Finn's Golem Read online

  Felco straightened his shirtfront and tried to recover his dignity, without much success. “You are a most unpredictable man, Mister Finn. Violent and unpredictable.”

  “That’s just what my mother used to say. I kept asking her to call me Drake.”

  Felco stared at me, startled, and then shattered the moment by breaking into a loud, braying laugh. “By heaven, man,” he said at last, wiping tears from his eyes, “you are a character.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I smiled, “and you’re the melody of a symphony by Strauss. I’m so glad that we’re going to have a second date after all.”

  Felco shook his head pleasantly and stood, with a careful show of his empty hands. He turned and considered himself in a mirror on the wall. He wasn’t tall, and he lacked the gravitas he seemed to desperately want to convey. His suit was almost cut like an old-school tuxedo and though the collar was yellowing, it was clear to see that Mister Felco had ambitions. No prospects, maybe, but ambitions. His hair was short and spiky, and there was a gleam in his eye as he considered himself in the glass, as if he found the sight wholly appealing as perhaps only a mother could.

  “I could have killed you, you know,” he said at last.

  “I think we’ve established that you couldn’t,” I said, returning the GAT to its holster and not taking my eyes off the little man for a second. “But maybe the biggest favor you could have done me is take this baby off my hands.”

  Felco raised an eyebrow and tore himself away from the mirror. “And why is that?”

  “It’s a little hot.”

  He smiled. “Yes. I heard about the shooting near your office on the police bands. I wondered if you had something to do with that.”

  “I’ve been wondering that myself.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Skip it,” I said quickly. “You brought me down here because we had something to discuss before Miss Marsland came into town. So discuss.”

  Felco’s eyes narrowed. “You have had further contact from Miss Marsland?”

  “Maybe.”

  “That is not an answer.”

  “I noticed that.”

  His little fists clenched. I smiled. “She’s my client, isn’t she?”

  “Is she coming in directly from New Coast?” he said, trying very hard to be conversational.

  I shook my head. “That would be a little careless, wouldn’t it?”

  Felco nodded and smiled. “You are a cautious man, Mister Finn. I appreciate that you foresee difficulties before they arise.”

  I smiled modestly. “I try.”

  Felco turned back to the mirror. “When will Miss Marsland arrive?”

  I smiled at him and sat quietly, forcing him to look back at me. “If I haven’t told you yet, why would I tell you now?”

  Felco looked genuinely hurt. “And still you do not trust me,” he said sadly.

  “Look, Mister Felco,” I said peacefully, “I’m trying to be a stand-up guy here. But if you know everything I know, you don’t have much reason to keep me around, do you?”

  “We must trust one another, Mister Finn. I implore you-”

  “Yeah, I get it. You and me against the world.”

  “If you knew the opposition we might face, you would not be so flip.” He didn’t seem to quite know what to do with his hands. This bird was rattled.

  “So tell me.”

  He waggled a finger at me. “I must tell you what I know, but you will tell me nothing? Don’t think we can do business like that, sir.”

  This was getting me nowhere. Time to act like the guy with both guns again. I straightened up quickly and kicked a metal trash can across the room. Felco jumped like I’d slapped him.

  “I’ve had enough of these kid’s games,” I thundered. “Give me one good reason not to walk out that door right now and let you go to blazes.”

  He sputtered, “You have been well paid-”

  “Sure, sure, you stuff a wad of bills in my pocket, you think that buys me?”

  He looked baffled. “Wad of bills? What are you talking about?”

  Okay. Good guess, but wrong. The paper money hadn’t come from Felco. “Figure of speech,” I said without pause. “The rough talk and banter is normally extra, but for you I’ll throw it in for free. Look Mister Felco, you and I can dance around it all day, but you’ve said it yourself, we’re not the only ones in this game. I can get us through this. I can protect your interests and I can protect you, but I’ve got to know what I’m up against. Hell, I’m in this up to my neck. That corpse in the alley wasn’t trying to sell me aluminum siding you know.”

