"What was your relationship to the deceased?" the man"s voice asked.
"We were both natural-born human beings as far as I know," Folio replied.
He was gazing into a mirror, in a room composed entirely of mirrors--floors, ceilings, and walls--everything was a bright reflective surface.
"This is murder we"re talking about here, Johnson. It"s no joke."
"I"m not joking," Folio said to a thousand thousand images of himself. "I met Mingus because I was told by a man named Spellman that a group of friends were dying mysteriously. Spellman wanted me to find out if it was some kinda conspiracy, and if so, who was the perpetrator. I was talking to Black about that."
"In bed?"
"No. We were sleepin" in bed. At least I was. He was dyin"--I guess."
"Who else died?" a woman"s voice asked.
Folio reeled off the long list, including the sixer he had killed.
"Seven murders and you didn"t report it?"
"I did," Folio replied. "I told Aldo Thorpe."
There was a moment of silence in the infinite field of himself. Johnson"s baby finger could not transmit or receive from the heart of Police Central but the memory chips still held more information than the UN"s Library of Earth. Instead of giving in to the dizziness of the tilting images he began a restructuring routine of the images of Azuma Sherman as he died.
The young man was wide-eyed with fear and pain after his leg was disintegrated under him. He stared right into the lens that transmitted the execution to Folio"s eye. He cropped out the left eye and expanded the block of that image. He increased the image until there was a face, reflected in the pupil, a face unknown to Folio or his electronic memories. It was the wide white visage of a man who hadn"t shaved in two days or more. It was an evil face, a gleeful image. He was smiling. Folio imagined the rank breath. The man wore an ocular camera over his left eye; nothing special. Nothing that would explain where he had gotten the protocols to transmit directly to Folio"s eye.
"Who were the other members of this organization?" the male interrogator asked. "The ones that survive."
"Leonard Li, Brenton Thyme, and Fonti Timmerman. And my client, of course, Charles Spellman."
Another spate of silence ensued.
Folio had another idea. He searched his synthetic memory, but the data was unavailable without his transmitter.
"All dead," the woman said.
"Accidental or murder?"
"They were a.s.sa.s.sinated."
"That"s some hard luck."
"You don"t seem surprised," the masculine voice said. "Are you?"
"It was your job to protect them, you say."
"I said no such a thing. I said that Spellman hired me to find out why they were being killed and by whom."
"Where is Charles Spellman?"
"OC. I don"t know where."
"You know nothing?"
"I didn"t say that. I said that Spellman"s off-continent. I don"t know who"s been killin" his friends but I do know that it"s too much of a coincidence for it to be anything but a conspiracy."
"We are allowed by law to administer a level-two pain injection if we believe that you are lying."
"Check my med files," Folio said.
"A Macso injunction against invasive interrogation," the female voice said. Folio doubted she"d meant him to hear those words.
"You got all bases covered, huh?" the man said.
"Enough to stay in the game."
Folio got back to Hallwell"s China Diner at eight fifteen in the morning. D"or was behind the counter. Three lady latenighters were eating fried rice and frogs" legs trying to garner enough strength to make it through the day without getting thrown off the cycle.
"Hey, Johnson," D"or said, and he knew there was trouble. D"or saying Johnson was a code meaning that his d.i.c.k was exposed.
Folio looked around the small restaurant. The lavender-haired partygirls didn"t seem to see a problem.
D"or moved close enough to whisper, "She"s downstairs. Spread out two meters just for an intro."
"Cash credit?"
"Yessir."
The tiny underroom of China Diner was dark and damp, with a ceiling barely high enough for Folio to stand up straight. She was sitting in an ancient wooden chair looking as if she were receiving infection from every breath. She wore a gray dress of real wool and a light gray shawl that had to be silk. Folio placed her age at mid-forties, but with the recent advances in dermal surgery she could have been sixty and no one would know.
"You were looking for me, ma"am?" Folio asked.
He reached out in greeting. She clasped her hands together and moved her shoulders in a defensive manner.
"Are you the detective?"
"Yes, ma"am."
"I am Liliane Spellman."
"Charles Spellman"s mother?"
"No. I"m Mylo"s mother." There was no trace of tears or sorrow on her face, but her blood pressure was extremely high and her nervous system was playing a dirge.
"I"m sorry about your loss, ma"am."
"It"s . . . It was a shock. He had always been sick. That was my fault. I infected him. When I was pregnant the doctors told me that he could live a normal life if he kept up a moderate health regimen."
