Выбрать главу

“You helped with the roof takedown?” the CEC asked Mary in an undertone.

She nodded. “Get anybody important?”

“Not Shlege unfortunately. The woman you caught was Shlege’s mistress, however. It’s nice to give the bastard a little grief.” He nodded at the three victims. “We’ve just got ID confirmed on all of them. One of them is Lon Joyce. Four small aircraft fell out of the sky near New Delhi. He used stale nano to make his airframes. Allegedly knew it, too. Civil suits passed him by; he was far richer than those he killed.”

Mary swallowed. “The others?”

“The young man on the left is Paolo Thomerry from Trenton New Jersey. Heard of him?”

She had seen his name on the pd bulletins. “Short eyes,” she said.

“Exactly. Twelve children from New York to Los Angeles in the past three months. Refused therapy; called it philosophy.”

“And the third?”

“A petty embezzler from jag three. He threatened his estranged wife that he would kill her. Selectors got to him before he got to her. We think the wife must have called them in. She didn’t think to call us first. She must have really hated him.”

Mary tried to reconstruct what had happened; blindfolded or drugged or both the three miscreants brought into the dominium by trained reliable Selectors, the hellcrown and clamps prepared, the mock court proceedings, sentencing and clamping within twelve hours of sentence, release a day or two later on the streets of LA let them fend for themselves. Most who had undergone the clamp needed some form of therapy or another; some needed it badly.

Few ever repeated their crimes.

Her lip curled and she shook her head slowly. “They should clamp themselves,” she murmured.

The CEC rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “You’re the principal in the East Comb One murders, Investigator M Choy?”

“Yes.”

He extended his hand and she clasped it firmly. “Good hunting,” he said. “Take it from me; there’s a real letdown if these clowns get your quarry before you do. And word’s out. They’re after Goldsmith. Perhaps that’s why we missed Shlege. He may be out in the jags now, tracking.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Mary said.

The eldest victim, Lon Joyce, came awake and began to scream.

Mary turned and descended the stairs at a run.

13

Martin Burke pumped a pushbike to the bus station—no autobus service in his neighborhood, due to rebellion of landowners against civic intrusion of guideways and subsequent per capita five grand a year tax infants under two exempt—and folded it into a locker twenty five per day, spoke his destination into a reception ear and waited. Ten minutes and a large autobus hummed and groaned in beneath the translucent seashell canopy, twenty meters long and segmented like a worm, a white and gold amphisbaena, nothing but seats and flex windows and flex door. Martin came aboard, put his feet on the safety bar, allowed a belt to cross his heart and fell into slaveway muse.

The dilemma had burned out its fuse for now. He thought of nothing much important. Seeing roads, roads occupied him.

A completely private citizen owned passenger car basic model cost two hundred twenty five thousand dollars in California, one hundred thousand dollars a year in slaveway use tax, fifty thousand vehicle excise, twenty thousand state sales, twenty thousand federal sales, five thousand slaveway research, two thousand five hundred domicile parking fee, two thousand five hundred electricity allocation license fee, five hundred per month domicile plug maintenance fee, two hundred surcharge meter fee, fifty LA City of Angels/California Transportation Operations (CALTROPS; the forms had all been designed and the logo locked in before a cunning citizen pointed this out and they were still not amused) joint participation tax. The average fully agented and employed therapied citizen earned three hundred k a year, the average shadows unagented untherapied a third of that, a bus certificate for one year cost twenty k and still the slaveways were packed like clay.

Three LitVid comedies were based on Slaveway Flying Dutchman never leaving the road cannot afford a house raising family in cramped citizen vehicle chased by tax authorities; twenty two LitVid entertainments dealt with Los Angeles and/or southern California highways in the latter half of the twentieth century, time of romance. They had not been called freeways for nothing.

Glimmer of circumstance. Sun crossing his nose made him blink. Hello. Awake now. Dreading being Martin Burke. Nothing enjoyable at this instant about being himself. Ozymandias in the dust. His attention switched from external to internal. He thought of Carol and the weaknesses and frictions between even stable men and women. Conflict of the sexes is not a disease; it is an unavoidable byproduct like smoke and water from a fire. People are slow burners; burn themselves crisp come back for more, eloi born again new pleasures and new toys. Burn again.

He closed his eyes and pinned his moth thought. He and Carol had burned brightly not slowly. Carrying a torch for each other, they had known a passion it was unimaginable could have been felt by any others. Clear light between their ears the widest possible sunny rooms their love no clouds expansion and a clean yellow joy. Bright dazzle past, he saw that she was less infatuated and more pragmatic than he and he agonized over her control. Martin had not been in control. He had been head over.

At first he had teased her about her pragmatism and after a few such teases she had said not at all viciously, “I have to hold something in reserve. I need something left over after all. I’m still me.”

Fire struck by rain. Clear light gone. He had known for sure that he would lose her and so he did. A few days and weeks of that sort of hurt demanding backandforth and she had lofted higher, suspicious, aware that he was a natural not therapied and that even highly rated naturals could come tumbling down. His genius outshined hers two to one and the myth of bright instability had been in her eyes. She had squinted whenever he spoke, a small anticipatory wince.

Martin had known it would soon end and he had pushed it and when the end came, when she had quietly told him they should separate, he had flipped. She had been the ideal and pinnacle and she could not just withdraw unscathed. He had had to hurt her in some way so she would not treat the next unsuspecting male so callously; no sadistic impulses mind you merely an educational burn sting warning slap. He had not known how much he had tipped until he found himself at her apartment door fruitbowl in hand with a pile of horse dung (could have been worse could have been dogshit) beneath the perfect fruit. She had invited him in as you might invite a friend who has interrupted you, taken the package, opened it, smiled gently glad to see you’re taking it so well it’s going so well for you, picked up an apple, stared at the fresh farmpicked fertilizer for home gardeners fifty dollars a liter mess, and she had cried. Not tears of anger or frustration. Just little girl tears. For ten minutes she had cried saying nothing not moving the tears taking more and more out of her.

Martin Burke had watched in stone amazement eyes wide as saucers sucking in the pain no glory no satisfaction no revenge no lessons taught seeing so much more clearly now how far he had tipped and what pain a well-adjusted brilliant young man with prospects could cause.

From that moment three years ago until last night they had not talked. She had left IPR.

Martin had gone through the Raphkind years another kind of dead romance; Carol had moved on to therapy high achievers and work at Mind Design on artificial perception and advanced thinker psychology.

She had therapied Albigoni’s dear dead daughter. That connection had brought both of them to this point. Because of her he was being Fausted. Because of her he might find his way back through the labyrinth to the full light of celebrity scientist and control of IPR.