I pulled out my deck of smokes and pulled out a gasper. The box floated in the air with me as I tried to fire one, but the damn wind kept snuffing my lighter. I had to settle for letting the gasper hang from my lips as I tasted the tobacco. I grinned.
Damn, it had been one helluva ride.
Then I hit the cushioned interior of the Beanbag that swooped up to catch me. The word was the saucer-shaped floaters were specially padded to spread the impact and reduce injury to the least extent possible. Fall like the devil, land like an angel, was the motto used by the company that manufactured them.
I figured they got their metaphors mixed up, because the landing hurt like hell.
It took a while to convince the quacks to let me go under my own power. After all, they had just yanked a dagger from my back, not to mention the bruises from the rough landing. But I heal pretty quickly, thanks to an insurance policy left by my previous employers. The nanoaccelerators that swam in my blood did a good job of patching me up after a nick or two. Being a former assassin for the Secret Service did have a few perks, but I didn’t like to dwell on that too much. Worrying about what you can’t control is good for nothing except developing stress headaches.
After all the hullabaloo with the ambulances and Transit coppers, I finally made my way back to the Uppers, which was ironic because I passed that part of town while falling like a meteor. I never liked Uptown much — too many stiffs with pokers up their asses looking down their noses at the common man. Furs and feathers, butter-and-eggs types. Rich, I mean. The bread was what allowed them to live in the section of New Haven that was literally built on the bones of the original city. Flying cars, synoid servants and all that bunk. Not the type of atmosphere a lug like me usually ventured into.
But it was where I had to go to get to the mark I was looking for. David Mannering was a biophysicist employed at Ormond Laboratories, one of the more pristine locations for biological engineering. “Finding the Cure for Death” was the tagline displayed on their fundraising banners, and that was about the last obstacle for those wizards of molecular repair and restructure to conquer. Pretty much everything else was curable — if you had the funds, of course.
It took all of my charm and slick talk to get face-to-face with the Doc. He was a tall, slender gent with the face of a fox and a healthy dash of salt with his peppers. The Doc looked over his glasses at me with a weary frown. He looked about two weeks behind on sleep, without hope of catching up soon.
“You’re not a patient.”
I gave my most guilty shrug from where I sat in front of his plush desk. I set my new Bogart on its polished surface. The fedora had cost a fortune in the Uppers, but I didn’t feel right without a topper. It was just part of the Troubleshooter uniform.
“You got me, Doc. In all honesty I doubt I can afford a drink of water in this joint. But I got business with you all the same.”
He gave me a keen once over, trying to get a read on me. Whatever he saw stalled the finger that hovered over the button that summoned security. “Continue.”
“Seen Petey lately, Doc?”
Mannering gave himself away when he froze for just a second, clearing his throat roughly. He made a pretense of wiping his spectacles as he composed himself. “I see a lot of patients, Mr.…?”
“Trubble. You can call me Mick.”
“I see a lot of patients, Mr. Trubble. The name ‘Petey’ isn’t much to go on. And even if it was, I don’t disclose the private information of my patients.”
“Let’s cut to the chase, Doc. I just fell a couple of miles out of the sky, not to mention losing a highly serviceable Bogart because Pan tried to knock me off. His moll told me he’s been bent on nabbing little boys, and I should talk to you about the reasons why. So if I were you I’d consider tipping your mitts on what you and Pan have in common. And why a man of your position would rub elbows with an obvious psycho like Pan. Unless you’d rather bump gums with the boys in black. Pretty sure they’d be mighty interested in the particulars.”
His brow beaded with perspiration. “Who are you, exactly?”
“I’m the Troubleshooter your wife hired to take on the case. I’m on your side, Doc. It’d be better if you squared up with me, ‘cause I can do things the brass can’t or won’t do. I can get your little girl back, Mr. Mannering.”
“My wife said you refused her offer.”
“I had a change of heart.” I took a look around at the spacious, luxuriously decked office. “I gotta say, your wife looked pretty modest considering what you gotta be pulling for a gig like this.”
“She dressed down on purpose. Shrewd, considering what part of town your office is located at. I told her not to waste her time.”
I nodded in a knowing manner. “Right. Because you knew all along where your daughter was, and you didn’t want anyone smarter than the average brass tack to go digging in the sewers and uncover your shit. Pan’s holding her hostage, but not for berries. You’re working on something for him. Something that involves abused, mentally and emotionally broken little boys he springs from cages and hands over to you.”
To my shock, Mannering broke into tears.
“I didn’t want to hurt anybody,” he sobbed. “But he had… my daughter. I had to do what I was told, or he swore that he would mail… pieces of her until there was nothing left to cut off.”
I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat. “What does he want from you? What can you do for him that’s worth such a risk?”
Mannering removed his glasses and scrubbed his eyes with a manicured hand. “The cure for death, of course.”
“Come again?”
Mannering placed his glasses back on and collected himself, becoming the Doc once more. “Have you heard of the term ‘Defrosts’ in your line of work, Mr. Trubble?”
“Only when I’m nuking a dinner.”
He tried to smile, but failed. “It’s a term we use in reference to those individuals who were placed in stasis before the Cataclysm. As you probably know, the Havens only held so many potential survivors. Most were those considered necessary to reboot the future: scientists, educators, historians, artists, architects, etc. The small amount of chambers that remained were raffled away in lotteries to random individuals of clean mental, emotional, and physical health.”
I shrugged. “I’ve heard the stories.”
“The remnants that didn’t win their golden ticket were left to their own devices. Individuals of power and wealth devised alternate means of survival, and their combined efforts gave birth to the development of stasis stations. Most were built deep underground, housing a few hundred stasis chambers per location. The problem that occurred was once the Cataclysm ended, the position of the majority of those stasis stations was lost, the wardens and architects deceased, the records erased through data loss from unplanned catastrophes. Stasis stations are uncovered during excavations to this day, many with their charges still in perfect condition.”
That was something I didn’t know, but I caught on quick. “And you’re saying that Petey is one of those Defrosts? He lived before the Cataclysm and was cooling off in some high-tech refrigerator all this time? Makes sense.”
“Really?” Mannering tilted his head. “You appear unusually accepting of such a bizarre notion.”
I tapped on the holoband around my wrist and pulled up the appropriate screen. “I noticed Pan wore an old set of dog tags. I ran the numbers through Maxine’s computers. Turns out a certain Petey Barrie was a private in the British Army right before the Cataclysm. Photo is a carbon copy of our boy Pan. So the concept of being frozen until recently isn’t exactly a stretch. What I’m trying to figure out is why he’s nabbed your little girl and is hijacking pirates for captive boys.”