Mumbai Manhunt Page 4

  He took the money and counted it quickly before dividing it between his front pockets and the bag. "It will have to do. Come on." He started for the connecting door when a heavy fist pounded on the door to his room. The thin walls shimmied with each strike, and the door certainly wouldn't hold against a concerted effort.

  Joshi almost sighed in relief—knocking meant the conventional authorities, who still had rules to follow. When the assassin from Corporate Services found them, he wouldn't bother with announcing his presence before he kicked down the door.

  Joshi turned to Netta and signed for her to get down. She had finished packing her scarf and pulled the bag onto her shoulder. Before she could ask a question, he held a finger to his lips. She nodded, and the people in the hall knocked on the door again.

  Quietly, Joshi closed the door between the two rooms. It wouldn't confuse them for long if they came through, but it should make them pause, and that would be all the time he needed. When he heard the door give way in the other room, Joshi triggered the combat hormone cocktail from his bodycomp and went into action.

  Time dilation was a common side effect of the massive amounts of adrenaline, and despite the years of experience, he'd never quite gotten used to the sense of everyone else moving in slow motion. He burst into the hall from Netta's room, surprising the three officers still standing there. By the time they reacted to his arrival he was among them, like a tiger among goats.

  Two went down as he cracked their heads together with a sound like coconuts striking concrete. The third started to turn, swinging the police-issue stunner up before Joshi stepped in and grabbed the top of the weapon. He twisted and shoved as the officer fired, directing the twin darts into the man who'd entered the room.

  The fourth officer went down twitching as Joshi spun the one with the stunner into a sleeper hold. With a twist, he could end the threat permanently, the way he'd been taught. But it wasn't the officer's fault they'd been sent. And if Netta believed he could be more, then maybe he could try. A few long seconds later, the guard slumped into unconsciousness. Joshi lowered him to the floor, then paused to check the first two, making sure their pulses were still strong.

  He looked up to see Netta standing in the doorway. When she didn’t move, he prompted her. "It's time to go."

  Netta stepped into the hall and studied the collection of khaki-clad bodies on the floor. "Are they—?"

  "Out cold, but not for long. I’m just thankful it was only the regular police and not Force One agents. Those guys are wired up enough to give most operatives a run for their money." As an afterthought, he went back and grabbed a pair of service pistols from the officers. He tucked one into his waistband and stuffed the other into the bag with Netta's knitting. "Ready?"

  "How are we going to get down the street without getting spotted?"

  "We won't." At her horrified expression, he put a hand on her shoulder. "The cameras have enough gait analysis technology and other identification systems that a few superficial changes won't fool them. I could teach you more or reprogram my own systems, but both of those require time we don't have. Instead, we go and hope we're into the Blackout Zone before anyone has locked in on us. But that means we go. Now."

  She nodded, and he kissed her again. For luck, he told himself. It sounded better than admitting he wanted to, or the fatalistic thought that, on the chance that Force One officers were swarming the building, he wanted to go out with the taste of her on his lips. He kept it quick, but she melted against him all the same.

  When he broke from her mouth, she looked at him and gave a forced smile. "Lead the way."

  For just over fifteen hundred rupees, Joshi managed to buy a no-frills mobile and three hits of Jhakās Goldline. The phone, as labeled, had five gigabytes of data remaining. The drugs cost almost twice as much as the phone and, hopefully, would keep phase two—Yashilla—from killing him long enough for her to hear him out.

  He glanced back at Netta, who kept her head down as she walked through the crowd. He admired the gesture, useless as it was. Analysis software didn't need much to figure out a person's identity or track them by gait, height, or a dozen other points of biometric data, and Mumbai's tech base made sure their programs were cutting edge. Fortunately, those programs still required an idea of what to look for, which meant human minders. He'd have them both in the Zone long before anyone could respond. The next time, Mumbai Police weren't going to send the regular forces out, and he doubted he could handle more than one of their elite Force One team in a pinch.

