She settled down on the sand and put on the sunglasses. The screen in the left lens lit up, blurring for a moment before it settled on her focal length. There was a tap on her knee, and she looked over the top of the glasses at the kid.
"Hey, you know you got lice?" he said, pointing at her pants.
"That's not lice, it's rice," she told him. "Now don't bother me, I'm calling Dial-a-Prayer."
"You older women sure are religious," he muttered.
In a few moments she was inside the public net system, flashing through the menus until she reached the listing for the St. Dismas Infirmary for the Incurably Informed. She ignored the public posts and punched for the conference area.
›You have been misinformed, said the screen. No conference area exists on this board. If you wish to pray, please make an offering. If not, please exit. ‹
She had to peer under the glasses to watch her fingers work the tiny keyboard on the face of the pump.
›Are services in progress?‹ she asked.
›Prayer services require an offering. ‹
She summoned the basic schematic for the adapted insulin pump system and uploaded it. There was a short pause before the screen said, ›The doctor will see you now.‹
Sam frowned. The doctor? Christ, was St. Diz siccing a virus on anyone they didn't trust? She started to tap the little keyboard again when a new message appeared on the screen.
›Wonderful to hear from you, Sam! Go to Fez and learn all. ‹ Abruptly she was disconnected, not just back in the main menu area but off-line.
She took off the sunglasses and rubbed her eyes. Fez. It figured. She probably should have headed straight for his place to begin with. He knew everything, or almost everything. Maybe he knew what had happened to Keely. Or how Diversifications' acquisition of a video-production company corresponded to the schematic drawing of a neuron from a human brain that Keely had zapped to her encrypted in music he couldn't stand. Maybe Fez would know. Somebody had to.
4
The house looked quiet enough, but then the whole street was quiet, and Gabe knew that was all wrong.
On his left Marly nudged him. "It's a lot weirder inside than it is outside," she said in a low voice. "Costa says a guy starved to death in there looking for a way out."
Gabe shook his head. "You believe everything Costa tells you?"
"I'd believe this. Since he's been in, and we haven't." She looked past him to Caritha standing on his right. Caritha held up the handcam projector, her half smile confident. Gabe felt a little more dubious. The projector was the best they could do on short notice, but it was awfully small. Like Caritha herself. The late-afternoon sun seemed to strike sparks in the black hair cropped close to her skull. By contrast, Marly's thick, honey-colored mane hung loose and wild.
As if reading his mind, she suddenly gathered it between her hands and wound it into a knot at the back of her head. Gabe stared, fascinated. He had no idea what was keeping it up there. The force of Marly's will, perhaps. He wouldn't have been surprised. She smiled down at him and threw a muscular arm around his shoulders. "Don't tell me you want to live forever."
Gabe winced. Marly was three inches taller than he was and possibly heavier, every pound invested in muscle. "Don't crack my collarbone, I might need it later."
"You want it all, dontcha, hotwire?" Marly gave him an extra squeeze and released him.
"All I really want now is to get in, get your friend, and get out," Gabe said.
"I want that viral program," Caritha said seriously. "I don't like clinics that go screwing up people's brains."
"I don't like clinics, period," said Marly. "Come on. Let's go do a little damage."
Nobody came to the front door in response to the bell. (Caritha tried the doorknob, and Gabe heard a faint sizzling sound.
"Son of a bitch," she said, looking at her palm. "It buzzed me."
"I call that blatant hostility," said Marly. She produced a small card from her breast pocket. "I'm glad I thought to get the key from Costa."
Gabe looked the door frame over. "Yah, but where do you put it? I don't see a slot."
"You gotta look." Marly reached up to the top of the frame and pushed the card in. It disappeared, and a moment later the door swung open. Caritha went first, holding the projector up and ready. Marly followed, pulling Gabe after her. He glanced behind; just before the door swung shut again, he saw a small figure standing in the middle of the street, a child holding up a hand in a strange gesture of farewell. The sight gave him a brief flash of superstitious dread. He shook it away. It could have just been the clinic playing games with holo, trying to spook them.
They were standing in a murky entrance hall that had been painstakingly antiqued. The highly polished woodwork looked both slippery and cold. Marly tugged his arm, and they followed Caritha down the hall.
Caritha stopped at the first doorway and waved them back. Marly flattened against the wall, throwing one arm across his chest. Somewhere far above he heard muffled footsteps. They stumped the length of the ceiling and then stopped. Gabe waited for the sound of a door opening and closing, but there was nothing. The silence seemed to press on his ears.
"I know you're there," said a woman's voice suddenly. Gabe jumped. Marly patted his rib cage, but he could feel how tense she was.
"You might as well come in and introduce yourselves like citizens," the woman went on. "And if you're burglars, you'll find out you've got a lot more of value to us than we have to steal. Come on, now."
Caritha swung around and stood in the doorway.
"That's right. Now your two friends. Two, I think. One of them is awfully big."
Marly joined Caritha in the doorway, and Gabe moved to her side. In the old-fashioned parlor an older woman in a straight black floor-length dress was standing near a round table arrayed with bottles, open pill cases, and several shiny, sterile-looking metal boxes.
Caritha swung the projector up. Half the woman disappeared. "Thought so," she said, and widened the beam to include the table. The bottles vanished. "Cheap holo show. They're buried in the heart of the house, they'd never get so close to an outside wall."
"Wait," Gabe said, looking at the table. The holo of the woman had frozen with a hand to her high collar. A moment later the transmission broke up completely, and the image frayed into nothing. "Not all that stuff on the table is a magic-lantern show." He took a cautious step forward before Marly could yank him back.
"Floor's mined," Caritha said offhandedly.
He kept his eyes on the one metal box that hadn't vanished from the tabletop. "You wanted that program. I'll bet it's locked up in that set of implants."
"Think, hotwire," Marly said urgently. "Why would they leave a set of implants out like that?"
"Maybe they didn't. Maybe it's a sign from your friend."
A moment later he felt Marly behind him. She hooked one hand in the waistband of his pants. His underwear started to ride up.
"Dammit, Marl," he whispered. "Ease off."
"You'll thank me for this," she whispered back.
He reached the table and put one hand on it carefully, reaching for the metal box with the other. His fingers closed on it, and he dropped through the floor, pulling Marly down after him.
He was sliding down some kind of long chute with a lot of twists and turns in it; his shoulders banged roughly against the sides, and he could feel Marly coming down just above him.