Tears in Rain Part 32

"There's nothing there."

"What?"

"There's no implant. No artificial mem apart from the regular technohuman memory, which is still sealed and intact."

"That can't be. I'm a memorist, I spoke with Bruna, and I know she's the victim of an implant with fake memories. I know that for an absolute fact," said Nopal.

"Well, there's nothing there I'm telling you. Nothing. And I'm absolutely certain, too," said the medical examiner, somewhat annoyed.

But then he looked at the rep and scratched his right earlobe, as he tended to do when he was nervous.

"Though maybe..."

He lifted the rep's hands, which were still tense.

"Hmmm. Bruna, have you noticed if you have more saliva than usual?"

The detective nodded.

"Now I've got it. Rigidity, excessive salivation. I'm sorry, but I have to reinsert the probe. This time it really will be quick."

The implement unfolded itself again with the buzz of a drill, the fluorescent worm reappeared on the screen, and the android moaned. But Gandara had spoken the truth. Within a few seconds, the probe was done and back out. He switched off the machine and pushed it back up to the ceiling. He was excited.

"I think I know what's happening. It's fantastic! I've heard rumors about it, but I've never seen it."

"What? What?" asked Nopal and Lizard in unison.

"Sodium chloride crystals. You can program them like a chip, but they dissolve in the body after a few hours without leaving any trace. In other words, they implanted an artificial mem made of salt, and what's happened is that it has dissolved. But I could still find traces of a higher than normal salinity. Nothing serious."

"So she's not going to die?"

"No, absolutely not. The salt has created a slight electrolytic imbalance in her brain that is responsible for the dizziness, rigidity, and the other symptoms. Luckily, I have some ultrahydration capsules that I use when the bodies they send me are too mummified. I'll insert one of them subcutaneously and, with a bit of rest, she'll be like new in twenty-four hours."

"They didn't want to leave any trace of the memory manipulation. That's why they chose gas as the means of death. That way, Bruna's body would have been intact when they brought her to the medical examiner, and when they did the autopsy, they wouldn't have found anything. I mean, it would look as if Husky had committed all those horrors consciously and of her own free will. A perverse, avenging techno versus the human race," mused Lizard.

"The perfect enemy," murmured the rep weakly.

"Right, this small jab is to insert the hydration capsule...done. In a few weeks' time, if you feel like it, stop by and I'll take it out. As it's a product intended for dead meat, it won't be absorbed. It's totally harmless, so you can carry it all your life if it doesn't bother you. Now you should go as soon as you can. Having you here puts me in an awkward position," said Gandara.

"An awkward position that we appreciate and want to thank you for," said Nopal.

And he shook hands with the medical examiner, leaving a few bills in the doctor's hand. Gandara smiled and put away the money as if it were the natural thing to do.

"I'd have done it anyway, but with this I feel much more loved and content. You can leave by the back door, where the robots take out the bodies. It will look better if she's dressed."

Lizard took Bruna in his arms and lifted her out of the capsule. The coa.r.s.e material of his clothing scratched her naked skin. The rep would have stayed curled up against the inspector's chest forever-she would have slept in that bodily refuge until her TTT arrived-but she felt better and knew she had no choice but to move. So she dressed, and even walked unstably of her own accord to the outside door, helped by Nopal. The back door opened onto a cargo dock attended by robots. A few empty capsules were stacked up next to the wall. Lizard, who had gone to fetch the car, appeared right away and picked them up.

"We have to find a safe place to hide you until you recover, and until we manage to clear up all of this."

"She can stay at my place," said Nopal.

"No. Not in your house," Lizard replied categorically.

The memorist looked at him with a mocking smile.

"And why not, if you don't mind telling me?"

The inspector was silent.

"Are you afraid I'm implicated in the plot? Or are you scared she'd prefer to be with me?"

They're fighting over me, thought Bruna. How quaint.

"I've had you under surveillance for over a year. If she goes to your place, my men will find her immediately," said Lizard, scowling balefully.

Oh. So after all that, Paul wasn't fighting for her. It was nothing more than a simple question of strategy. Bruna tasted something salty in her mouth. Too much saliva and too much bitterness.

Nopal turned white with rage. An incandescent, quiet fury.

"Oh, fine. I'm delighted you've finally admitted that you're spying on me. That's police hara.s.sment. I'm going to file a complaint against you."

"Do whatever you like."

"Stop here!" ordered the memorist.

Lizard stopped the vehicle and the man got out.

"Nopal-" said the rep.

The memorist raised his finger.

"You be quiet. As for you, Lizard, I'm going to finish you. Believe me."