  Felco started, alarmed again. I’d almost had him, dammit, and now he was skittish again. “If my... if our adversaries have already become aware of your involvement, then perhaps I should-”

  “Well,” I said riding over his objections, “if you’re getting cold feet, I’m sure there would be other interested parties.”

  His eyes grew wide again in protest. “You are in no position to-”

  “I know when Miss Marsland is coming, and where. And from where I sit that means I hold the cards. Now we’re both out of time and I’m out of patience. You’re in or you’re out. For keeps!”

  Felco paused a moment. Then a small buzzer rang on his table. He looked up startled, towards the door to the little room. From somewhere in the depths of the kitchen there was the sound of a scuffle, cries of protest.

  “Company?” I asked casually.

  “I am afraid so,” the little man said, gathering up his things.

  “We’re not done here,” I insisted.

  He nodded. “I know a little place.”

  FIVE

  From the rooftop where we stood, you could just see the green of the park beyond the Greyside Gates. We had traveled quickly out the back of the Golden Spider, along a winding alleyway and into a derelict shop through a shattered front window.

  It had just been a short hop up the stairs to the roof via the fire escape and over two more rooftops to where we now stood, behind an old brick chimney that hadn’t seen use in more years than I cared to imagine, with our pauper’s view of the treetops that less industrious tourists would have to pay thirty credits and pass through the Gates to see.

  I felt a little silly climbing and hiding from what might have been just a rat in the kitchen. A kitchen that had no doubt seen many generations of such interlopers. My breathless associate did not appear to agree, and for the moment it seemed appropriate to let him have his way.

  So far I’d been getting by with the tough guy routine, or at least I hadn’t played myself so far into a corner that I couldn’t lie my way out. But if small, dark and ugly ever figured out just what a pile of Swiss cheese my head still was, we’d never get anywhere. And aside from the fact that there seemed to be a decent payday somewhere in the back of all this idiocy, I was of the opinion that it might be easier to talk my way out of a murder conviction if I could explain just exactly why I’d shot... whoever it was that I’d shot. I had no radical plans to confess, mind you, but if asked nicely I thought it might be best to know why, and hope the answer was some flavor of self-defense.

  Five minutes passed before Felco had well and truly caught his breath and another five before he seemed satisfied that we had not been followed. He peeked around the crumbling bricks of the chimney one last time. This bird was spooked. Maybe it was time to make nice. Or at least, nicer.

  “Listen, Mister Felco,” I began, “I can come off as a hard-case, I know. But that’s my business, and that’s just why I’m the right man for you.”

  Felco nodded, glumly. This point did not appear to be in debate.

  “You and I have been getting by on a wink and a nudge up to now, but if I’m to get us through this, I’ve got to have the whole story.”

  Felco’s eyes narrowed. “I though you understood the nature of my request-,” he started to protest. This was no good.

  “Let’s have it from the beginning, and this time without all t
he doubletalk. Plain and simple so there’s no misunderstanding. What do you want from me?”

  He hesitated, and for a moment I was uncertain if I’d blown it. Had I guessed wrong? Had Felco been straight with me from the beginning, or was he just looking for another way to play me?

  I took off my hat and Felco’s eyes grew wide at the sight of the wound on my head. I couldn’t see it, but the band of the hat seemed to stick to it as I pulled it away so I imagined that it was still oozing.

  “We are not without some dangerous competition, you said. Well, for the record, I believe you. I’m up to my neck in this, same as you. If that isn’t a good enough reason for us to stick together, I don’t know what is.” I had him and I knew it.

  “Plainly then, Mister Finn,” he sighed. “Your client Claire Marsland is on her way to Bountiful in search of an item that was in her late father’s possession. Apparently he took the precaution of sending it here shortly before his unfortunate accident.” The small pause before the word “accident” was not lost on me, nor was it meant to be. “She has retained you to assist her in this endeavor. I have retained you to subsequently see that the item is brought to me.”

