Weight of the Heart (Bruna Husky Book 2) (22 page)

30

T
his picture you’ve brought back is a copy of
The Scream
, a famous painting by Edvard Munch, a Norwegian painter from the end of the nineteenth century and the start of the twentieth century,” explained Yiannis with his customary attention to detail. “Actually, it would be more accurate to say ‘paintings,’ because he completed four almost identical works. The first one, considered the best, is oil, tempera, and pastel on cardboard—from 1893 if my memory is correct. Then there are two pastel versions, on cardboard and on board, and a tempera version on cardboard. There’s also a lithograph version. Your picture is oil and pastel on poster board. A very good reproduction I’d say. I have to check it against all the originals, but I think it’s inspired by the first painting.”

With the help of Lizard and the most up-to-date equipment of the Judiciary Squad, Bruna had analyzed the picture exhaustively, searching for nanochips, microinscriptions, earlier pictures hidden under the topmost layer, perforations, or any other message-coding system with no result whatever. Disheartened, she’d taken it to Yiannis to see if the archivist could find anything.

“What’s the meaning of the scene?”

“Munch himself says that he was strolling along at dusk with some friends and . . . Wait while I look for the exact quote,” Yiannis said, fiddling around with his mobile. “Here it is: ‘I was walking along the road with two friends—the sun was setting—suddenly the sky turned blood red—I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence—there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city—my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety—and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.’ He first wrote about his experience in 1892, and then rewrote it in this poetic form.”

So it was a road or path, not a bridge or a jetty,
thought Bruna.
A scream passing through nature. What could pass through nature in such a terrifying way?

The rep studied Yiannis, discouraged. She’d returned from the Floating World the night before, and after sleeping barely four hours she’d plunged into a round of frantic activity. First she’d spent a long time analyzing the picture with Lizard, and then before taking it to the old archivist she’d gone to see Preciado Marlagorka. The meeting had taken place in his office, and Husky had found the Director-General of Energy Security looking much worse than the previous time. His pear-shaped cheeks were drooping more flaccidly than ever, like overripe fruit on the point of falling from the tree, and he constantly rubbed his hands in a way that revealed his nervousness. When she told him that Nuyts had been murdered, he erupted.

“Murdered? How was he killed?”

“I’m almost sure it was Rosario Loperena’s killer, the Black Widow, the same assassin who attacked me and Daniel Deuil.”

“The Black Widow? But how? That’s impossible! It’s an outrage that I send two people to a Floating World and they don’t know how to protect the only witness! Do you know what your documents cost me? And arranging your flights? I’ve had to pay for everything out of my own pocket, dammit!”

“Yes. I’m sorry. She must have followed us. It was our mistake,” mumbled the rep.

“Where is the famous Deuil, your assistant? He should have come with you! I want to meet this useless idiot!”

“I’ll tell him.”

At this point Marlagorka swallowed a few times and seemed to make an effort to regain his composure.

“Right. In any event the information you’ve gathered is important. Very important, and it mustn’t leave this office. I remind you that we have a mole, and I still don’t know who it is. Who else knows about the reactor center on Labari?”

“Only me and Deuil,” Bruna lied brazenly, erasing Yiannis from her memory. She hadn’t told Lizard, because she hadn’t fully regained her trust in him.

“That must continue to be the case. And I want you to send me the picture immediately.”

Bruna was carrying it in her backpack, but she wanted Yiannis to see it before she gave it to Preciado.

“I still have to carry out some tests on it.”

“I want it here first thing in the morning! I’m your client, I arranged and paid for your trip to Labari, and that picture is mine. I’ve kept my part of the deal, Husky. You keep yours!”

With those words he brought the conversation to a close and threw her out. Marlagorka had indeed fulfilled his side of the bargain. When Bruna got back from Labari, she’d found out that Gabi wasn’t there. The child had been admitted to the best hospital in Madrid, or at least the most expensive one, to undergo radiation treatment. The little Russian had been put into isolation because her immune system was below the minimum threshold, but apparently the treatment was going very well. Or so the archivist had told her, full of hope. Bruna looked at her old friend, so enthusiastic in his study of the picture, and sighed. It was going to be like taking a toy away from a child.

“Yiannis, you can only have the picture for a few hours. I’ll be taking it to Marlagorka first thing tomorrow.”

