“You are armed,” the floater said.“High-powered weapons are not permitted in the casino.”
I looked down at the gun I still held. “Oh,right,” I said.
“The car will take you to any legaldestination within a three-block radius,” the floater said.
I nodded. “Fair enough,” I said, heading forthe car.
I wasn’t sure just what I was going to do,but I knew part of it: I was going to find Tier 4, Row 6, Station31 and make sure my father was really there. I might get him out, Imight not; it would depend what I found down there. I thought itwas just barely possible that he wasn’t there, that someoneor something else was hidden away in that dreamtank, and thedreamers who were supposed to be there had been quietly disposedof, but I didn’t think it was likely. I expected to find Dad rightwhere he ought to be.
But I intended to check, and while I wasthere I intended to keep my eyes and ears open and try to figureout what they might have down there that would be worth breakinginto Seventh Heaven’s system to get.
In particular, a strange possibility hadgradually worked its way into my thoughts. Could it be that someonehad faked Yoshio Nakada’s death solely so he could get acopy of the old man’s brain, and that he had wanted a copy just sohe could get at the back door to Seventh Heaven?
It didn’t seem likely; in fact, it didn’tmake any real sense at all. But the only tangible thing to come outof the false reports of Grandfather Nakada’s death, the only realresult I had yet found, was that someone had gotten into the backdoor at Seventh Heaven. If it really was the only result,then it must be the point of the whole thing.
If someone was going to run that much codejust to break into Seventh Heaven, then there must be one hell of areason, and maybe, just maybe, I would see some sign downthere of what that reason was.
It was far more likely that the chance to getin there and look around was just a little extra, not the primarygoal at all, but it was the only real effect I had seen sofar.
I settled onto the car’s upholstery, whichwas now a few shades lighter but still red, and looked at the gunin my hand.
Vo’s people had probably bugged it. Iwould have, certainly. I flicked the switch to turn it on.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” the car said.“Where to?”
“Street level,” I said. “Near an entrance toTrap Under.”
“Could you be more specific, Mis’? There areno public entrances to the service levels.”
“The nearest entrance that won’t require anyclearance.”
“Would the northeast delivery entrance of theNew York Townhouse Hotel and Gambling Hall suit you?”
“That sounds fine.”
“I would appreciate it if you turned off yourweapon.”
“I’m not going to shoot you. Just get me downoff this tower. The sooner I’m on the ground, the sooner I’ll getmy gun out of your cabin.”
“Yes, Mis’.” Then it finally got moving, andI could turn my attention to the read-outs on the HG-2.
The Sony-Remington HG-2 is a fine weapon,designed for use on high-gravity worlds. Epimetheus is not ahigh-gravity world; I’d had a friend bring the gun in fromout-system for me, and it probably wasn’t legal in Nightside City,but sometimes it was very handy to have. It could put a hole inpretty much anything I was likely to want a hole in. The recoilknocked me on my ass just about every time I fired it, but if I wasever up against something where I needed a second shot I wasbuggered anyway. It had all the power I wanted.
But it wasn’t very bright. It understoodspoken instructions, at least as far as being told what to target,but it didn’t talk, not by sound and not by wireless. If I wantedto know whether anyone had tampered with it I had to rely on itsdiagnostic read-outs, which were not exactly detailed surveillanceholos.
They weren’t totally worthless, though, andthey reported an unexplained power drain. It was bugged.
Which meant there were probably at least twobugs-the one I was expected to find and remove, thereby convincingme that I was once again clean, and the serious one they didn’tthink I would notice. If they thought I was really cautious theremight be a third, but I doubt they thought I was sufficientlyparanoid to justify a fourth.
In fact, I wasn’t going to remove any ofthem. I couldn’t be sure I’d get them all. Even just worrying abouthardware, if I did a mass check and made sure there wasn’t anyadded weight that still wouldn’t prove anything; they could havedrilled out the exact weight of the bug somewhere.
And of course, they might have used softwareand planted a bot somewhere in the gun’s pitiful excuse for amotherboard, though that would be tricky, given how littleprocessing capacity it had and its complete absence ofnetworking.
There wasn’t any point in worrying about it.I wasn’t going to do anything with the gun that Vijay Vo or theNakadas would care about; I was going to get my father back. Iexpected to break several laws in the process, but Vo and theNakada family weren’t cops.
I’d clean the gun eventually, when I got itback to someplace with the equipment to do the job right, but fornow I didn’t mind if people listened in.
I turned the gun off and tucked it away justas the car settled to a stop and opened a door.
I looked out at the gleaming wall of aservice tunnel, where news headlines, traffic reports, and casinoinventories were scrolling past in various colors. I didn’trecognize it, but my wrist com gave me my position.
I stepped out, and the car closed up andglided away, leaving me alone in the tunnel. I could see a serviceentrance for the New York ahead, and to one side was the accesstunnel where the car had come in; Seventh Heaven was somewherebehind me, a few blocks and three levels away. I turned around andstarted walking.
Trap Under wasn’t exactly open to the public,and there weren’t any city streets, but the service tunnels andaccess corridors and passageways linked up to form a web under theentire Trap, and most of it wasn’t guarded or patrolled. Gettingaround wasn’t a problem as long as you stayed clear of thehigh-security areas. Oh, there were cameras everywhere, but nobodyever bothered to check out most of what they picked up; they werefor backtracking after an incident, not keeping an eye on everyonewho took a shortcut through the tunnels.
I didn’t expect any trouble getting to anentrance to Seventh Heaven’s tank farm, and I didn’t have any-a fewminutes’ walk, a ride down an open freight elevator, then anothershort walk, and there I was, standing in a black plastic corridorat a yellow door that had “Seventh Heaven Service Access T5”stenciled on it. No one bothered much with any sort of variableimaging on the basic labels down here; it was just paint, anddidn’t change at my approach.
The door didn’t open, either.
I stood there for a moment, lookingimpatient, but if the door was watching me it didn’t care; itdidn’t say anything. “Got a delivery,” I said.
The door still didn’t answer.
I frowned, and took another look-maybe itwasn’t that smart a door. I didn’t see any lenses or speakers, butthat didn’t mean anything. There was a big steel handle; I leanedon that, but it didn’t budge.
There was also a red panel with whitelettering that said “Emergency access-alarm will sound.”
I considered that for a moment, and thendecided I didn’t care about setting off any alarms. It would mean Iwouldn’t have much time to explore before trouble showed up, and Imight need to go ahead and get Dad out now instead of waiting,maybe make a run for it, but I was here, and I wanted to know if hewas really in there. I slid the panel up, and found a single bigred button behind it. I pressed it, hard, with my thumb.
Sure enough, an alarm sounded-a sort ofhooting. I ignored it, and watched as the door shook slightly; thenthe latch released and the door slid open.