Lizard looked at him phlegmatically, his eyes half-closed.

"I believe you. Or rather, I believe you'll try. That's why I'm having you watched. Because I think you're capable of doing those sorts of things."

Nopal gave a brief, sardonic guffaw.

"I'll finish you off in court. I'll report you, and it will be the end of your career. Enjoy your brief moment of power while you can."

And turning around, he strode off up the street.

Bruna and Lizard watched in silence as he walked off.

"You called him," Bruna said finally.

"Hmmm."

"But you hate him."

"When you spoke to me about your son, I realized it would be very difficult to get you out of the delirium they'd implanted in you. Then I remembered him and thought he might be able to help you."

"How, um...How did you know Nopal had been my memorist?"

"I didn't."

"And how do you know I didn't kill Hericio?"

"I don't."

"So why are you helping me?"

"I don't know that either."

Bruna was silent for a few minutes while she tried to digest the information and finally decided to leave it for later. She was exhausted and very confused. Although she was feeling a little better, she urgently needed sleep. She needed a safe place where she could rest.

"Do you know what happened to my mobile?" she asked.

I found it in your apartment. Here, take it. I've altered your data in the central police computer so they can't trace you. I a.s.sume they'll take a couple of days to realize that."

The rep strapped the flexible, transparent little machine on to her wrist and called Yiannis. Lizard had told her that both the archivist and the billboard-lady were alive, and that the gas was nothing more than a narcotic substance from which they'd both recovered without any problems. They were the ones who had alerted the police to the detective's disappearance. Yiannis's anxious face filled the screen.

"Ah, Bruna, by all the sentients, how good to see you! Where are you? How are you? What happened? They do nothing else but display images of you everywhere, saying dreadful things about you. And then there are those pictures of you going into the HSP in disguise. Unfortunately, it all sounds quite believable."

Bruna gave Yiannis a brief, if weary, summary of the situation and then brought up the need to find a place to hide. Clearly, Yiannis's house wasn't an option: she'd already been attacked there once. But she couldn't think of anywhere else. Especially keeping in mind that everyone thought she was an a.s.sa.s.sin.

The old man's face lit up.

"Wait. Maybe the bicho who was so taken with you, the Omaa...Didn't you tell me you took him to the circus with the violinist? Couldn't you stay there for a few days?"

"But I hardly know Maio and Mirari. Why would they trust me? They'll be thinking I killed..."

And then it dawned on her. No, they wouldn't think that, because Maio would know she was innocent. It was worth a try.

"Good idea, Yiannis. I'll try."

So, while Lizard drove toward the circus, Bruna relaxed and allowed herself to fall into a troubled sleep.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE.

She was lying face up on the bed and the darkness was squeezing in around her, as heavy as a wet blanket. Bruna had just woken up and she was afraid. But what was frightening her wasn't that they wanted to kill her, or that they'd put a salt mem in her brain, or that someone had chosen her as the scapegoat in a sinister plot. After all, those were genuine dangers, concrete threats against which she could try to defend herself. In those sorts of situations, her heart pounded and her brain filled with adrenaline. There was something very exciting about real danger. An exuberant reaffirmation of life.

No. The fear Bruna was experiencing right now was different. It was a dark, childhood terror. A deadly pain. It was the same fear she'd suffered at night as a child, when her fear of things had crawled through the shadows like a slimy monster at the foot of her bed. By all the d.a.m.n species, thought the rep despairingly; she'd never been little; none of that had ever existed! It was nothing more than a false memory, someone else's memory. Suddenly, a blindingly obvious idea flashed into her head: Pablo Nopal probably really had lived through all of that. That was the explanation for the incredibly expensive netsuke: it was his mother's necklace. That was the reason for the genuine way in which Nopal had described the scenes when he dragged the android from her delirium. In one dizzying instant, Bruna understood that the memorist was inside her, transformed into a frightened child, and she felt disgust and yet at the same time an unspeakable tenderness. She didn't want to see Pablo Nopal ever again. Not true. She did want to. Even more than that, she needed to see him; she needed to ask him about his mother, about his father, about his childhood. She wanted to know more things, more details; she was hungry for more life. What fascination, and what a nightmare!

Four years, three months, and eleven days. Actually, ten days, because it's already forty-one minutes after midnight. The dawning of February 1.

Life was a story that always ended badly.