“You don’t say. Right. You’re making my job hard. Hmm . . . You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to go down to the copy shop on the corner and get them to make me the best hologram copy they can. Even a hyperrealistic copy if they can. Or better still, both!”

Nervous and excited, he put the picture between two pieces of cardboard and ran off without even saying good-bye. Just then Deuil called.

“I want to see you.”

She’d heard nothing from Deuil since they’d separated at the airport after their flight back from Manaus.

“I’m at Yiannis’s place.”

“I’m nearby,” the tactile said dryly before cutting off.

Five minutes later he was at her door. As soon as Bruna saw him, she knew that he was in a bad mood: silent, defiant, tough.

“So?” Bruna said, thrusting out her chin and chest.

She didn’t have time to add anything more, because her mobile rang. It was a call from the hospital where Gabi was. An older-looking woman in a white coat appeared on the screen.

“I’m Carmen Francis, director of the medical team that’s treating Gabi Orlov, your ward. I assume you are Bruna Husky. But before I continue, I’d like us to exchange authentication protocols. I have to give you some very confidential information.”

Intrigued, the rep set her mobile to digital-recognition mode and placed her right palm over the register. Instantly, she received the authentication of her caller. She was indeed speaking with Dr. Carmen Julia Francis Carlavilla, hematologist, regenerator, specialist in cell reconstruction.

“How is Gabi?” asked Bruna.

“As far as her health is concerned, there is nothing to worry about. Orlov is responding very well to the treatment. I think I can assure you that she’ll be cured of the aftereffects of the radiation. But there are other aftereffects that I can’t cure.”

Dr. Francis had shaved eyebrows, the latest fashion among mixed race, high-class people. It left her face oddly devoid of any expression.

“What’s the matter?” asked Bruna.

“Gabi is not a virgin. There are signs that she was violently raped. There’s evidence of tears that have scarred over without medical attention.”

The rep felt the breath rush out of her lungs.

“By all the damned sentients! She’s just turned ten!”

“The wounds are old. At least a year, maybe two. We’ve questioned the girl, but she doesn’t answer. Not a word. As if she didn’t hear the question. Anyway, I felt you should know.”

Husky hung up, stunned. Gabi. The child. The monster. It wasn’t surprising that she was sometimes so ferocious, so unfathomable, so impossible. What hell did she have in her past? The rep looked at her arm; the teeth marks from Gabi’s bite were still visible. Bruna tried to swallow but she had no saliva. She didn’t know what to think. She didn’t know what to feel. Her inner being was like a windswept cavity.

“Bruna,” said Deuil.

The rep jumped. She’d forgotten the tactile was there.

“What do you want?”

“That’s what I was referring to the other day in the elevator. There’s a lot of darkness on this Earth.”

“I swear by the great Morlay that someone will pay for what they did to her.”

But as she was saying it, the rep realized it was a meaningless threat, an oath nearly impossible to keep. She was a combat replicant, and fighting was the only thing she knew how to do, the only thing she was really good at. But even if she fought till she died, could she erase, could she avenge, all the sorrow in the world? She raised her hands to her chest and squeezed, because it felt like her heart was breaking.

“Bruna,” Deuil repeated, but this time his voice was a whisper.

The tactile came toward her slowly and softly, as cautiously as he would approach a frightened animal. When he was close to her—too close in reality—Bruna looked into his eyes. To her surprise he seemed moved.

Deuil raised his arms and grabbed her by the shoulders. Those large warm hands, those marvelous hands of a tactile. Or a lover. Was he trying to give her some therapeutic support? Or was he looking to her for support? Now they were so close that Husky could feel his breath. And hear his very light anxious gasp. The tactile’s hands pulled her, and the rep fell into Deuil’s mouth; she crashed into his teeth; she got tangled up with his tongue. No more words, only flesh. They were nothing more than a man and a woman. Even if they were a human and a replicant.

