vagrants definitely couldn’t afford alcohol.

She tried not to think about that as she slapped cuffs on his wrists and called for backup. The woman got to her feet and brushed off her ragged clothes, panting heavily. “Thank you. Thank you. I had no idea when I took this job…”

“You’re a whore?” Grace asked, suddenly wondering if she’d made a terrible mistake.

“No, a reporter. I’m doing an undercover investigation of life on the streets.”

Suddenly, her voice seemed familiar. Grace couldn’t dredge up the name from the back of her mind, but she could picture the face from one of the local news channels–thin and pale, with dangerously high cheekbones.

“She’s a reporter?” the man asked. “I thought she was a tramp.”

He had an ID bracelet. Grace scanned it, and her heart plummeted five stories. His name was Bradley Copeland. His name and address told her that this was the son of one of the wealthiest men in Kansas City.

“When my father hears about this, you’re dead,” Bradley said. “You’re as dead as my brother.”

Grace swallowed. Hard. She didn’t doubt it for a second. This was exactly what the captain had warned her about.

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” the reporter chimed in. Unfortunately, Grace didn’t think she had much to say about it.

* * *

Bradley went home as soon as backup arrived. Grace spent the night in jail.

She didn’t sleep. She didn’t just think she would die the next day, she knew it. She spent the hours before dawn thinking about her life, such as it was, and wondering if it had all been worth it. She thought of Sam, who would be crazy wondering where she was. She was supposed to go over to his place when her shift was over. He’d find out eventually. Would it be before or after she got a chance to say good bye to him? And things had been so rocky between them lately, with her sixtieth birthday approaching and her last remote chance of having babies almost gone.

Her relationship with her mother had been rocky lately for much the same reason. Grace didn’t feel the need to patch things up with her before she died, though. Maybe she should say one last good bye to her sister, Charity.

When you’re about to die, the strangest things go through your mind. Her rent was due the next day, and Grace wondered if her landlord would take all her furniture when she didn’t go to pay. She wondered if Sam would ever get a chance to go to France like he’d always wanted. She wondered if, unencumbered by her, he would have children with another woman.

Her stomach twisted in knots at that thought.

Finally, near dawn, she wondered if they would offer her one last meal, and if she could have something other than nutri-bars. She’d had bacon and eggs twice in her life, and her mouth watered at the thought.

“Open cell door G-4!” called a guard.

Grace closed her eyes. This was it. They were coming for her. She heard her cell door clank open, and she risked a peak.

To her surprise, Captain Flint stood there with a scowl on his face. “Do you even understand the seriousness of what you’ve done?”

“Of course I do,” Grace said. “You’re here to kill me, right?”

Captain Flint growled at her.

“Do I get a last meal or anything?” Grace asked, trying to sound braver than she felt.

“You get to listen to me right now. Copeland is one of the richest men in the area and he doesn’t take kindly to one of his sons getting killed. Never mind that he has at least fifty sons and doesn’t give a damn about one of them. Never mind that the one you killed was trouble. There’s a principle here.”

Grace felt her heart pounding. “Why are you saying all this to me? Why don’t you just get it over with?”

“I’m coming to that. You see, the woman you saved was not a vagrant at all, but a reporter who hit the holos last night, before anyone could stop her, singing your praises and telling the city there are still decent cops in Kansas City.”

Grace saw a tiny flicker of hope. “So it wouldn’t look very good for them to have me killed right now?”

“They were willing to make it look like an accident,” Captain Flint said, “but I interceded. I called in every favor I had, Grace, but I got them to reconsider.”

It took Grace a minute to understand. When she did, she looked at Captain Flint in an entirely different way. “Why did you do that?”

The Captain grunted. “I’m crazy, that’s why, but don’t thank me yet. You’re officially blacklisted. You won’t get any legitimate work for any company owned by The Establishment or their subsidiaries. You won’t be able to work for the government. And I don’t just mean in Kansas City, either. If you head for another city-state, their national connections will make sure this follows you. They think you’re going to starve to death on the streets or head out to the farms. And that’s why they’re letting you off.”

They were probably right. Grace felt suddenly cold. “What do you think?”

Flint handed her a business card and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Give this guy a call. He’s a private detective. Might be able to work something out for you.” He stood back and stared Grace straight in the eyes. “Don’t draw attention to yourself, Grace. If we ever cross paths again, I
will
have to kill you.”

Grace knew that if she didn’t open the door, the cops would break it down. She considered heading out the bedroom window and down the fire escape, but figured they would have that exit covered. Meanwhile, the attempt to escape would make things much worse for herself.

“Open up or we’ll break the door down!”

Grace unlocked the door, still gripping her weapon tightly. “Come in!” she yelled, standing back and ready to fire.

She didn’t recognize the two cops who had come for her, but then again it had been almost seventy years, so that wasn’t unexpected. They both had their weapons drawn and seemed unsurprised to see hers trained on them.

“Grace Harper, lower your weapon.”