She breathed deliberately for a few minutes, trying to relieve the pressure of her anguish. She thought about Merlin and sheltered in his memory-this one indeed a genuine memory, a precious and unique memory, the lived and shared memory of his wisdom and his courage. There is a time for everything under the sun: a time to be born and a time to die; a time to cry and a time to laugh; a time to embrace and a time to be apart, her lover had said to her a few days before he died, already very weak, but in a clear, calm voice. Merlin had always liked that fragment from Ecclesiastes. Beautiful words to organize the shadows and soothe the raging storm of pain, even if only for a moment. Now, as she relived that scene, Bruna again felt some small comfort, as if her pain were obediently going back to where it belonged.

The detective was in Mirari's dressing room, on the bed behind the screen. Maio usually slept there, together with Bartolo, but they'd allowed her to use the bed. The door was locked with a key and there were no windows in the room; the rep felt as if she were inside a safe. The Omaa and the violinist had reacted extraordinarily well, offering their support without asking any questions. Of course Maio didn't have to ask her anything. She checked the time again: 00:48. The last show would be over in about twenty minutes and then Maio and Mirari would come back to the dressing room. Bruna felt better and she was hungry. But she didn't want to turn on the light and activate the food dispenser; she didn't want to make a racket and betray her presence. She would wait till they returned.

The beep from her mobile sounded thunderous in the silence of the night, and the rep moved her hand quickly to stop it. It was Habib.

"By the great Morlay, Husky!" sighed the rep. "Thank goodness I've found you."

"Habib, I haven't done any of the things they're saying I did."

"Of course not. I've always been certain you're not guilty, but I thought they might have inserted one of those killer mems, like they did with Chi. Did they implant one, Husky? Are you okay?"

Bruna briefly explained the situation to him, adding, "But I feel much better already."

"Well, you don't look good. Although I can barely see you...You're in a really dark place."

"I'm in-"

Habib looked scared and interrupted her.

"Don't tell me where! Don't tell me where! I don't want to know where you're hiding! It's safer for everyone. Imagine if they were to catch me and do the same thing to me that they did to Hericio! I'd tell them everything!"

Bruna looked at him, a little taken aback. Habib appeared to be at the end of his tether.

"Okay. Fine. You're right."

Habib made an effort to compose himself.

"I'm sorry. Everything is so awful that...I'm a nervous wreck. I have an appointment tomorrow with Chem Cones and three hours after that, with the delegation from the Government of Earth. I'm going to explain to them how we see things. I'll tell them why we think we're dealing with an antirep conspiracy, and I'll ask them to put an end to this madness. I'll also talk to them about your situation. Can I tell them everything you've told me?"

"Everything except the involvement of Lizard, Nopal, and Gandara."

"Of course. Naturally. Well, wish me luck. I'll call you later."

He cut off, and the little bluish gleam of the screen disappeared like a will-o'-the-wisp among the shadows. Immediately afterward, Bruna heard something. A barely perceptible sound. A very slight vibration of the air. Alarmed, she sat up. And then everything seemed to stop: time, Earth's rotation, her heart. She uncoiled herself like a spring and threw herself head first onto the floor before she even knew why she was doing it, and as she rolled across the floor she watched a noiseless, blinding thread of light split the rickety old bed. Black plasma. Led by instinct, she crawled from one corner of the room to the other, pursued by shots from the silent death machine that was creating a trail of holes behind her. Her rep-enhanced eyes could make out the silhouette of the a.s.sailant, despite the dark. He was by the door, the lock of which he had undoubtedly forced with remarkable stealth. He was of average height and was wearing a thermal sensor helmet that enabled him to see his target better in the darkness of the night and through solid objects, like the screen. Bruna took in all of this in a flash while she slithered and scrambled across the floor like a c.o.c.kroach in the shadows, absolutely convinced that the a.s.sailant would kill her with his next shot or the one after that. There was no way to get close to him without exposing herself, and there was no other way out except through the door the a.s.sailant was blocking.

Suddenly, she saw something appear behind him-huge, touching the lintel with its head. It was Maio. The bicho raised his colossal arm and drove his fist down onto the a.s.sailant's skull, sending him crashing to the floor. But the helmet must have protected him, because he rolled himself onto his back like some vermin, aiming at the alien with his gun. Bruna imagined Maio's broad, translucid chest and multihued entrails exploding as a result of the impact: a black plasma shot would kill him. So she launched herself at the a.s.sailant like a feline-pure intuition, genetic coding, and training. She dived ferociously, efficiently, and savagely and, grabbing the man by the back of his neck, she twisted it. It was a crisp, deadly movement executed without thought or emotion, the perfect stroke of an a.s.sa.s.sin. His neck cracked and the man slumped between her hands. He was dead.

"Bruna."

Maio turned on the light and spoke in his babbling voice.