Mumbai Manhunt Page 8

  "I wondered if you'd brought one of those. Very clever. It would have leveled the playing field more than a little, I think." Bao stood and inspected the torn seam in his jacket while the stunner's capacitor emptied itself. "Good thing I was watching for it."

  After what seemed like an eternity of white-hot lightning and searing pain, the batteries in the stunner finally died and Joshi collapsed. Bao stood over him, smiling, and he couldn't gather the strength to offer even a basic defense. "Just kill me."

  "Hardly. You see, I think you're right." The operative bent down and padded through Joshi's pockets, finding the burner phone Joshi'd procured. Despite some scarring from the stunner, it looked unharmed. "I think the good doctor does care about you. And more importantly, I think she's going to be willing to trade herself for you.”

  He used a set of zip ties to lash Joshi's wrists and ankles, then lifted him as though he weighed no more than a feather. "On the plus side, if she doesn't come, you'll know I was right all along. So it's a win-win." He stepped out of the garage with Joshi over his shoulder. He whistled, and the little dog fell in behind them as he walked.

  Yashilla

  Chipped concrete bit into her ass and the backs of her thighs as Yashilla sat on the half wall and wished there were drugs enough to drag her through the next thirty minutes. In her vision, a small red dot threaded through a map of the district, slowly drawing on her location.

  All the gods and devils damn Joshi for being an idiot.

  She resisted the urge to rub the sweat from her face. It never helped with the heat. More importantly, it would ruin the AR she had running for people on the street. At the moment, she looked like a bronze statue sitting on a wall. Guerilla art popped up all the time, so people passing by didn't look twice. Just as well. The disguise wouldn't hold up to close scrutiny, but anything was better than just sitting in the open. Exposed.

  She gave in to temptation and rubbed her face anyway. A passerby jumped in surprise, and she smiled at the other person's discomfort. Hacking into the high-paid ARvertising channels had been a trick but so worth it when it came to controlling how much of you a person could really see. The dot turned the corner a block away from her position, and Yashilla pushed her sleeve up.

  One tap at the corner of her wrist and the interface for her comps glowed through the skin on her forearm. Quick taps brought up the autono-cab's control systems. Safety overrides wouldn’t let her cause an accident with it, but she sent an order telling it to stop at her location and shut itself down for maintenance. Like most of the digital world, the vehicle danced to her command, signaling and pulling over just before cutting off its engine.

  The look of outrage on Dr. Schulmann's face was absolutely worth what the script had cost.

  Yashilla jumped off the wall, tugging her sleeve down as she hit the pavement. The cab door slammed as Schulmann got out. Her fists pounded ineffectively above where the driver would have been in a more expensive vehicle. The torrent of profanity pouring out of her would have made Joshi blush.

  If he's able to do anything at this point.

  "All I'm saying, Doctor, is that stealth and laying low are not your strong suit." Yashilla leaned against the other side of the cab and offered a smile. The other woman startled, stepping back and scanning the street in clear panic, hunting for a friendly face. "I mean, you haven't changed your gait at all, and your chip registered the second you got in the cab. For someone who spent years on the run, you've clearly forgotten a lot."

  "Yashilla." She said it with an equal measure of understanding and wariness. "I'd ask why you're following me—"

  "-But then you'd have to admit that you never got on that boat. I understand the dilemma." Yashilla pushed up from the car and stretched, forcing people to go around her on the sidewalk.

  "Joshi's in trouble." Netta looked even more pale as she said it, and Yashilla felt a twinge of jealousy. She and Joshi had always been better friends than lovers; even at their best times she'd never had the kind of connection that these two clearly shared.

  "He's done something dumb," she agreed. "Even for him. I wouldn't have sought you out otherwise, but you were still in the city, and you…deserved to know." Yashilla dug the phone out of her pocket and skidded it across the roof of the cab.

  Netta opened it, and Yashilla could tell the moment she'd made sense of the image that had been texted to it. "He wants to trade me for Joshi's life. Is that why you hunted me down?"

  The hint of accusation in the other woman's voice hurt. Would have hurt more if Yashilla hadn't scarred that particular wound over plenty of times herself. "That was a long time ago. I want you to know about now. And to let you know I'm willing to help, whatever you decide."

  "I'm going to give him what he wants." Netta said it so confidently that Yashilla was taken back.

  "Okay. I can't help with that. If you walk in to turn yourself over, that's all you. If I'm involved, Joshi wouldn't ever forgive me."

  The doctor smiled. "I'm not what Bao really wants. He may not know it yet, but I'm just the means to an end." She patted the knitting bag at her side. "Let's just say you're not the only one who's breaking the rules."

  "Somehow, I think you and I have different ideas about what the rules are, but okay. I'll bite. What do you need from me?"

  If anything, the other woman's grin grew even more predatory. "It depends. You have access to a lab?"

  Eight

  Netta looked around the lab a second time and wondered why she hadn't bothered going through black market channels before now. The space was cramped, but in many dimensions was better equipped than the lab BlueGene had outfitted her with. She chuckled and shook her head. "I really don't want to know how you knew about this place."