  Joshi ran a hand through his hair and fought against the sense of doom that gnawed at the back of his brain. Taking Netta to Yashilla was a bad idea. Twice as bad with half his brain still dwelling on how Netta had felt in his arms, how her mouth had tasted, and the tiny noises she made as she clung to him. Yashilla could smell uncertainty like sharks could smell blood, and she preyed on it as her stock and trade.

  "Where are we going?" Netta kept her voice low as she walked next to him. "Are the drugs for your pain?"

  Joshi had to resist the urge to laugh. "It's a psychotropic, so it'd likely make me think my ribs had sprouted mouths and started singing. Not much help against pain."

  She smirked. "I don't know, I'd be horrified enough to stop noticing the hurt at that point."

  "True enough," he agreed. "It's a bribe."

  Her head turned, fear returning to her features as she followed him into an alley. "It's gone," she whispered. "All of it."

  He couldn't see the difference, other than the change in street traffic. The bustle of professionals, laborers, and tourists had been thinning for several blocks. As they faded out, so did the population of those who preyed on them—beggars, bootleggers, and pickpockets. By the time they'd reached the stacks of reclaimed shipping containers that marked the edge of the Blackout Zone, the only other people left on the street were those who knew the people around them didn't have anything to take. He led her through a container that had been cut open at each end like a tunnel, and they emerged into the courtyard that marked the entryway into the coastal expanse. "Welcome to the Blackout."

  "There's no ARvertising." She sounded incredulous, as though she'd never experienced such a concept. Then again, she probably hadn’t. Not in any meaningful way at least. Her gaze darted everywhere, trying to take in the lack of content.

  For Joshi, the smell made him more aware of the place than the loss of images he couldn't see anyway. No matter how many years passed, the briny smell of the tsunami exuded from the stones themselves. No number of rains would be able to wipe the vague aura of death that hung at the back of his brain when he visited. "The locals will strip out any power sources or wiring overnight, which puts a dent in the ability of AR to thrive. It also makes setting up cameras impossible."

  He led her through the maze of shanties and half-assembled rooms reclaimed from whatever their occupants could find until he reached Yashilla's door. So many memories. So many times he'd sworn that he'd never knock on it again. And an equal number of times that he'd broken that promise to himself. After a deep breath to steel himself, he knocked.

  The door opened just enough to allow a double-barreled shotgun to emerge. The voice at the other end was muted and distorted by the thick sheet of steel. "Palashkulum Joshi. Give me one reason why I shouldn't turn you in for the bounty on your head.

  Joshi pulled the bag of drugs from his pocket and pushed it through the opening. The action forced him to press into the barrel of the gun until any armor he’d had implanted wouldn't have mattered anyway. "Have three."

  The bag tugged out of his grasp. A moment later the door swung inward and they could walk through. Once it had closed, orange light flared into existence as their host fired up a generator. Netta flinched, and Joshi wondered what kind of AR horrors Yashilla had set out to "entertain" her guests.

  "I wondered when you'd get desperate enough to show up here." She'd lost weight. Her clothes hung awkwardly on her, and it bothered him that he both noticed and
felt a flash of concern. She stalked across the tiny space, stepping around the dozens of computers that formed her only visible decoration. "My money was on forty-eight hours, Jo. You disappoint me."

  He scoffed. "There's a surprise."

  "Not really," she deadpanned. She shrugged in indifference, then flipped a switch. Netta relaxed, and Joshi let out a breath in relief. He'd made the mistake of wearing his ARglasses at Yashilla's place once, and that had been enough to make certain he'd not repeat the experience. He could only imagine how it would be for someone who couldn't turn off the feed themselves. Not only did she tend to display lurid crime scene footage on every available surface, she overwrote her own appearance in augmented reality. When he'd looked, she'd been a flayed corpse, wandering through her grisly abattoir. There was literally no telling what she'd graduated to in the years since.

  "So how much to get your help?" he asked at last.

