“It doesn’t matter,” said Pascari. “I’m putting him in command of Task Force Sierra.”
21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
DELAGARZA
It was amazing what modern technology could do to heal bullet wounds to the stomach. At any other point in history, the rest of Delagarza’s life would’ve been spent eating through a straw.
Delagarza had been asleep for the first part of the doctor’s work. From what Cooke had told him, the man cheerfully washed his thoracic cavity to remove all traces of acid and waste.
“He used this blue gel pack along with three packs of blood,” Cooke had recalled, “and said it’d stop you from bleeding out.”
“Blue blood? Guess I’m now royalty,” Delagarza flashed him a weak smile.
“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works, Delagarza.”
“That’s Prince Delagarza to you.” The two of them snickered. It almost felt like the old times. Delagarza felt like he had been away for a long time.
After the black-market surgeon finished the emergency part of his job, a parade of restorative treatments followed, all coming from Delagarza’s own pocket, as Charleton cheerfully told him.
Mother-cells injections, followed by tailor-made viruses that directed Delagarza’s body to regenerate the damaged sub-systems, expensive stim juice to heal back the acid-damaged organs, even a nanobot injection to re-connect Delagarza’s nerves. Those were the ones that Delagarza recognized because they were public knowledge. The rest of them involved tools and procedures Delagarza had never heard of before.
During the surgeon’s last visit, he asked Delagarza if he wanted the scars removed. It was the first choice Delagarza had any control over.
“Leave them,” he decided, “the ladies will love them.”
Charleton, standing against a corner of the room, rolled her eyes.
He winked at her and flashed her a grin. She looked down and rolled her eyes again, with a tiny smile insinuating itself onto her lips. Delagarza had never felt more alive.
That’s the synthetic endorphins you’re chock full of, Daneel Hirsen’s voice—his own voice—reminded him.
Shut up, you. I was shot. I deserve some rest.
Hirsen didn’t share Delagarza’s opinion. Every minute that Delagarza spent in bed, he was assailed by a subtle unease, an itch in the back of his mind that told him he should be back on his feet and moving.
Hirsen could complain all he wanted. For the first two months, Delagarza was simply unable to leave the bed. His wounds wouldn’t allow it. He got very acquainted with that part of Charleton’s apartment, but little else.
His strength, though, slowly came back. The surgeon had mentioned he was amazed by Delagarza’s ability to recover from the massive injury so easily.
“It’s almost super-natural,” the man said, the feigned disinterest marked in his eyes.
Delagarza knew the surgeon had studied Delagarza’s biological makeup. Whatever he had found there, he knew Hirsen’s body wasn’t fully human. Well, the enforcer’s money was enough to pay for the surgeon’s silence as well as his skills.
By the third month, Delagarza was up and making small trips to the outside world, walks that pleased the part of him that was Daneel Hirsen, and allowed Delagarza to shake off the acidic smell a body got when spending too much time under a cheap air-recycling unit. He was careful during those walks, making sure no one followed him or paid him any undue attention. No one ever did. The enforcers had moved on to bigger and juicier targets.
Charleton waited for him after he returned from one of his walks.
“We need to talk, Sam,” she told him.
“Nothing good ever came from saying that,” he said, raising an eyebrow at her.
“I’ve waited until you recovered, you know,” she told him. “It happened faster than I expected, but you seem almost back to normal by now. You need to tell me what the hell happened to you.”
Delagarza shrugged, while at the same time, Hirsen spewed a bunch of angry warnings in the back of his mind. “I told you and Cooke, I was mugged.”
“Like fuck you were,” Charleton said. The worry in her eyes was replaced by hardness. “Do you think I’m an idiot? Those bullets weren’t plastic, Sam, the surgeon said they came from a military-issued pistol. I’m taking a huge risk for you, man, because I know you and we were tight, once. But if security—or worse—are on your ass, you need to tell me. Have you been running with the gangers?”
“I’m too old for that shit,” said Delagarza. He tried hard not to smile—that would’ve only pissed her off more.
“That has never stopped a man chasing after a piece of tail,” said Charleton. “I know you’re too comfortable with that ganger girl.”
Jamilia Charleton, are you jealous? He dismissed the idea fast. That was his pride speaking. She was worried, and she was trying to make sense of the situation with incomplete information.
“Jamilia, trust me, gangers are not my type,” he said, and he meant it.
Charleton sighed and plopped down on one of her seats. She played with the plastic plants that decorated her coffee table. “Then what, by Reiner, is going on, Sam?”
You can’t tell her, Hirsen warned. It will put her in danger.
When Cooke had found him, bleeding out and so weak he could barely talk, he had almost brought him to a hospital. Delagarza’s pleading had managed to convince him he needed help elsewhere, and no one could know about it. So Cooke brought him to Charleton. She had coordinated with the surgeon, given Delagarza a place to rest and recover, and she hadn’t asked a single question during those months.
A long time ago, she had been his lover. For far longer, they’d been working partners. Both had to count for something.
She had trusted him when he had been at his weakest and in very suspicious circumstances. That counted. He owed her his life.
Know what? Delagarza told Hirsen. How about you shut up and let me decide for myself? If you want to make all the calls, stop being a coward and hiding in the back of your own mind.
Before his subconscious could do something to change his mind, Delagarza said:
“Isabella Reiner is alive and hiding in Dione. The enforcers are after her, and I was trying to find her when they shot me.”
It was strange, feeling an entire personality throw a temper tantrum inside his own head.
CHARLETON WAS SO SURPRISED that she didn’t throw him out of the apartment on the spot. She didn’t believe a word of it at first, but Delagarza had the Shota-M’s data still with him, and he showed the holos to her. Charleton knew far more than he did about reading complex travel logs, and after hours of stunned reading, she closed the holos and said:
“These people…Newgen…hid her in space for thirty years?”
“Seems that way,” Delagarza said. “Her mother, too, but the data implies she died during transit. Doesn’t say it outright, but—”
“Yeah, I noticed.” She passed a hand through her hair. “Shit, Sam, this is insane. What are you doing involved in this shit? Let the EIF handle it, it’s no surprise you got shot. I’m amazed the enforcers didn’t bother making sure you were dead.”
“I’m a lowly ‘ware cracker,” said Delagarza. He hadn’t mentioned Daneel Hirsen to her. “Why should they care? They think they got Isabella.”
“And you’re sure they won’t figure out they executed the wrong person?”
“Eventually,” he said. “But in the meantime, it buys the EIF time to get here.”
“I don’t like it,” she said, “it’s too big for you. This belongs in history books. It’s in the past. It’s over, Sam. People are trying to make a living and it’s hard enough as it is. If a civil war gets underway…”