The sound of the zipper snapped me fully awake. Maggie came through the tent flaps and zippered them up behind her.
“What was on the chip?” I asked, knowing she'd gone to sit by the canal as she read through the latest set of case files.
Maggie dropped into her hammock and positioned herself on a diagonal so she could lay a little flatter instead of being folded into a banana like I was. “It may be the worst one yet.”
“Tell me.”
“The crime scene was old, at least a month, but they can't pin it down for sure. Some kids were exploring the barge when they found it and called it in.”
“Gene eaters?”
“Yeah. Same as the others. This guy is sick, Juno. He used vice grips this time.”
“How?”
“There were nine of them, all attached to a human-shaped table. There were two for the ankles, another two for the knees, and two more pairs for wrists and elbows. The ninth was for the head. He put a man, or maybe a very tall woman, in them so he or she would be suspended from the table, held by the vices.”
I didn't really want to hear any more, but Maggie continued. “He probably started with the ankles and worked his way up, tightening each vice until he crushed all the joints. Then he did the head.”
Sick is right. I imagined myself in the victim's position, my head being squeezed… I squirmed in my hammock. “Let's just hope Ian shoots me when he finds me instead of turning me over to that freak.”
“It may not go down like that…”
I waited for her to explain.
“What if another cop finds you first and hauls you in? Ian may not want to risk killing you while you're in custody. He'll just pin Raj Gupta's murder on you by planting the knife in your house. You could end up in the Zoo.”
“Shit, Maggie, I thought you were going to try to make me feel better.”
She laughed. “C'mon, Juno, the Zoo's not so bad. At least you'd be alive.”
“Right. An ex-cop in the Zoo. I'd kill myself first.” And I meant it.
Maggie's face turned serious in the lamplight.
“What is it?” I asked.
She started to say something but cut herself off and said, “Nothing.”
“Spit it out, Maggie.”
“I was just wondering what Niki would think if she heard you say that.”
“Christ.”
DECEMBER 3, 2788
I'd changed my mind. It was as simple as that. I knew it was going to delay our investigation, but I couldn't let Niki suffer any longer. As soon as I'd made the decision, Maggie and I hustled from our tent down to the canal and woke up a half dozen boat captains until we found one who was willing to take the overnight charter.
The sun wouldn't be up for a few hours yet. I couldn't see the shoreline, but I could make out the dark black outline of treetops against the almost-as-black sky. The boat captain gave his young daughter a nudge. She woke up and crawled over Maggie's sleeping body, making her way to the bow. She rubbed sleep out of her eyes then snatched up a floodlight and lay facedown with her head hanging over the bow, aiming the floodlight out into the water where patches of reeds were beginning to form. We were navigating one of the Koba's many tributaries, putt-putting our way to the Orzo plantation.
The girl kept sweeping the floodlight from side to side and slapped the hull when she wanted to turn. One slap for left, two for right. We made slow progress snaking our way through the reeds, occasionally catching one with the prop and chopping it apart with a gurgling rumble.
I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. Couldn't. I tried putting my feet up. Didn't help. I pulled my flask out for the fifth time. Still empty. I was trapped, trapped on this boat with nothing to do but think of Niki.
I remembered the time we went to a banquet dinner and Niki followed my lead when I ate with the wrong fork. She knew better, but she didn't want me to look like the only ass at the table. I remembered the shoes she bought me when we were dating, custom-made and very expensive. I wore those things for years, even after the leather cracked through on the sides. I remembered her smile. I remembered the way she twirled her hair when she read her books.
I couldn't do it. I needed her. I'd already lost my job, which meant more to me than it should have. I'd lost the best friend I ever had in Paul. I couldn't lose her, too. I couldn't. If I lost her, what would be left for me? I should go with her, I thought. Together to the end. But I didn't have the guts to do myself in. I was a goddamn wuss that way. I'd be stuck here, sentenced to live with my fucked-up self, and she'd be gone.
But I didn't know what else to do. It had been over twenty-five years of battling against the inevitable. Antidepressants never did any good except in the short term. Therapy never worked, not the traditional verbal variety, nor the more modern mind-to-mind linkage offworlders favored. It always ended the same way, with me frantically racing an unconscious Niki to the hospital, calling ahead to tell them to get the stomach pump ready. We'd tried everything, absolutely everything short of implanting a false personality, which no matter how many times the docs tried to reassure her, she always said she wouldn't do. It was too extreme. She wouldn't be herself anymore. And she was right.
She was tired of trying to shake a past that the present could never outrun. This was what she wanted, and when I thought of it that way, it felt okay. It was when I thought of me that my stomach went cartwheeling.
I checked my watch. We were still an hour away. My phone rang. I picked up and Abdul's holo appeared in the seat next to mine. “Sorry it took so long, Juno, but I decided not to use the KOP system to do your DNA analysis.”
I looked at Maggie curled up in the bottom of the boat and decided not to wake her. “Good. What did you find?”
“I got an ID. Liz has a record. She was picked up for prostitution six years ago. They picked her up on a raid of the Red Room.”
No surprise there, I thought. I remembered that the Red Room was one of the snatch houses Idris mentioned as being frequented by the Jungle Expeditions customers. It was probably how she and Horst had met. “What's her real name?”
“Michelle Davies.”
“Davies?”
“That's right. She's Ian's sister.”
If I wasn't sitting, I would've fallen over. As it was, I found my good hand grabbing hold of my seat like I was about to fall into the drink.
The rain was drumming as Maggie and I stepped off the boat and down to the dock, now almost underwater. Another week of rain and it would have to be abandoned for a higher one. With the help of a rope handrail, we climbed the muddy riverbank steps up to the Orzo estate. I'd woken Maggie up and shared the news as soon as I'd hung up with Abdul. We talked about the incestuous Davies family the rest of the way. Ian and Liz, brother and sister. We remembered how he bought her shoes, how he caressed her feet, her calves, his sister's calves…
Or how about when they kissed in the window, Ian popping a brotherly boner? The whole discussion was beyond disturbing, but to me, it was a relief, a relief from thinking about what I was about to do.
We jogged over to the closest hut, and once under the cover of the thatch overhang, we stripped off our shoes and racked them upside down to keep them spider free. We followed the wood platforms from hut to hut, covering a kilometer or more, finally arriving at Niki's room. Vlad heard us coming and sat up straight in his chair. Maggie waited outside while I went in and woke up the nurse.
“What are… you doing here?” asked Niki.
I waited for the nurse to leave before saying, “I talked to Abdul.”
“Dammit. I t-told him not to…”
I interrupted her. “Stop. It's okay, Niki. We talked and…”