  “By any means necessary?” I asked without offering an opinion.

  Felco smiled and opened his fingertips in a brief dismissive gesture. “In any event,” he smiled, “with discretion.”

  “Is cutting the girl in on the score an option?”

  Felco’s eyebrows knit. “As you say, Mister Finn, everything is an option. Some options are more desirable than others. But you strike me as a man of ability and nice judgment, and I would be prepared to take your lead on such a matter, were it necessary. In any event, it seems to me unlikely that Miss Marsland would be willing to negotiate.”

  “Why is that?”

  Felco smiled again and said nothing. He was feeling more and more like himself. I considered smacking him around some more. His smile faded as if that thought had been easy to read in my eyes.

  “If your reports are accurate, Mister Finn, your client is very earnest. If so, she may seek to right a wrong, to protect her father’s memory. If all that is the case she may be less motivated by pure commerce than you or I.”

  “That’s fair,” I said as much as possible as if it weren’t all new information and pulled the hat back on my head with a grimace. “Did you kill the girl’s father?”

  Felco seemed shocked. “Most assuredly not.”

  “Who did?”

  “That, sir, I do not know and will not speculate,” he said with a gleam in his eyes that told me one or both statements were lies. “I only know that if we fail, we may very well share his fate.”

  “Swell. And if we succeed?”

  “Wealth, sir,” Felco said as if I were a dull boy. “More than you can possibly imagine.”

  I thrust my hands into my pockets and leaned against the brick. “Fine,” I said. “This dingus that’s going to make us both rich – what is it and how will I know it when I find it?”

  Felco hesitated. “For your purposes, Mister Finn-”

  I shook my head. “I like to know what I’m dying for.”

  “If I were to double your retainer?”

  “I’d have twice as many reasons to need to know.”

  He paused a moment and looked at me. I looked at the tops of the trees in the park beyond and pretended not to notice. He sighed.

  “As to its appearance and location, sir, I am hopeful that your client Miss Marsland will prove... helpful. I only know that somewhere in this city of twenty million souls there is a mini-drive that contains the last known copy of an Omnilink access protocol called E2-476.”

  “Catchy,” I deadpanned. “You mean we’re up to our necks over a damned computer program?”

  “Not a program, sir. A fiendishly clever bit of code. Almost a living thing. Miss Marsland’s father was a career man with Omniframe Internal Security. He devised new threats to the master system in order to protect against similar attacks. He was decorated three times for exemplary service above and beyond. Had he not been steadfastly loyal to Omniframe, he could have been the greatest criminal of his generation.” Felco looked almost wistful at this.

  My guts churned. ’Frame Internal. How could this get worse? I said nothing and tried to look hard as nails. It must have worked because Felco didn’t miss a beat.

  “Five years ago, Viktor Marsland was assigned to the Master Identity Records. They have always been considered the Holiest of Holies. Unassailable.”

  “Until now?”

  “Until now. They say E2-476 can run on any terminal in the world. That it not only allows one to access the entire Omniframe MIR, but to alter them.”

  I looked unimpressed.

  “Don’t you see?” Felco said, waving his hands in excitement. “That would be... would be like hypnotizing God himself. The MIR is where Omniframe defines each and every man, woman and child. If Omniframe says you exist, you exist. Who it says you are, that is who you are cradle to grave. This is no hack and slash erasure worm... this is the subtle manipulation of fine details. All of creation is laid open before you, and best of all, Omniframe says that such an attack is impossible.”

  “So it isn’t even a crime,” I said, liking this less and less.

  Felco, on the other hand, liked this more and more. “It isn’t even a crime,” he almost giggled.

  “Swell,” I said. “How does it work?”

  Felco rolled his eyes. “That, sir, I neither know nor care. All I know is where I can sell such a magnificent bauble of raw power, and for exactly how much. And like you, I begin to see the price in human life that some seem to attach to it. I must have E2-476, Mister Finn. Everything depends upon it!” He was practically salivating.