  "You're right about that." Yashilla hopped up onto a stool, legs folding under her like a spider's. "What do you need from me?"

  The woman had already been more than helpful, slicing her way through the security systems around Bao's files and providing Netta with the data she needed. Knowing that he didn’t have any poison filters implanted, at least according to his records, made the way forward obvious.

  She'd explained the plan to Yashilla on the ride over, and bought twenty-four hours with a quiet phone call to Bao. As she'd expected, he’d been very interested in the possibility of a cure and open to trading for it instead of her. She still suspected a trap, but it only took a little push to get him to give her the extra time she'd need to set up her response. "At this point? It's just me. And time. Implant encapsulation isn't an overnight process."

  "Too bad overnight is all you've got."

  Netta pulled the scarf out and laid it across one of the tables. Stretched out, the pattern of knits and purls formed a genomic pattern that had been the fruit of years of research. Time that she needed to understand how to introduce a biocompatible microcapsule that attached to and protected implants from the body's immune response systems, while simultaneously solving the calcium leaching issues that high-grade neural implants caused over time.

  It didn't work overnight, but all her research indicated that it would succeed. As quickly as she dared, Netta produced the first ten-injection sequence. "Field-testing isn't really authorized on this yet. You're okay with that?"

  “I thought you weren’t actually planning to test it.”

  “I can’t risk Bao having a bio-scanner of some variety to confirm the contents of the vials.” Netta pressed her palms to the table until they stopped shaking. “I can explain away the sedatives as required, since it’s going to be painful, but the biological components are going to have to match what he’s looking for, or he won’t release Joshi.”

  Worry fought with protective anger in her chest, directed as much toward Bao as Joshi himself. She couldn’t believe he’d been so foolish, had risked himself for her. The least she could do was use her research to free him. And, if things went according to plan, take Bao out of the picture.

  Yashilla moved to stand beside her, looking down at
the scarf with a grin before running a hand over the yarn. "You rebel you."

  "I thought you said biology wasn't your strong suit."

  "It's not." Yashilla tapped the intricate knotwork on the scarf. "But I know a code when I see one. You've got a repeating set of five items. And even my spotty biology could get me the rest of the way to RNA sequencing."

  "I'm not saying it's going to be safe. And this whole plan could blow up in our faces. That’s a risk you’re willing to take?"

  "My opinion matters? I thought I was just the hired help."

  "You're his..." Friend seemed too impersonal, given that Joshi had shared a history with her. Having seen something of the other woman's strength under pressure, Netta could understand why.

  "Nah." Yashilla waved her hand in dismissal. "Even when we were together, I wasn't his. Not like he looks at you. Not like you look when you're thinking about him. He deserves a shot at being happy."

  Netta's cheeks heated, but she resisted the urge to fish for further confirmation regarding Joshi's feelings. His safety was all she hoped to accomplish. So long as he was free, she could find her own path. "What about you?"

  The hacker snorted quietly. "The sooner this is done and I can get back in my hidey-hole, the better. I don't like being out here in meatspace. That's what will make me happy."

  Truth be told, with her AR disguises disabled, Yashilla wasn't unattractive. Mostly bald, but that was clearly to keep the myriad of ports that dotted her skull clean. And she'd used the extra skin to allow more space for tattoos. Like the disguises, her appearance helped keep people at a distance. Netta had spent less than an hour with her and had figured that out. Likewise, she'd decided she enjoyed the woman's company regardless.

  "Once we know the cure works, you can keep it online?" That was the crucial part of the plan, of course. If anyone could find the instructions, it couldn't be owned. Or monetized. And once the corporations couldn't make money, hunting her wouldn't make good business sense.

  Yashilla spread her hands with a grin. "Information wants to be free, as someone once said."

  Netta loaded the first two doses with twice the normal amount of sedative. Bao's files indicated he was egotistical enough to want to start treatment right away. Even without poison filters, the modifications that Bao carried would be difficult to overcome. If he wasn’t upgraded further, the massive dose would incapacitate him but it shouldn't be enough to kill him.

  She hoped to have the pleasure of doing that herself, once he'd blacked out and Joshi was safe.

  As murder scenes went, Netta had seen more ominous. The omnipresent pigeons had taken up on the wires outside, in enough numbers to keep equally successful gulls away. Graffiti, both real and AR, covered the low cinder-block walls out front, including a long string of preening neon-pink flamingos. Not that the birds wintered in Mumbai anymore. Wild flamingos had been extinct for decades. And the birds that remained in zoos weren't allowed to go anywhere.

  Broken glass had been set into the mortar atop the wall to discourage the pigeons from settling there, and to dissuade any would-be wall-jumpers. Fortunately or not, she'd be going in through the front door.

  Baring the differences in graffiti, the location wasn't dissimilar to the neighborhood where she'd spent the last three years. At least it looked like what she'd seen from the windows of her lab.

  She stepped through the gate into the thin courtyard that fronted the building. The rains had turned the area into a weed-choked garden, and it would remain so for the next few months until it died back and waited for the cycle to repeat.

