Where had the elusive little shit gotten himself off to? Hitherto calm and in complete control, Schneemann began to lose his temper when he noticed that his unadorned but finely crafted shirt had suffered cuts and tears in several places. The four Admikhana had not gone down without making contact.
Now he would have to visit a tailor: how annoying.
Lights began to appear up ahead. He was emerging from the edge of the squalid zone into one occupied by lower-middle-class families and their businesses. Street vendors hawked fast snack food like pappadams with meat toppings and deep-fried pakoras. Small storefronts sold everything from cheap Chinese toys to portable electronics, while pay-as-you-go terminals offered communications access, information, and multiple entertainment downloads. While a few small utes and private cars were in evidence, vehicular traffic was dominated by the more affordable, electrically powered tri-wheeled rickshaws.
What was his quarry likely to do now? Not keep running. Their brief physical contact had been enough to tell Chal that the scientist was no athlete. He was much more likely to seek transportation than to stay on foot.
Feeling he was about due for a break, the tall tracker got one when he spotted the well-dressed shape of his target hailing an automated taxi. Breaking into a sprint, he bent low and tried to hide himself among the crowd. But the street was too well lit and he was too tall.
Spotting his pursuer approaching rapidly, a frantic Taneer had to wait for the door to open before he could throw himself inside the cab. While the automated vehicle's voice inquired politely as to where its passenger wished to go, Taneer yelped wildly, "Security, security!"
"I have already locked the doors," the cab assured him in calm, unthreatening, preprogrammed tones. "Destination, please?"
Panicky, looking out the back window for signs of his pursuer, Taneer almost gave the address of the apartment complex where he lived with Depahli. Just before he spoke it, he reminded himself that he knew nothing whatsoever of any sophisticated electronics his tracker might be carrying. So instead of home he called out the first innocuous address that came to him: that of a bank in the city's commercial center. From there he would be able to take public transportation in any direction, eventually working himself by a carefully circuitous route back to the apartment. But first he had to shake the company man who had somehow tracked him down.
The taxi started off, but his relief was short-lived. Traffic control in this lower-class, largely residential district was a fraction of that maintained on the main thoroughfares. Cattle lay uncollected and unshifted along the central median, cargo rickshaws illegally piled four and five times their height and twice their width with enormous bundles blocked lanes theoretically reserved for cars and real trucks, while electric-powered Tata trolleys fought for driving space with fuel-cell-driven Ashok-Leyland trucks.
As there was no driver, he did not need to lean forward as he urgently addressed the vehicle's AI. "Can't we go any faster? I'm already running late."
Since the taxi utilized sophisticated electronic sensors to perceive its surroundings, the traditional forward windshield existed only to allow fares to see where they were going. The vehicle was as aware of this as its passenger.
"As you can see, sir, this is a very busy street, and I am forbidden by law and by my coding from forcing a path. I assure you that I am doing my best."
There was nothing Taneer could do except fight down his anxiety and feed his patience. Switching to another taxi would gain him nothing. All were equipped with the same city-regulated programming. With its smaller profile, a rickshaw might make better time through the throng, but all powered rickshaws had open sides. He felt safer in the sealed, air-conditioned confines of the cab.
His choice to stay put was validated when a lean, determined figure drew up alongside the vehicle and bent low to squint inside. Taneer found the lack of any expression whatsoever on the lean, drawn visage that peered inward far more frightening than any scowl or grimace.
"Out," the man ordered him, his voice muffled but not completely muted by the intervening window. Terrified, Taneer could only gape back at his pursuer and shake his head forcefully.
A reaching hand grabbed the exterior handle and tugged experimentally. Chal was not surprised to find the door locked. He started to reach inside his shirt pocket for the little pistol that fired the tiny shells that made very large holes in things, but hesitated. Already, some people were stopping what they were doing to stare at the odd sight of a man running alongside a moving cab. Krishna damn all interfering witnesses, he thought as he dug into a pants' pocket and withdrew his scanner. Keeping pace with the slowly moving taxi, he spoke sharply into the device.
As soon as he saw his pursuer take out the pocket scanner, Taneer activated several programs built into his command bracelet. So he was ready when the scanner found the taxi's code for its door locks and a soft buzz indicated that they were being deactivated. Before the tall man could grab the door handle, the scientist hit a control that instantly reprogrammed the coding. An electronic click sounded, indicating that the doors had relocked themselves.
Frowning, Chal worked the scanner again. For a second time, it insisted that it had solved the small matter of the taxi's internal security and had deactivated the relevant segment of the vehicle's programming. Yet when he tried the door again, he found it still locked tight. Peering in, he could see that his frightened quarry had retreated to the far side of the single bench seat and was working with a bracelet communicator. The tracker addressed his scanner a third time.
In this fashion they advanced up the street, one man seated inside the cab with the other running alongside, the two of them dueling with wireless electronics and embedded, adaptive programs much as their predecessors in another age might have sparred on horseback with swords or pistols. Responsive and insufficiently intelligent to be confused, the taxi's doors unlocked and relocked, opened and resecured themselves. Each time, Taneer's electronic riposte was just a step enough ahead of his pursuer's reprogramming to relock the doors before Chal could wrench one open.
"Ah," announced the taxi's voice, unconcerned with and uninvolved in the intense struggle that was taking place between passenger and pedestrian, "we have a break in traffic. Please relax, sir, and I will have you at your destination as soon as is legally possible."
When the cab accelerated beyond his ability to keep pace with it, a winded Chal put away his unexpectedly ineffective scanner and pulled his gun. Witnesses or no witnesses, he was not about to let his quarry escape a third time. He would fire to disable the taxi and invent some excuse to satisfy the anticipated horde of curious onlookers the attack would draw. But he had waited too long. Fast as he was, by the time he had the weapon out and aimed, a dozen pedestrians, a trio of rickshaws, and one cow had filled in the space between him and the rapidly retreating cab. The pedestrians he could avoid, the rickshaws he could pay compensation for, but if he killed the cow, the mass of devoted Hindus who comprised the majority of the crowd were likely to set on him and beat him to a bloody pulp. It was with great reluctance that he put the gun away.
Furious and frustrated, it was all he could do to keep from screaming his disappointment as the taxi carrying his long-sought-after quarry disappeared into the night, swallowed up by the swarming multitude of men, women, children, cattle, dogs, and assorted exotics.
Taneer kept looking out the side windows and twisting around to stare out the back until he was absolutely certain there was no sign of his pursuer. Even so, he did not relax until the taxi spoke to him in a concerned, if wholly synthetic, voice.