  I nodded. It wasn’t enough, but it was all I was going to get.

  “How do I contact you?” I asked.

  “By Interlink. There are a series of redirects on the address, it should be untraceable,” he smiled.

  I smiled back. “Good thing there’s no chance of any computer geniuses being involved in this case.”

  His smile fell. My work here was done.

  I was twenty feet away when I heard his voice again.

  “Mister Finn? May I have my gun back please?”

  I stopped. He said please and everything, how could I say no? I took the Monitor out of my pocket and looked at it closely. It was a -29 after all. No sense taking chances.

  “I’ll leave it on the fire escape,” I lied and walked away.

  SIX

  I kept to the back alleys for as long as I could, at least until I was sure that I hadn’t been followed. The late afternoon shadows were staring to spread – even if you knew how to handle yourself it was better not to let night find you in some of those places, but for the moment I moved through them quickly and easily.

  As I walked I shifted through my pockets to find all that I actually knew about Claire Marsland. Two slips of notepaper with three flimsy leads. The number for a telephone that she almost certainly wouldn’t answer unless she was still in New Coast Prefecture, in which case I was screwed. This girl, whoever she was, might be my only lead, and I wanted her here, not half a continent away. The time 19:44, which was less than an hour from now if it meant today, and I had nothing but the fact that it was at the top of the pile of crap on my desk to suggest that it did. And that flight number, if it was a flight number at all.

  I shoved the rest of the papers from my office back into various pockets and looked at the number again. Thirty-two characters, eleven of them letters, the rest numbers. What had made me think it was a flight number? I squinted at the paper in the bad light and forced my feet to keep moving in spite of themselves. The sequence ended in WM8181, which meant Whitburn Memorial Shuttle Pad. Jackpot.

  I glanced at my watch. I needed some wheels and I needed them now. A taxi could have me there in five minutes if I had the scratch to spring for the top lane. Ten in regular Hov traffic. But that wasn’t going
to happen until I could get my act together and get my ExStick replaced.

  I spotted a rickshaw moving surprisingly well along Messenger Ave and whistled for him to stop. As I was climbing in, I could see why he was plying his trade so far off the top routes. He was a Synth, his skin the green-grey of those designed for factory work and never meant to see the sun, much less bear the scrutiny of the general public.

  “Where to, Boss?” he smiled, his voice coming as a husky growl in spite of his cheerful demeanor.

  “Whitburn. With some legs.”

  The driver grinned. It was a good fare, with the promise of another one. The shuttle pads were Guild territory, but any licensed hack could pick up when he was dropping off. He made time, all right. His thick legs were strong, built for endless days on the factory floor, or hauling loads a damn sight heavier than a broken down private eye.

  He made no chit-chat. Probably knew his voice wouldn’t win him any prizes, and was used to the distaste in people’s reactions when they saw him. It gave me time to think.

  Vicktor Marsland had done his duty. He’d cracked the one system that was supposed to be unbeatable, and unless you believed in the power of coincidence, he’d got himself killed for his trouble. If Daddy’s little girl was coming all the way to Bountiful, there had to be a good reason. Was she out to clear his name, settle old scores... or did she just want to cash in? Did she know what her father’s legacy was? Could be. Or maybe she was walking blind into a whole pack of trouble. If that was the case, at least I’d have some company.

  One thing was for sure, if she was trying to keep Pandora’s Box out of the wrong hands, it sure looked like those included mine. Seemed like I had already made a deal that Claire Marsland wouldn’t like.

  I rubbed my eyes. My head was throbbing, and it wasn’t just the damn good bashing-in my brains had taken that was giving me grief. I had to get my feet under me and fast, and that meant trying to figure out what side I was supposed to be on.

  My best guess was that Felco had come to me. If there was any truth in the yarn he’d spun me just now, it wasn’t the sort of thing Claire Marsland was likely to have discussed over the telephone. Mind you, that was a pretty big “If”.