31

B
runa woke up with the hammering thud of her hangover, an old friend whom she’d not seen while she was on Labari; up there she’d hardly had a drink. Four stabbing jabs of a migraine later, she felt awake enough to notice that a warm body was hugging her naked back. She turned halfway around in the tangle of sheets and bumped into Bartolo—Bartolo with his happy little eyes, his huge nose, and his somewhat fetid breath.
Yes. Of course.
Now she remembered. Deuil had departed at dawn. Bruna pushed aside the bubi and sat on the edge of the bed while she waited for the room to stop spinning. That happened right away, which filled the rep with the hopeful thought that she hadn’t drunk all that much after all. Thinking about Deuil, she didn’t reach the point of knowing if she had been disappointed or relieved to discover that the greedy-guts, and not the tactile, had been stuck to her back. She stood up. The migraine seemed to be diminishing. She opened the kitchen cupboard, removed a cup of coffee, shook it to heat it up, removed the lid, and drank it down in one gulp. The bitter brew penetrated her stomach like a tunneling machine. She filled Bartolo’s dish with food and went into the bathroom. As she was emerging from her vapor shower, she heard the ping of a hologram message. It was coming through the home screen and was awaiting permission to be downloaded. Only Yiannis was authorized to send holos. She checked her mobile while she dried herself: the request was from Carnal, that tiresome activist from the Radical Replicant Movement. Bruna was about to refuse permission, but then she noticed that it was a message forwarded from a central message bank. They’d tried to send her the hologram three times while she was on Labari. It seemed odd to Bruna that Carnal would use a message service. She wrapped herself in a towel and left the bathroom.

“Screen, open the holo,” she commanded, shaking another coffee and opening it.

The air vibrated, darkened, and seemed to condense. In a fraction of a second the life-size image of Carnal appeared.

“Shit,” exclaimed Bruna, taking a step back. The coffee slipped out of her hands, fell to the floor, and splashed and scalded her leg.

Carnal was almost unrecognizable. She was in her death throes, a wreck of a being. When she’d recorded the hologram message, the activist’s TTT was in its final stages.

“Have I scared you, my dear Bruna? Do I frighten you? Do I sicken you?” Carnal’s voice was sibilant and tired.

The holo-image encompassed little more than Carnal’s silhouette, but she seemed to be on her bed, lying on a mountain of pillows. She was barefoot and almost naked. Some shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt revealed her wasted body, terrifyingly emaciated, devoured by the cruel tumor conflagration. Her gaunt skin was covered with blisters, and her gums were bleeding, staining her pale lips with dark grooves. Her eyes shone feverishly from deep inside cavelike sockets. Her stomach, incredibly swollen, looked like a grotesque addition to her skeletal body, a cruel joke.

“By the time you get this holo, I suppose I’ll already be dead . . . Well, well, that famous phrase . . . it sounds like it was taken from a spy movie,” she rasped sarcastically.

A coughing fit convulsed her, cutting off her words. Small drops of blood flew through the air. Husky instinctively leaped back.

“Dying is obscene . . . it’s indecent . . . Forgive me for providing you with this spectacle,” gasped Carnal when it was over, her chin and chest dotted with red spots.

Three years, nine months, and twenty-five days,
Bruna repeated in her mind, hypnotized, like someone reciting a litany.

“But I think that the impression I make when you see me like this will encourage you to obey my petition . . . No, no, I’ve expressed myself badly . . . What I mean is that it will make you fulfill my wish. Please.”

There was another coughing spell, which seemed to last forever. Then with an effort she smiled. A dirty, washed-out smile. The smile of a madwoman.

“You have to go to Number 27, Doctora Amalia Gayo Street, Apartment 930 . . . Go there . . . and talk to the tenant. Introduce yourself. She’ll know what it’s about. Do it please. It’s my last wish.”

Carnal stopped talking and stared fixedly at the camera, into Bruna’s eyes. The bony chest of the sick woman was rising and falling with excruciating effort.

“I told you, Bruna. I warned you. I can’t kill myself either.”

A dry sob racked the activist’s face, contorting her features in a flash of pain. Then the impassivity returned. A body tortured by death.

“You never believed me, but when I told you that I liked you, it was true. What a pity, my dear Bruna . . . Not to have had more time . . .”

Something softened in the dying rep’s thin face, and from under her hard, already corpselike features peeked out a roguish, cheeky reminder of the little computation rep who’d licked Bruna’s neck. A fleeting shadow of what she had been.

“Don’t forget, 27 Doctora Amalia Gayo Street, Apartment 930 . . . Be sure to go . . . It will change your life. The brief life that you’ve still got left.”

With that, Carnal stretched out her hand and switched off the hologram. Her image dissolved into wisps of nothingness, like a cloud evaporating in a blue sky. The real Carnal would have disappeared by now, inside a box of fortified cardboard, into the crackling oven of some sinister moyano. There would be no trace of her footsteps on Earth anymore. Ashes and energy.

Three years, nine months, and twenty-five days.