On his own, on the basis of prior trips into the city, he had decided that somewhere in the neighborhood of Malines & Company was the nearest place MacRobert could have been taken for interrogation. But which of the blocks, and which building on that block?
MacRobert, inert and apparently unconscious, listened to the voices discussing what would be done with him. He did not approve, but he did not show—by a flicker of eyelid or a change in heart rate, breathing, or blood pressure—that he was no longer fully under the drug they had used. He’d had just enough time to trigger his implant’s safety mode.
“Dead to the world,” said one of the voices. “The monitors say he’s still deep in.”
“He’s old,” said the other. “Takes longer. Let him be another hour, maybe two. Then the antidote’ll wake him up quick. Now, his heart might give out.”
The sound of feet moved away; a door opened and closed. MacRobert lay still. He assumed the room had surveillance, and he was probably still hooked up to whatever life signs monitor they used. He might not have the two hours—they might return in ten minutes to make sure—but for the moment, he was better off playing dead, or nearly.
Why had they grabbed him today? He assumed whoever had done it was in league with those who’d sabotaged the shuttle, but who, and why? Had someone detected Teague’s and Rafe’s intrusion into their data center? Or his own poking around in Spaceforce assignments? Or was it a general attack on the Rector and those known to be on her staff?
All would be clear later, he reminded himself; he had more to do to make his implant secure in case they probed it. He triggered the next phase of his implant’s safety mode. Certain information disappeared from his access; the top level—the first a probe would find, and what he now believed to be the implant itself—proclaimed itself a replacement module, with a date of placement a year and two tendays before. Its data tree included “Medical History: Current Treatment Plan” and informed him that he was entering Stage 2b Age-Related Dementia with memory loss, speech disinhibition with confabulation, fine motor tremor (stage one), and gross motor discoordination not affecting locomotion; that he also had early-stage cardiac insufficiency, moderate hypertension, and an enlarged prostate, being treated with a variety of medications administered once daily under supervision.
When he queried for more, he found a set of simple instructions: a morning alarm meant get up, then shower, clean his teeth, depilate his face, use deodorant, put on specified clothes in the specified order, check that all fastenings were fastened, to the kitchen, eat breakfast, take the medications he was offered, go to the car, and get in. He could access graphics that walked him to and from approved nearby stores and guided him to appropriate selections inside, then to checkout. In case he wandered, he had access to graphics that would guide him back to Grace’s city residence or automatically call for medical aid if he fell.
The door opened. He lay still. “No change. I told you—it’ll be another couple of hours.”
“Have you made the call?”
“Not yet. She’s in a meeting: no messages.”
So they were going to use him as a hostage against Grace? Good luck with that. He wanted to chuckle at the thought, but knew better. He was old, sick, senile, and helpless under the drug’s control. He felt a sting on the side of his neck, but did not react. A dull scraping, as the probe tried for the emergency implant port, the one that would let them download without damaging his brain.
A flood of curse words, some he’d never heard before but knew by the tone were curses.
“What?”
“It’s a replacement. He must’ve failed a psych eval at his annual physical last year. They pulled his implant and put in a medical message: diagnosis, treatment plan, medications. Next layer’s all the kind of thing these people need. Step by step through the day, help getting to a store, finding what to buy, and so on.”
“How can he be that bad? Why’s he not in care?”
“Rector, probably. She likes him. Maybe she doesn’t mind sleeping with a half-wit; she’s old herself.”
They laughed. MacRobert thought of killing each one slowly, but did not allow himself to move.
“So he’s no use to us? Interrogation won’t work on him?”
“It might. Or he might remember his childhood, his mummy kissing him good night, and nothing since he was five. And he’s of use to us because the Rector cares about him, has kept him with her for a year since he failed the psych eval. That’s our lever. We keep him alive and healthy—well, healthy enough—and see if she’ll cooperate. If not—the ocean is deep.”
“The ocean is deep, and the fish are hungry,” said the other, as if it was a ritual. It probably was. Footsteps moved away; the door opened and closed again.
Two hours to wait. Maybe. Maybe longer. Maybe they’d decide to dose him again, or maybe they’d let him wake up and try questioning him, seeing if he was really impaired. He felt impaired, with the main data banks of his implant closed to him. He put so much in there, and—like anyone used to an implant—didn’t bother remembering what wasn’t needed short-term. That was a daunting thought. He couldn’t now remember the name of the continent Ky was on—he remembered Ky on her last day as a cadet, and something—something important she’d done—but the rest was hazy. He knew, in a vague way, where Spaceforce Academy was, but he couldn’t remember his access code or the phone number. Maybe the Miznarii had a point about implants being a form of humodification.
He did remember how to bring his implant out of safety mode. That would unlock the data banks. But it might be dangerous. He lifted his eyelids just a little. He didn’t know what he was looking for. He should know. He should know if the scary people were there, or had left something to watch him, but—it was too tempting. He performed the mental trick that took his implant out of safety and back into performance.
access main data? y/n
Yes. He could spell yes. Data poured back into his awareness. Now the blur of a distant wall made sense: gray, lined with acoustic baffling material. If he screamed in here, no one would hear it. The door had the same coating. Surveillance? Most surveillance cameras had a blinking light; he saw none through his lashes. He opened his eyes a little more. No cameras. How odd. His implant informed him he had been completely unconscious for two hours, unresponsive for another forty-three minutes, and the visit by his captors had been seven minutes twenty-eight seconds before. Grace’s meeting would be ending soon, he expected.
Sound baffling had the added effect that he could not hear his captors returning. Not good. He expected they would be back after calling her, to show he was alive, to threaten… and he needed at least a few seconds to put his implant back in safe mode and make it seem the replacement implant of an old man sliding into senility. He didn’t want to do that. Even the short time he’d endured that loss bothered him much more than he’d expected.
His implant informed him that five minutes had passed. Then six. By then he had wiggled his feet, his hands, realizing that he was restrained, though not painfully, where he lay. If he couldn’t even get up, he couldn’t do much about escape—yet. He took several minutes subvocalizing more instructions to his implant. He did not have a drug analysis application, and attempting a skullphone call could probably be detected. He wished he knew what drug he’d been given, and how long it was supposed to act, because surely they’d dose him again if Grace didn’t return their call. Unless they wanted him awake, to see if he really was confused.