“You sure you don’t wanna…?” she asked. “For old time’s sake?” She reached out to him affectionately.
His gut twisted with the irony of her words. If what Lori was telling him was true—and he was beginning to believe it was—then he and his whole world were strangers. If he had no past, how could he have a present? Quaid wasn’t a man given to deep reflection; he was a man of action. When the Mars dream had surfaced, he’d gone to Rekall to do something about it, or tried to, at least. But what could he do about this? What action could he take to regain the life he had lost?
For now, at least, it was a moot point. He had to figure out a way to survive the goons before he could begin to search for the missing pieces of his identity.
Quaid’s jaw tightened. He might have been fooled once, but he wouldn’t fall for the same thing twice.
She withdrew her hand. “It’s not like we’re strangers, you know.”
He looked out a second window, more to focus his mind than his eyes. He knew the goons would not be visible out there. In fact, if they were there, they’d soon take him out with a snipescope. He had to act swiftly. But how?
“If you don’t trust me, you can tie me up,” Lori said, tugging at her décolletage to show more breast.
“I didn’t know you were so kinky.”
“It’s time you found out.”
What was she up to? He knew she wasn’t interested in sex with him. He turned back to her—and caught her looking at the video screen.
Uh-oh.
One square of the screen was a security monitor showing the lobby of the apartment building. Four agents were entering an elevator. The evident boss was enormous, solid, and looked vicious, like an attack dog trained by repeated beatings.
Quaid glared at Lori and pressed the gun to her head. “Clever girl,” he said through his teeth.
“You wouldn’t shoot me, Doug, would you?” she asked, maintaining her friendly and somewhat helpless pose. “Not after all we’ve been through.”
He hated to admit it, but she was moving him. He didn’t want to hurt her, though she had certainly tried to kill him. “You’re right, Lori. Some of it was fun.”
She smiled. “Yes, it was, Doug. If you want, we can—”
He was not that much of a fool. He knew he had scant time. “Who are they?”
“Who?”
“Don’t make me do something I don’t want to do.”
She dropped the pretense. “The big one’s Richter. He’s as mean as they come. His partner is Helm, not much better. Look, Doug, I confess I tried to distract you. It’s my job. But I can help you avoid them, if—”
He lowered the gun and touched her breast. She smiled encouragingly, inhaling. Suddenly he raised the gun and clubbed her on the head, knocking her out.
“It’s been nice ‘knowing’ you,” he said, surprised by his own action. His other self had taken over again, doing what was required. Well, he hoped it knew what it was doing, because he certainly didn’t!
CHAPTER 10
Subway
Quaid raced down the corridor, past the other conapt doors, avoiding the elevator. He heard it rising, slowing; that was the goon-squad, for sure! If they saw him, he was dead. He had the gun, but they would have ten times his firepower. He ducked through an exit door barely before the elevator door opened.
He held his breath and flattened himself against the wall, listening. He heard them boil out and charge to his conapt: one, two, three, four. How he could count them with such certainty by the thudding of their feet he didn’t know; he must have had very special training, somewhere, sometime, back in the erased portion of his memory. Maybe it was like the man who tallied a herd of cows accurately at a single glance: he counted the legs and divided by four. No joke, in this case; he could hear only the footsteps, which outnumbered the men walking them.
Four—the same number he had seen on the monitor. That meant they had left no man below to intercept him. That was another tactical error on their part. But what could you expect of goons? They weren’t true professionals, just hirelings whose brains were dispensable.
Good enough. He got moving again, having paused only a few seconds, and resumed breathing. He bounded down the stairs, taking several at a time, down around the endlessly twisting squared-off spiral that went to the street level. It was easier to climb a stair two or three steps at a time than it was to descend it the same way, but he evidently had training for this too. He virtually sailed down, four, five, six at a time, bounding like a ballet dancer, touching the rail for guidance. He did have the technique for it, and this was good, because he had a long way to go.
One reason he had taken time to question Lori when he knew the goons were on the way up was that he knew how long it would take them to arrive. Even the fastest elevator could not cover two hundred stories in an instant. The elevator was fast, a virtual rocket, but limited by the acceleration normal residents could handle, even when set on “Priority.” So there had been time.
But now he had to cover those two hundred levels himself, fast. Thanks to his technique, he was traveling at top running speed. Straight down, it would have been a two-thousand-foot fall; as it was, it was just about a mile of stairs. Could he cover a mile in five minutes? He’d better, because it would take the goons maybe one minute to ascertain that he had fled, maybe two more to catch a swift down elevator, and three more to make it to the ground floor. Six minutes max—less if they got a break on the elevator schedule. He would have no more than a minute’s head start on them, with luck, and maybe none with no luck. So he bounded down at a seemingly suicidal rate. It would be suicidal not to!
Once he got to the first level, he knew he could cut through the building and scramble down the slanted roof that sheltered the sunken delivery port. That would shave more time off his route to the subway. So this was it for him: his escape not from fire or some other routine emergency, but from assassination. Five floors, ten, fifteen—he lost count, and it didn’t matter, because all that counted was the first.
One minute! he thought. Give me one minute’s head start, and they’ll never find me! Which meant six minutes for them. Would they be stupid enough to dawdle longer at the conapt? Pray that they were!
Richter led the way into the conapt. His face contorted with rage when he saw Lori lying unconscious on the floor. He hadn’t wanted her to take this assignment, important as it was for her—their—advancement in the Agency. He had warned Lori that the man called Quaid was dangerous, but she had simply teased him for being overprotective. Well, she wasn’t teasing now. He knelt beside her, gently trying to bring her around.
“Lori,” he called softly. “Lori!” Her eyes fluttered open and she groaned as she touched the bruise at her temple. “You all right?”
She nodded gingerly. “Sorry,” she said weakly. “I guess I blew it.”
“What’s he remember?”
“Nothing, so far.”
Helm had produced a small tracking device and touched a button, activating it. He held it up and turned around in a searching pattern. Suddenly a red dot started to blink as it swept past the window. He kept it pointing in that direction and pushed another button.