  Yashilla folded herself into a simple chair. The furniture was too small for her, so her knees stuck up unnaturally. Combined with her thinness and grace it made her look like a praying mantis. Or a spider. "Do you know," she said, "how much they're offering for your head?"

  "I imagine it's substantial."

  Yashilla laughed. "Hers is higher. But the two of you together could pay for me to move into some choice properties."

  "Where you'd immediately be under the scrutiny of cameras and throttled 'net access. I don't see that being much incentive for you." He smiled and spread his hands wide. "Besides, you'd have to be registered to collect the report."

  Yashilla nodded again. "I have IDs I could use if it came to that, but you're right. Besides, moving someplace nicer would make it considerably less sweet the next time you had to drag yourself back to me."

  "Will you help us or not?" Netta took a step forward, her voice sharp with an authority that Joshi wouldn't have expected. He tried not to let any emotion show on his face at her outburst.

  It didn't help. The corner of Yashilla's mouth twitched up. It was the closest she came to smiling, and she only did it when she'd scored a piece of information that would be useful. As tells went, it was infuriating.

  "Is the evil bioterrorist going to infect me with an ugly virus? Leave me blistered and in agony, but unable to die?" Yashilla's singsong voice grated the air, but it failed to have the expected effect on Netta.

  "Blistering agents are passé. Besides, there are too many innocents around you." Netta plucked a strand of hair from the margin of a screw on one of the computers and held it up, considering it in the light. "It would be much safer to custom code a retrovirus for specific sequences in your DNA. Then I don't have to know where you are. I infect two, maybe three people at random, and it will get back to you eventually. No matter where you tried to hide. All you'd be able to do is sit, helpless, while your nerves demyelinated, until you eventually suffocated on the fluid you couldn't move out of your own lungs."

  Yashilla blinked slowly, twice. Then she started to laugh. "Oh I like you, Doctor. You're good."

  "I'm also not kidding," Netta said flatly. "How much to buy your help? Whatever that is."

  Joshi felt uncomfortably as though the two women had forgotten he was here. "I need information."

  Yashilla rolled her eyes. "Of course you do, honey, or you wouldn't have come to me. And I'm willing to help." She glanced at Netta before turning back to him. "For her? I'll do it for free."

  Rule number two. Nothing was free. Yashilla would mark it as a favor owed, a concept that could make powerful men know fear. "So how long do you need?"

  "I started collecting information the moment your face showed up on the news feeds. Just a little snooping on CorpServ’s machines to see what I could learn about you. And the good doctor, of course."

  He had to resist his urge to shout. Data, to Yashilla, was more precious than money, and she doled it out with the willingness of a miser. She was also the only person he'd ever known who'd been able to hack into Corporate Services, so her information was always gold. Through gritted teeth, he managed to push out the words, "Why did they burn me out?"

  "You were expensive. And, frankly, you're a risk." Yashilla stood, ticking off facts on her fingers. "That IRS diagnosis in your file didn't help your chances either. Short lifespan, and a twitchy nervous system? Add in close to retirement to complete the trifecta. The last thing CorpServ wants is to shell out your pension, and no one wants to rent defective merchandise." She reached out and took Netta's hand. "And you, my dear, were going to run with that nasty little virus of yours, and that's the last thing BlueGene could afford. Better to destroy research than risk anyone but them having it. After all, once they relocated you to somewhere more secure, they could just have you recreate it."

  Netta's eyes narrowed. "What do we do?"

  "The man they sent to hunt you is named Bao Chu. Bit of a scalpel by all accounts." She chuckled and looked at Joshi. "He's a more murderous equivalent of you, Jo. No failures on his record. Seems to preferentially take wetwork. And he’s top of the line for the cybernetics in his file."

  He knew that much from fighting him earlier. “Any weaknesses? Anything useful about him?”

  Yashilla rolled her eyes dramatically. “A lot of his ’ware is electronic. Shielded against an EMP crack, but a direct hit from a stunner might take him off line for a moment or three. Not that it’s helpful.”

