Chimera

"What else you got that blinks?"

"Did he talk to you?"

"No," the man said indignantly. "I said he didn't see me."

"You said a woman?"

"Came yesterday. Looked around Jeta's cube, stayed maybe an hour, then left. "

"What did she look like?"

"Wore a mask. Not too big, though, but-"

"Nobody stopped her?"

"The other one was with her, stayed outside. "

"You don't know where Jeta might have gone?"

"No," the man insisted.

Coren grunted. He took a gamble. "Who's Seven?"

The man frowned. " 'Seven'? I don't know…" He seemed honestly ignorant, so Coren dropped it.

"Did these gatos talk to anybody else?"

"Might have." The man paused, thought it over for a moment. "Yes, did. Cobbel and Renz. They got the first cubes at the edge."

Coren suppressed a smile. "What did this tall gato sound like?"

"Kind of raspy-voiced, like he had trouble breathing. But it came out of his chest, real deep. Cobbel and Renz didn't like him too much. "

"Did the woman talk to anyone?"

"No."

Coren considered. Then he stood. "All right, thanks. I'm not here to hurt Jeta. You tell her the gato that paid her twice market for that last data she sold needs to talk to her again. Tell her to find me if she wants to stay alive. Savvy?"

"How'll she find you?"

"Same way she found what I wanted. She'll know. You see her, you tell her to stay on the move, though. "

"Serious shit?" the man asked.

Coren nodded. "Very. "

He backed out of the cubicle and reentered Jeta's cube. He took out his palm monitor and adjusted it, then turned a slow circle till a light flashed red.

From up in the corner, tucked in a crack between the wall and the ceiling, he removed a small button. He repeated the scan and found another one, on her desk amid a jumble of electronics, pretending to be a relay switch.

If there were more, his monitor missed them. He opened a slot in the side of the monitor and dropped them in. They barely fit.

At the edge of the hab collection, he paused. Then he knocked on the nearest door.

A woman looked out at him. She said nothing, only waited expectantly.

"Cobbel or Renz?" Coren said.

"Renz. What?"

"The tall gato talked to you about Jeta Fromm."

She frowned. "What about him?"

"Did he give you a code to tap if you found Jeta?"

"You police?"

"Private. "

"Ah." She stepped out. She was quite a bit shorter than he, surprisingly so. "He tapped us. Ears allover the place. Cobbel's still looking for all of them. We figured that, when he didn't give us a code. "

"He knew you'd lie."

Rena shook her head. "Wouldn't lie." She smiled. "Wouldn't tell him anything. "

"What was he like?"

She frowned again, thoughtfully. "Scary shit. Never blinked. Skin looked wrong. "

"Wrong how?"

"Don't know. Just wrong. Diseased, maybe. Too smooth. No veins." She studied him narrowly. " Jeta's in trouble."

"Looks that way. Bad trouble."

"You trying to help?"

"My fault. Trying to cover accounts."

Renz nodded. "You won't find her. Best she finds you. "

"If you see her, tell her. I need to talk to her."

"Ain't seen her in a few days. She knows how to find you?"

Coren nodded. "I don't think there's much Jeta can't find. Do you?"

That elicited a sly smile.

"Just out of curiosity," Coren asked, "how long has she lived here? People in her profession move a lot, I know."

"Long enough," Renz said. "longer than most-three months or so. "

Coren nodded. That was a long time-for a data troll.

"I'm going, " Coren said. "You see her, tell her. I need to talk to her soonest."

He went to the steps. He glanced back and saw people watching him now, openly. Something had passed through here that had scared them.

Coren hurried down the steps.

On the way back to the tube station, Coren stopped at a public comm and punched in the code he had found. The screen flashed DISCONNECTED SOURCE. He studied the note for a time, trying to decide if it would be worth his while to try to find this Seven. In the end, he fed the paper into a recycler. No time to be as thorough as he wanted. He tapped in the code for the Auroran embassy and began making his way through the maze of connections to find the person he needed to speak to. Third shift was just beginning in Petrabor Sector. Coren's timing was close, arriving at the warehouse just ahead of the crew.

He stood across from their entrance and this time they noticed him as they filed in by groups of twos and threes. He no longer wore the tattered leftovers of a warren ghost but the fine suit of someone in authority-an inspector or manager or perhaps a cop. As they saw him their friendly chatter died away, replaced by suspicion and silence.

Coren had about half an hour before he needed to catch a semiballistic to D.C. He studied the faces that passed before him, matching them to his memory, but the sixteenth crewman failed to appear. No surprise.

The foreman emerged from the employee access and came toward him. He was a short man, middle-aged and just beginning to lose the firm lines of a body made powerful during time working the bays instead of just supervising others.

"Can I help you?" he asked, stopping a meter away.

Coren held up his ID, which contained the emblem identifying him as a licensed independent security investigator. The foreman almost took a step closer to examine it, but Coren shoved it back into his pocket.

"Last night," Coren said, "you took your crew out during on-duty time. A place called Dimilio's?"

The foreman's eyes became wary. "What about it?"

Coren shook his head sorrowfully. "That's not contract."

"The Guild send you? Management?"

"What do you think would've happened if the routers had glitched with no one there to shut it down?"

"Routers never glitch!"

"They do if they're hacked."

Now the wariness turned to fear. "Hacked…" He swallowed. "You're talking about-"

"I'm not talking about anything yet. I'm asking. Why did you think it would all right to walk out midshift, en masse like that, for a few drinks?"

The foreman scowled at him. "I don't have to talk to you."

Coren nodded agreeably. "That's right, you don't. But if that's what you decide to do, the next people you talk to will be ITE inspectors. They don't give a damn about contract protections. "

The foreman took a tentative step closer. "Look-it was Oril's birthday. Not yesterday, but the day before, but there wasn't time then to do anything. Busy shift. Things slowed down yesterday, there were a couple of windows, we figured, what's an hour or two? We've never had a problem-"

Coren sighed dramatically. "Contract says someone has to be on duty-"

"There was! We left the sub here. He didn't know Oril anyway, no loss."

"The sub. I didn't see any sub listed-"

The foreman looked pained for a second. "Farom was out, he's been having trouble with his kid. He's already past his allotment for personal time and sick days-any more and he gets written up. We paid the sub out of our own pocket to come in for him so Farom wouldn't get the reprimand."

"I need the sub's name."

"I'm telling you, Farom's a good worker-"

"The sub's name." Coren leaned closer and softened his voice. "If I can keep this off the record I will-it'll save me a lot of trouble. I don't need the extra datawork. I just have to verify that you didn't leave your shift unattended. Word is that management has some losses to explain to shareholders. You know how that is. Now there was a glitch in the logs for the time you were all toasting Oril's good health. If it was operator error, then we can correct it on our end and leave you alone." Coren reached out then and grabbed hold of the foreman's coverall. "But you pull that kind of shit again, I'll have your ass in front of management and the Guild conciliators. Understand?"

"Yuri Pocivil," the foreman said quickly. "He's normally Second Shift at the Number Four yard. He had personal time."