I grimaced. “Never mind,” I said. “Thank youfor your time.” I turned to go.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t be more help,” hecalled after me as I stepped out of the glade and back into thecorridors of Level B3.
“So am I,” I said.
Because it didn’t mean I wasn’t going to getDad out. It just meant I wasn’t going to do it legally oreasily.
Chapter Seven
A casino cop was waiting for me in the elevator,ready to escort me out of the Ginza. She didn’t seem particularlyhostile about it; I wasn’t being thrown out, IRC was just keepingan eye on me.
I couldn’t blame them. After all, I had triedto steal one of their employees. This wasn’t about that welsheryears ago; this was about ’Chan. I went peacefully.
As I walked I thought matters over, andwondered whether I really had any business here at all. Mis’ Wu andthe office AI had seemed pretty confident that they could keep myfather alive and well in his tank after the sun rose, and maybethey could. Up until Grandfather Nakada had made his pitch, I’dbeen perfectly willing to leave Dad in their hands. I tried toremember just why it had seemed so urgent to get him and ’Chanout.
Well, ’Chan-he did need to get out. Iknew how to do it, too, though I hadn’t said so where IRC couldhear me. I’d need to do it quickly, and it would leave a mess forNakada to clean up, but I didn’t see that as a real problem.
The need for speed did mean I had to leave ituntil last.
I had come to Nightside City with three jobsto run-get ’Chan out, get Dad out, and see what I could learn aboutNakada’s assassin. As I told ’Chan, I hadn’t really thought I wouldget anywhere with that third one, but unless I thought of a betteralgorithm I had to leave ’Chan until last, and getting my fatherout wasn’t running smooth, so maybe I should take a look at theNakada case.
’Chan thought Yoshio Nakada was dead. Thatwas interesting. Did everyone on Epimetheus think so? I wanted acom. My wrist terminal didn’t have enough screen space for some ofwhat I wanted to do, and I didn’t entirely trust the systems on theship-the ship was Nakada property, and even if it was old Yoshio’spersonal yacht, that didn’t mean his family couldn’t have tamperedwith it. I didn’t know exactly what I was going to be doing, but Ididn’t think it was all going to be stuff I wanted the entireNakada clan to know.
I tapped for a cab before I was even out thedoor of the Ginza, and one was waiting for me, door open, when Ireached the street. I gave my cop escort a friendly wave, thenclimbed into the cab and told it, “Juarez.”
The old neighborhood had dropped a few bitssince I left, and it was easy to see why-sunlight was glinting fromthe upper floors of the taller buildings, which just lookedwrong. The streets were mostly empty. I guessed some peoplehad already managed to get off-planet somehow, but that most werecrowding over to Eastside, deeper into the shadow of the craterwall.
The door of my old building let me in, noquestions asked-as I suspected, the landlord hadn’t bothered towipe my access. After all, I’d left Epimetheus, and why in thegalaxy would I ever come back? No reason to worry about me.
But here I was, all the same. I went up theone flight to my office.
It was just as I’d last seen it. I walked inand sat down at my desk, and it was as if I’d never left.
Except I had left. I’d wiped most ofmy files before I left, so I knew I couldn’t just plug back in andride the wire. I’d brought copies of my office software, but Ididn’t have any of the local updates, and I hadn’t kept all thedata I’d had when I lived here. I hadn’t thought I would ever needit. I could get on the nets, I could function, but I wouldn’t haveeverything I used to have.
On the other hand, I had stuff now I’d neverhad before. I had some access codes Grandfather Nakada gave me. Ihad information about how Nakada Enterprises was set up here. And Ihad a spaceship waiting for me at the port.
I booted up my desk, fed in the software I’dbrought with me, and ran a few checks. When I was satisfied, Ijacked in and started to dig.
’Chan had been right. The stories about howold Yoshio Nakada had died in his sleep, reportedly on the samenight he was actually attacked, were all over the nets, and therewere rumors that it hadn’t been a natural death. People didn’tbelieve that his symbiotes would have let him die without settingoff a dozen alarms.
They didn’t know what I knew, that he gavethe dream enhancer partial override authority that got it past hisdefenses. Hell, they didn’t know a dream enhancer had anything todo with it; they just didn’t believe he could die of natural causeswithout warning.
And of course, I knew something else no oneon Epimetheus knew. I knew that old Nakada was still alive andwell.
At least, he had been when I left Prometheus,and if he’d died since then it would be an even bigger story on thenets. Dying twice isn’t exactly an everyday event even for thespectacularly rich.
So why did everyone in Nightside City thinkhe was dead?
Because they had been told that he was. Areport of his death had been received from American City, back onPrometheus, and it had been verified.
But who had sent that report? Who hadverified it? How was it done?
Most importantly, why was it done? Whydid someone want everyone on Epimetheus to think that Nakada wasdead? Who did it benefit, and in what way? The Nakada familyholdings in Nightside City weren’t that extensive. They did own theNew York-the New York Townhouse Hotel and Gambling Hall-which was amid-range casino in the Trap, catering to both tourists fromoff-planet and miners from elsewhere on the dark side ofEpimetheus.
But that was most of their property here.They owned some unremarkable real estate, and a few smallbusinesses, but nothing else major.
The New York was managed by a man named VijayVo. He had been with the Nakadas forever, and had run the New Yorksince it first opened. He ran it well. There wasn’t a hint that hemight be involved in a plot to murder his employer; the rumors allseemed to take it for granted that the killers, whoever they were,were all on Prometheus. No one had suggested any local ties-butthey didn’t know Grandfather Nakada was only dead on Epimetheus. Idid.
Was Vo a candidate for my assassin?
I didn’t see it. He had been loyal for myentire life and more, he was coming up on an honorable retirementsoon, the New York was presumably going to shut down at sunrise-whywould Vo suddenly turn on Yoshio?
And how would he benefit from the old man’sdeath? He already had a free hand in running the New York, all themore so since Sayuri Nakada got shipped back to Prometheus.
That brought up a possibility-when Sayuri gotsent home, who replaced her as the family’s representative onEpimetheus? I didn’t know, but I thought it would be easy to findout.
It wasn’t quite as simple as I thought. Therehadn’t been any official announcements. I had to poke around alittle.
Officially, no one had. Which did make sense.Sayuri had been sent to Nightside City in the first place largelyto keep her out of the way after she’d made a mess of things backon Prometheus, and she had been given control of everything theNakadas did here except the New York, since that was theonly thing that really mattered. The position she had held had beencreated for her; it wasn’t really necessary. Vijay Vo wasn’t aNakada, but he was still capable of running everything herehimself.
There had been a few visits by one ofYoshio’s granddaughters, though, a woman named Akina Nakada. Shewas Sayuri’s first cousin once removed-not a very closerelationship. She seemed to have been responsible for making sureSayuri hadn’t left any awkward programs running, and also forseeing that no one on Epimetheus realized just how stupid Sayurihad been, or why she got called back to Prometheus.