"Lots of people live with the hive and worse today. It"s not like back when we were kids."
"I know. I was heartbroken, of course, when I heard. But today the police called my husband and said that they were opening a file on Mylo, that he might have been murdered."
Folio looked around for another chair. There was none.
"They said that you were hired by Charles, that he might also be dead."
"I don"t think Charles is dead. His nine friends are, though. Some say it was accidental but I wouldn"t bet on that."
"The police have claimed Mylo"s body. They exhumed him from the royal cemetery in England--"
"He had a royal funeral?"
"Of course. His great-grandfather is Jason Randisi."
"CEO of Randac Corp.?"
"You didn"t know?"
The chime of intuition rang in Folio"s eye, but he had already made the leap. All of this information was stored in his eye but he skipped over biographical data, not thinking it important.
"Is that Charles"s great-grandfather too?"
"Yes. Yes it is."
"Tell me, M Spellman, were Mylo and Charles wrapped into the Randac communications system?"
"Only for communication with the family," she replied. "You know public communication is so unreliable these days. It"s perfectly legal."
"What did you want from me, ma"am?"
Liliane Spellman looked into Folio"s eyes for a moment. She began to speak but then stopped herself. She raised her hand and clutched the throat of her woolen dress.
"Why don"t you wear a lens?" she asked.
"What?"
"For that eye. It"s very disconcerting."
"It has a crystal code covering," Folio said. "Data capture would be thrown off by a lens."
"Did I kill my son, M Johnson?"
"No, ma"am, you certainly did not. You gave him life and that life was taken. They used the hive but he would have lived if they had let him alone."
Folio had never seen a real person laugh and cry at the same time. He"d seen it in the movies, but never in life.
"I will pay you a million general credits for the arrest of the murderer," she said then.
"Ma"am, I"ve given you all I can."
"You won"t help me have revenge?"
"Your son is dead, lady. He was killed by a big plan. A major design. If you try and get at it they won"t hesitate to blank you too."
Corridor 23-97 triple-G S I was paved in crumbling plaster that had once been painted coral pink. At the far end of the Common Ground hallway was head locker 512-419. Folio had to climb a forty-foot ladder to reach the octangular slip where Charles Spellman slept.
When Johnson popped the lid he saw Spellman and his guest. Her hands were at either side of his head, holding down the rope across his throat. They were both naked. She was riding his erection while he came and came near to death. Tana looked up, the grin of a satisfied o.r.g.a.s.m on her lips. Folio hit her with his fist. When she fell the boy started coughing and choking. He was spitting blood and trying to pull away from the weight of his a.s.sa.s.sin.
"Stop it, kid!" Folio yelled. "You"re okay!"
But Charles Spellman kept flailing and kicking until he finally pressed himself out of the sleep slip, knocking Folio to the side of the ladder. The young Itsie"s body crashed forty feet below. Folio swung back on the ladder and looked in at the girl. She wasn"t unconscious but neither was she aware. The detective descended the ladder, leaving her to moan in her victim"s bed.
At midnight he approached the Infochurch tabernacle on Middle Bowery. The Blue Abbot allowed him entrance when he mentioned a certain code given him by the splendid Doctor Kismet. He entered a private booth and knelt before the giant monitor, which instantly switched on.
A tall man, even taller than Folio, with one shining silver eye and one normal gray orb, appeared on the screen.
"h.e.l.lo, Folio."
"Ivan," the last detective said.
"I"m surprised it took you so long to find me. You must be slipping."
"I should have guessed when you gave Tana and her stepfather my protocols."
"I didn"t give your access code away, Folio," the doctor said in a friendly voice. "I merely let them piggyback on a transmission from Home to you."
"Why?"
"Such a large question."
"I know most of the big stuff. You and the other corps had a thing working with the IS. You had a communications system that the Seekers stumbled onto without knowing it. IBC, Red Raven, MacroCode, and Randac. You killed the kids because somewhere in the trillion trillion trillion bits of data they downloaded for their afternoon talks there might have been some clue to your secret."
"Congratulations," Kismet said with a paternal smile.
"Why me?"
"Charles Spellman told Azuma Sherman on our own frequency that he was going to get in touch with you. When your name shows up on our system I am always contacted. I love you, Folio."
"So you sent the a.s.sa.s.sin after me?"
"Only to check you out, to find out where your client might have been. She fell for you, you know. Another unit from the Blue Zone had already engaged the sixer. She fought him to save your life."