He dreamed of her beautiful face, her avid eyes, her tender kisses on his plump little belly, white as opposed to the grayer hue of the rest of him. The little wings on his back stirring contentedly, as they did now, rubbing up and down against the tiled wall, making the blue plastic tarp that covered him rustle with their movement.
She cooed to him, his child mother. She cooed a name to him. And then he came awake, fully awake, with that name still resonating in his mind.
Now he knew what he was called. Dai-oo-ika.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
organ grinder
Adrian Tableau was short in stature but powerfully muscled, his graying hair neatly cut but undyed, his face as creased but hard as a clenched fist. Even with his custom-made five-piece suit and the marble-topped desk he sat behind, he still spoke with the tough accent of the streets that had shaped him. A former business partner named Grant Leery had said of Adrian Tableau that he hadn't worked his way up from the streets to his penthouse apartment from the inside, but rather had climbed up the outside like a giant ape scaling a skyscraper.
The face that presently filled Tableau's comp screen was softer, more intellectual in aspect. The man introduced himself to Tableau as Simon McMartinez of the Paxton Center for Missing and Exploited Children. While McMartinez talked, Tableau dropped his gaze to the toolbar at the lower edge of the screen. The Caller ID feature there told him that the call did indeed originate from the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, though the information also indicated that the particular device being used was a pay phone. That was a bit odd, but he supposed the man wasn't in his office at the moment.
After his introduction, McMartinez went on to say, "I understand, sir, that you filed a missing person report with the city police, regarding your daughter Krimson."
"Why, have you heard something?" Tableau said, impatient to get to the point.
"No, sir, I'm sorry, but I was hoping that we could lend you and the police some support with this case. We try to give them field investigative assistance in as many cases as our work load can handle."
"Well, I'd appreciate all the help I can get."
"Very good, sir. Might I come to your place of business right now and discuss this with you in person?"
"Yeah, yeah, sure. You know where I am? I can send my driver for you if it's easier."
"Ah, yes, actually-that would save me from using public transportation. Very good, sir. I'll wait in the lobby, then."
"Someone will be on their way." Tableau tapped a key, broke the connection, then tapped another key to contact his chief of security.
In moments, another face filled the screen. This face was covered in a camouflage of blue patches, ranging from pastel to indigo. But the camouflage was not makeup, nor was it even tattooing. It was the man's natural coloration, if natural were the right word. "Sir?" the man said.
"Jones, get down to the Center for Missing and Exploited Children." He recited the street address information that had been saved by his toolbar, as well. He then showed the man called Jones a picture of Simon McMartinez, a paused image from the call that his system had recorded automatically as it was programmed to do with all calls, until such time as he cleaned up its memory files of unnecessary data. "I want you to get this man and bring him here," he told Jones, as if his voice came from the frozen image of McMartinez. "He'll be waiting for you in the lobby."
"Very good, Mr. Tableau." Jones signed off, and his blue-camouflaged face vanished.
What a great idea to have Tableau's man come and pick him up, thought Jeremy Stake. He wished he had thought of it first.
Stake had anticipated that Tableau might check his Caller ID feature or trace the call. If Tableau doubted he was who he said he was, the meat magnate could later call the Center for Missing and Exploited Children and verify that a Simon McMartinez did indeed work there (though hopefully, he wouldn't be put through to the man himself). Or if Tableau cared to check any number of net sources, such as a phone directory, he might find an image of McMartinez's face, again to confirm his identity. It was for this sort of reason that Stake had decided to impersonate an actual person at an actual organization, rather than merely invent an undercover personality. But having Tableau's driver fetch him from the Center itself was just too perfect.
The only problem was that as Stake sat in the lobby waiting, a few people coming and going said hello to him, greeting him by name. One woman even looked at him quizzically and said, "Did you get a new hairstyle, Simon?" He smiled and pretended to be too busy talking on his wrist comp to answer her, and so she drifted along. But it made him anxious. What if McMartinez came down here right now from the building's third floor, on which the Center rented its offices?
Less than an hour ago, Stake had entered the Center and introduced himself as a private investigator hired by Adrian Tableau to find his missing daughter, Krimson. He had been introduced to Simon McMartinez, and had surreptitiously photo-captured the man on his wrist comp-several times, to be sure he got a clear, direct image. If he'd had more time, he might even have created a phony ID badge using one of these images, as he did when he impersonated forcers.
McMartinez said he hadn't seen Krimson's missing person file yet, but he called it up on his comp. He seemed genuinely concerned and apologized to Stake for not having been introduced to this case earlier; there were just too many kids going missing in a city of these proportions. But he promised to let Stake know right away if he came upon any information about the teenager.
Stake had then gone down to the lobby, locked himself in a stall in the men's room, and stared at the various images he had stolen of McMartinez's face, slowly transforming his features into those of the other man. As always when he needed to borrow an identity, Stake had been glad the man didn't have facial fair, wasn't obese or an octogenarian. Not that, in the latter two cases at least, his cells wouldn't have given their best effort. The planes of his face shifted, realigned themselves, as if the very bone of his skull were being molded, but as extreme as the process was it was without physical pain. When the metamorphosis was complete, he'd returned to the lobby to make his call.
And now, this simulacrum of Simon McMartinez looked up to see a man with a blue camouflaged face enter the office tower's lobby.
"Dung," Stake breathed.
It was not, of course, the first time he had seen a Blue War clone in the city of Punktown. But most of the clones who had survived the Blue War had been given jobs as miners on distant moon colonies, or made construction workers on orbital space stations, or made laborers in some other location that didn't intermix them greatly with a public too busy resenting clones as job competition to be grateful for their war service.
The clone veteran met Stake's eyes, as well, and immediately came walking toward him. But Stake had already guessed that this was Tableau's man. What else would a homunculus bred as a warrior be doing here in this silvery tower? And wearing an expensive black suit and a fashionable bowler hat, to boot?
"Mr. McMartinez?"
Stake pretended to end his imaginary wrist comp call, and stood up. "Yes? Are you Mr. Tableau's driver?"
"Yes, sir. I'm Mr. Jones, the security chief for Tableau Meats." He waved them back toward the lobby's revolving doors. "Will you come with me, please?"