CHAPTER FIVE
Chaz:
Night brings peace for some, for those who can sleep. Personally I think ita€?s all a ruse. Go ahead, close your eyes. Tomorrow will be better than today. Go ahead. I dare you. Well, Ia€?m not taking any bets. When I stand and look out at the night sky, I have a hard time believing that the sun is really going to rise again.
The landscape of George faded away, faster than I wanted. I was alone. Remembering that freak in the jazz club. He left a bad taste in my mouth. Almost like Ia€?d swallowed a glass of his jive-sweet take-me-to-the-sky high, and now his snake-in-the-skin was going to rub off on me.
Ia€?ve never liked gen-spike addicts, the way their skin ripples and shivers, like ita€?s crawling with a hundred snakes. Therea€?s something primeval about them, as if evolution somehow reversed, imploded in upon itself; maybe Darwin stood up in the middle of the night and pushed a cosmic button and then suddenly all his clever theories began to unwind. Not that I ever believed in them in the first place, but somehow the gen freaks have his name tattooed on their souls.
And I hate to say it because it sounds so d??j? vu, but I felt like I had seen this guy somewhere before.
A bad feeling slipped up my tailbone, lodged itself in the center of my chest and then twisted.
Had we been followed tonight? I thought Ia€?d seen that guy earlier in the evening, outside the museum. He had turned around, watched Angelique when we got in the taxi and headed for the jazz club. And then in the cemetery, a flash of eyes watched me, between the crypts.
Was my imagination working overtime just because my Newbie collapsed and went off-line? Ora€”this one was even worsea€”was somebody after the Newbie?
Her identity was a secret: even she didna€?t know for sure who she had been in her previous life yet. That was all part of the deal. Fresh Start. Nobody knew who you were or what youa€?d done. Even the mugs couldna€?t come after you for a past crime, as long as you hadna€?t committed a capital. It was a little bit like redemption. I know that sounds corny, but it was true. Sign on the dotted line and then when the time comes, everything gets washed away. Your family cana€?t find you, your creditors cana€?t find you, even your best friend wona€?t know where you went. A brand-new beginning. And if you planned everything right, there should be a nice little sum of money waiting, investments accrued over lifetimes.
Still, people have cracked the system before.
We pretend to be this omnipotent organization, but wea€?ve got our weak points.
a€?Run a track on marker numbera€?a€”I paused and checked my loga€”a€?sixteen-point-four-three-eight-eight. Check to see where ita€?s been tonight.a€?
I tried my best to settle back and relax while the Grid ran a search on the gen freak Ia€?d tagged a few hours ago. I knew he wouldna€?t keep the marker long. Within a few days hea€?d find somebody in a back alley with barely enough techno-skills to take it out. I just hoped that they would accidentally yank out some muscle and nerve at the same time. Our markers have tentacles that lace for at least five inches on either side of the insertion point. Not many black-market geeks have the talent to remove one. Or the guts.
The search paused and skittered, jammed to a stop sooner than I expected.
a€?Parameters?a€? a silver voice asked.
a€?Where and when. Give it to me on a satellite map, include street names. Make it a€?up close and personal.a€?a€?
It flashed across the VR screen. Shorter than it should have been, both in distance and time. Either the jerk went home and fell asleep, or he had already found someone to remove the marker.
a€?Closer. Zoom in on the street names.a€?
The map sizzled, then jumped, razor-sharp exact. I immediately recognized the beginning of the glowing yellow trail. I smiled. The brute must have taken a while to catch his breath. He didna€?t leave the alley behind the club for about half an hour, long after the Newbie and I left. Nice. I wish I could have put him down for longer. Ita€?s illegal, but with some of these Mongoloid jerks, I feel like the limits need to be stretched.
Nobody tells me yes or no. Nobody but me. And that little voice, almost too quiet to hear sometimes.
I stood up and walked closer to the screen. Read the street names out loud as I followed the trail with my finger. Something strange about the way he traveled. Stop and go. Almost made me think he wasna€?t alone, like he was with somebody else.
a€?You got any real satellite shots of this?a€?
A duplicate map, sans the yellow tracking line, shot up on the far wall. I walked over, examined it. I was right, there were four goons down there.
I went back to the first map, continued the trail. Stopped. That bad feeling was back. His trail led to the City of the Dead. The same time the Newbie and I were there.
He had followed us.
And as far as I could tell, there was only one way he could have found us.
That was as much evidence as I needed, but for some reason I continued to follow his trail. He didna€?t track us after the cemetery, didna€?t come here. I paused. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it was a one-in-a-million fluke, like winning a lottery ticket. Maybe he hadna€?t followed us.
I took his trail to the end.
It had to be wrong.
a€?Is this data corrupted? Any chance somebody tampered with the marker?a€?
A long, reflective whirring pause. a€?No. The data is correct.a€?
That Neanderthala€?s trail ended at Fresh Start, at our main headquarters.
This was beginning to look like an inside job.