Chapter 5, Part 7

bleakly

Walkin’ along, whistlin’ a song, tappin’ absent-mindedly at my handheld. It started raining. A car with a headlight out almost splashed me.

Otto was a relic. An agent of the system. A holographic meter maid given more and more responsibility as centralized organization broke down and the corporations took over more and more of the business of governing.

He had his own motives, these days. And he was trying to set me up, use me somehow. And that was absolutely fine with me: if he could really pull one over on me, he’d deserve it.

Now, I’m not being totally fair. I was going to trounce his see-through ass and I knew it. But by allowing for the possibility of his triumph, I felt a little less like I was about to punch a baby in the face after taking its candy.

Otto’d given me five leads. I knew at least three of them were designed to throw me off the scent of what was really going on: like Otto said, these guys were amateurs, and Otto had the resources of the city’s surveillance grid. Now hey, that grid might have been a little rusty, but for a computer program, Otto was doin’ alright.

So anyway, right away I’d picked out the only place these kids could realistically be hiding out. Two of ‘em were on Judas’ turf, and one of them was in a part of town where any clowns as amateur as these kids would be gutted in a second. That left two. One of them was perfect, a run-down mill in a quiet part of town, the kind of place Otto could arrange the players in this thing like pawns and then clean up.

The other one was near my favorite bar. I’d go in, throw some dudes around, flaunt my temporary Agent-Of-The-System status to get a few free drinks, then go clean up Otto’s con before dinnertime.

It rained harder. I whistled louder.

—————————-

hannah

The hotel had internet, tv. Clean sheets. The little things that make a hotel a more reasonable place to stay than a plain pine box. The owner– an old German guy– told me I could stay as long as I needed. Why does Bleakly know so many old people?

Phone buzzed.

“Hello?”

“Can’t explain right now. Greg’s fine. Lay low, stay low. We’ll come for you when it’s time.”

I spluttered. “When it’s time for what? What the fuck, Bleakly? For the love of-”

“Shut up. What’s your dad’s blood type?”

“What?”

“I asked what your father’s blood type is.”

“I’d think you’d know, you-”

“I do know, actually. I want to know whether YOU know. You’re going to need to know everything about your father. Spend some time remembering. I’ll fax a dossier on him to you tomorrow morning.”

I almost threw my phone. “You want me to study a dossier on my own father, who you say is not dead but also not alive, and you’ve done what exactly with the information you got from breaking and entering into Nocter Pharmaceuticals, you’ve got fucking goons following us everywhere, what the hell do you want?”

There were faint voices and laughter audible in the background. “Sorry, what? I was paying for my drink- wait, yeah. Just, don’t go anywhere. Read the dossier. We’ll contact you.”

“You-” and he hung up on me again.

I called back five times. The fifth time I left a voicemail that included as many curse words as I could remember.