Spares - Michael Marshall Smith [65]
Did that make him SafetyNet? Not necessarily. I couldn’t believe that the corporation would allow an operative to conduct business in the way he did. Plus three other missing links:
1) The day we blew the Farm, it was Jenny they had wanted. Her twin had to have been near death for the operations they were considering. So how come Suej was the issue now?
2) What was Blue Lights’s problem with Vinaldi? How could Vinaldi fit with a SafetyNet scenario?
3) Nanune’s desecrated head and the stealing of Mal’s display pointed to either Blue Lights or his accomplice being behind the facial damage homicides—as did the tie-ins to Vinaldi. In that case, why were the NRPD files security locked? Blue Lights wasn’t a cop, I’d lay money on that—so how did he rate protection? The shooter I’d killed outside Mal’s apartment had no rap sheet, and I’d a hunch Blue Lights wouldn’t have either. Which meant either that all the trouble was coming from out of town or that someone was going to a lot of trouble to make it look that way.
Fine thinking as far as it went, but it didn’t go far enough. Instead of making me feel like I was getting somewhere, it made me unsettled and nervous. The downside of Suej being the key was that it meant that the other spares were probably expendable, and none of it got me much closer to understanding what was going on or how I could rescue them. There was at least one part of the puzzle still missing, and until I knew what it was I couldn’t go after the spares, or even ensure that Suej was safe. I couldn’t do anything.
I looked up to see Suej’s eyes on me.
“Are you okay, Jack?” she asked; I stopped drumming my fingers on the tabletop and smiled.
“Sure,” I said. “How was the burger?”
“Good.” She grinned. “Nicer than Ratchet’s.” Ratchet had been a droid out of the top drawer, but, as discussed, cooking hadn’t been one of his key skills—and especially not short-order stuff. On the other hand, it wasn’t supposed to have been, and it was surprising he’d been able to cook at all. For the first time since leaving the Farm I experienced my recurrent curiosity as to what exactly Ratchet had been. I also felt a sudden twinge of loneliness and melancholy on realizing that the machine which had saved my life was probably unrecognizable now. Trashed or reprogrammed by the company, his mind dead forever as punishment for exceeding his role. There ought to be a warning on my forehead, I thought: Think carefully before entering this man’s life, because very few people make it back out alive. Then I thought it was time to can the self-pity before I started boring even myself.
“Can we go there?” Suej asked, and I turned to follow her finger. One of the monitors was showing a news report about some mountain, huge and covered with snow. Suej probably thought the mountain was somewhere just outside New Richmond, back near the way we’d come down from the hills.
“Maybe,” I said. I was about to make it sound more convincing when suddenly I stopped.
Mount Everest.
“You’re not okay,” Suej said, immediately. “I see it in your face. What’s wrong?”
I’d realized what Nearly had inadvertently reminded me of the night before: the report I’d already seen about someone discovering a mountain higher than Everest. Presumably I was now seeing it again.
But that was bullshit. Mount Everest was the highest mountain on Earth. Of course it fucking was.
And now the gates were opening, I realized something else: Wall-diving. Jumping out of windows with nothing but some weird fiberglass rod for company. How likely was that? Did that make any sense at all?
“Jack, what’s wrong?”
Ignoring her, I looked toward the ladies’ room. A sudden influx had turned the area round the bar into a crush of people. Nearly was a way back from the counter, talking to some guy. From her body language I could tell the conversation wasn’t especially welcome, but no