  "How about a place to hide? Anyplace in the Zone that's not being squatted?"

  “You're better off here. I've got some extra security that the rest of the Zone doesn't have. There's a bed against the far wall. You can each have an hour or two of sleep."

  Netta looked at him, and her face softened. "He needs the rest more. I can stay awake and give him both shifts."

  Joshi started to protest, but a single stare from Yashilla froze the words in his throat.

  "You won't reject a gift in my home, Jo. Go to bed. I'm certain that there are things the good doctor and I can do to entertain ourselves while you sleep."

  He glanced from one woman to the other and realized there'd be no arguing with them both. Despite his misgivings, he crossed the room, laid down on the bed, and hoped he'd still be asleep when Yashilla killed him.

  Netta’s fingers moved absently, ticking the needles together as she knitted a broad, patternless stretch of the scarf. Joshi’s slow breathing was the only noise left in the tiny room, and watching him sleep kept her thinking about some of the things Yashilla had said.

  He woke suddenly, hand diving under the pillow for a gun that wasn't there. The fact that Yashilla had mentioned he’d likely do so had prompted Netta to move the pistol just to be safe. Her jealousy over the hacker’s admission of a relationship with Joshi had been short-lived. Even Yashilla had been quick to admit that she and Joshi were allies rather than lovers at this point. Given the few hints about their shared past, Netta felt relief that he'd had someone to care about him.

  The fact that Yashilla had left helped temper Netta’s jealousy too.

  "Where am I?" Panic edged Joshi's voice. His eyes searched the mostly barren apartment. "What time is it?"

  Another reminder of his too-human eyes. Netta noted the time from where it glowed in the upper right corner of her vision. "You've been asleep for about eight hours. I thought about waking you after six, but you're going to need rest to heal." She tucked her knitting into the bag and stretched, hearing her joints creak as she did so. "I dozed off some too, if you're concerned. Mostly Yashilla and I talked while she packed."

  He sat up and rotated his arms to the side, while Netta indulged in some less-than-clinical observation. The flex and play of his muscles was endlessly fascinating. Even without implants, he'd have been gorgeous. With them, however, he oozed physicality; strength and grace in a nearly inhuman combination.

  His brows knit together, and she reached across the small space to smooth the skin with her thumb.

  "Do I even want to know what you two talked about?"

  Netta smirked. "Gi
rl stuff, mostly."

  "But not entirely."

  "You sound almost worried, sir." Her grin got wider, and she curled her fingers through the hair at his temple. "Are you afraid your ex-girlfriend shared all your dirty laundry?"

  His cheeks darkened with embarrassment as he picked someplace to look that wasn't at her. "Well, that she and I were an item was one of the things I worried about you learning." He let out a slow sigh and leaned into her hand. "It was a long time ago."

  "That was the impression she gave certainly. She didn't leave a forwarding address for you. Said you'd know how to find her." Touching him was easy. Familiar despite the three years that stood between their times together like a gulf.

  "She's got a few boltholes in the city. Yash and I," he started, then floundered for words and let the sound trail off. "Complicated doesn't even begin to cut it. We met on the street, you know. War orphans, but that's not uncommon really."

  Netta nodded. Separatist movements popped up from time to time, but Maharashtra had been the first to receive backing from the extra-national corporations. With technology hubs in Pune and Mumbai, and a significant chunk of the population, the state had wanted to set its own tax and work rules to benefit its corporate allies. She only vaguely remembered the news reports of the government's attempt to bring the renegade province to heel. Someplace that had, to a child, seemed all too far away. "I'm sorry."

  "Don't be," Joshi said. "We looked out for each other. Used to tell each other stories about what we'd do when we were grown. How we'd get free of this place. I found a way out with Corporate Services. She found drugs and a connection to the ‘net. So I guess we both found different ways to escape."

  "All without ever going anywhere." Netta kept her tone matter-of-fact. "Even you've come back." She smiled at a memory from three years before and traced her thumb along the ridge of his ear. "For at least the second time."