“Am I under arrest?”
Are you going to kill me when I lower my weapon?
It was what she really wanted to ask, but could not.

“You have my word that we will not kill you if you lower your weapon and come with us.”

Grace eyed the speaker warily. He was the smaller of the two, but he was still over six feet tall and at least two hundred pounds. “Why should I trust you?”

“You also have my word that if you do not lower your weapon by the count of three, I will be forced to fire.

“One…”

Grace considered her odds. She could shoot him before he reached three, but the other cop would shoot her before she could turn her gun on him.

“Two…”

Even if she did survive this, the police department would no longer be all right with their “live and let live” approach.

Grace lowered her weapon and shoved it in her holster.

“Good choice.”

The other cop took her sidearm and then patted her down, searching for other weapons that weren’t there. She didn’t conceal her weapons. They only served as a deterrent if people knew she had them.

“She’s clean,” the searcher said. “Let’s take her in.”

They led her out her front door, down the stairs, and to a waiting hovercar surrounded by curious passers-by and several residents of the alley outside her apartment building. Unfortunately, they recognized her, which probably meant they’d try to break into her apartment while she was away. Not that she’d need any of her stuff if she died.

If we ever cross paths again…

He had meant it, but his officers hadn’t shot her on sight so maybe she had a chance. Maybe this had nothing to do with The Establishment or Matt Stanton.

Yeah, right. And maybe they’d give back her badge and set her to work on her old beat.

“What’s this about?” Grace asked the two cops in the front seat.

“No questions,” said the driver–the one who had done most of the talking so far. The other one had his grubby fat fingers on Grace’s weapon.

Grace settled back and watched the buildings fly by as they made their way to the downtown police department. She hadn’t been in a hovercar since she left the force. Normal people just couldn’t afford them. Most of the cars in the air either belonged to the police force or a few very rich people.

The police department hadn’t changed in seventy years, at least not from the sky. The last time she had landed there, she had been in cuffs. They hadn’t cuffed her this time, but she didn’t let that get her hopes up.

From the landing pad, they took the elevator down to the twentieth story, where Captain Flint’s office was–or at least, where it had been seventy years ago. As soon as the doors dinged open on the twentieth floor, they headed along the long corridor to the captain’s office.

It all looked the same. Exactly the same. From the late twenty-third century wallpaper to the stains that had been there since two officers by the name of Greene and Yale had fought in the corridor and thrown hot coffee at one another.

One of the cops pressed the buzzer by the door. A moment later, Grace heard a click, and the door swung open. The two cops pushed her inside.

Captain Flint sat behind his desk, arms resting atop its smooth, uncluttered surface, his eyes locked on Grace’s. “Leave us,” he ordered the cops, who immediately obeyed.

A profound silence echoed through the room. Grace became aware of her heart pounding and wondered if Flint could hear it from behind his desk.

“It’s been a long time,” Flint said, finally.

Not long enough.
“Yeah.”

“Did you give my officers any trouble?” Flint asked.

“What do you think?”

“Sit down.” Flint waved at the chair on the other side of the desk.

Grace stared at it, half expecting it to explode if she put any pressure on the seat. She sat lightly, keeping most of her weight on her feet.

“You said you’d kill me if we ever crossed paths again,” Grace reminded him.

“So I did, and by all accounts I should. I helped you out, got you started in P.I. work, and how do you repay me? By taking a meeting with the richest man in Kansas City.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Grace lied.

“Skip it. We’ve been helping The Establishment track Matt Stanton’s moves ever since his father’s murder.”

“Why?” Grace knew the answer, but she wanted to hear Flint say it.

“Because we think he killed his father.”

“So what if he did? Don’t you have bigger things to worry about, like Sewer Rats or an army at the city’s northern gate?” She would have been more worried about those things, but she and the police department had never seen eye to eye on priorities.

“It’s just raiders. Edgers is still securing Chicago.” Flint closed his eyes and rubbed at them for a moment. “Believe it or not, The Establishment is more worried about their own kids than about all the rebels and vagrants in the streets, no matter how many bombs go off. They’ve got enough security around their fortresses to keep out anything the riff raff can afford to do to them, but their own kids…Well, you can imagine. It’s a potential eternity before their kids get to inherit anything and some of them want to push the date up.”

My heart bleeds.
Aloud she said, “Maybe they should stop having kids.”

“That’s their business,” Flint said. “Mine is to find out whether Matt Stanton killed his father and hang him out to dry in front of The Establishment if he did. Really, they’ve already decided he’s guilty, and I pretty much agree. We’re just looking for evidence and when we find it, things won’t be pretty for Matt or for anyone who’s associated with him.”

“Did you bring me here to warn me off?”

“Just the opposite,” Flint said. “I brought you here to give you a chance to repay your debt to The Establishment.”

This didn’t sound good. She hadn’t thought to worry about daddy’s murder after Matt told her what he really wanted from her, but apparently she should have. “I didn’t know I owed them anything,” Grace said, stalling for time.