  And that was biology's secret to success, really. Patience for the proper moment.

  On the door, bright blue painter's tape covered the name of a textiles company with a broad X to indicate they'd since moved on from the location. The door hung slightly ajar, and Netta pushed it open to enter a small entry hall between a pair of offices. Despite a few broken windows, none of the graffiti had followed her into the building. Instead, the visual quiet unnerved her—she'd never expected to get used to the constant AR chaos that comprised the streets of Mumbai, but the silent, powerless interior made her miss that barrage of advertising and color.

  The door at the end of the hall stood open, and beyond it she could see the broad, empty room where the machine looms had once stood. She stepped through onto the loom floor, unsurprised to find Joshi bound to an office chair in the center of the room. She'd read Bao’s files extensively—he had a weakness for melodrama when he had time.

  Relief at seeing Joshi braided with concern for him, the hooks digging deep into her heart. Bruises covered the side of his face and dulled his umber skin with purple signposts to Bao's brutality.

  Anger and the desire for vengeance blossomed hot on the heels of her concern. Never mind the threats that had been made to her. Bao had threatened someone she cared about. Her partner, and that warranted her hands-on involvement in putting a stop to him.

  Netta pushed those thoughts down—this wasn't the time for emotion. Cold analytics were her forte, and that's what she needed right now. Once Joshi was safe, once Bao was unconscious, then she could engage her more primal instincts. It disturbed her how much she already looked forward to it.

  Joshi groaned and raised his head. She crossed to him quickly, and at the sound of her shoes on the concrete he focused on her. "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be on the flotilla."

  She snorted. "Good thing for you that one of us has common sense."

  "I assume you mean me, because wandering into an obvious trap is pretty much the exact opposite of sense."

  The fact he could still make her smile, even in his current state, even knowing they could both die at any moment, spoke volumes. The worry that had clenched its fist around her heart eased slightly. "You really need to learn to be more grateful," she said. "I'm saving your life after all."

  "That remains to be seen." Bao stepped out around a support column, carrying a broad, double-barreled pistol with casual lethality. The small dog he'd saved padded after him, features alert for a cue from its master. "While Mr. Joshi's not got much life left, chances are he's got more left than you."

  He gestured, and she stepped back from the chair, her hands open. "Killing me's a moot point."

  He rolled his eyes. "You underestimate the power of closure, Doctor. You and your pet project have been a hassle, as well as a professional liability. Turning the page on you both will be enormously satisfying." He stepped closer, stopping so that Joshi sat at the exact middle of a line between them. The creases on Bao’s pants were impervious to the humidity, still sharp enough to stick out in the gloom.

  She forced herself to smile and ignore the broad black barrels of the gun. "And how long will you have to enjoy that satisfaction? Your files aren't as well hidden as you think—at least not with a skilled hacker and a grudge."

  He paused, the tip of the pistol drooping slightly. "You're not going to distract me, Dr. Schulmann."

  "How much calcium do you have to take to keep the neural upgrade from leaching your bones instead? Three thousand milligrams? Five? Your system can only ingest so much in a day. When that stops being enough, what then? Is it already too little? Are the pads of your fingers just not quite as sensitive as you remember them being?"

  The flash of panic crossed his face so quickly she almost didn't see it. IRS could be staved off if you only had one or two implants, but for operatives like Bao and Joshi, it was an unavoidable reality. The signs were already in the last physical exam that Yashilla had provided from Bao’s Corporate Services file.

  "So you're going to bribe me instead. Interesting, but not uncommon."

  "Don't think of it as a bribe. Think of it as the possibility to change your fate." She nodded at the small dog. "After all, even a dog deserves a second chance."

  Bao smirked. "And which of us is the dog? Which of us is getting the second chance? Me or you?"

  "I'd like to think we both do." She set her purse on the c
oncrete, careful to show that it was well out of Joshi's reach, and spread her hands. "I'd also imagine that getting out from under Corporate Services' thumb is plenty of incentive for you to return the favor."

  "Not having to rely on them for IRS drugs is hardly the same as getting me out from under their collective thumb. Ask Mr. Joshi. They own you long before you have to rely on them for survival." He stepped forward and prodded her purse with the toe of his immaculate shoe. "It would go a long way," he agreed. "But that doesn't mean I'm interested in your deal."

  "Oh, I already know you're interested, otherwise you would have killed me when I came in the door. You had a perfect target, with me silhouetted in the bright doorway."

  Bao chuckled and inclined his head. "The thought crossed my mind. But you're correct. I wanted to hear you out at least."

  "Decided it wouldn't be fair to have the dog you saved outlive you?"

  "Dogs aren't people, Doctor. They are nobler. Less inclined to treachery." He lifted her purse and rummaged through it, then pulled out the zippered neoprene bag. He opened it to reveal the ten injections lined up and numbered, and whistled in surprise. "You actually brought it with you. Amazing."

  "What were you thinking?" Joshi's voice was incredulous. "Do you have any idea what that would be worth? What's to stop him from killing both of us and taking it?"

  A possibility she'd considered and quickly dismissed. "It's worthless without me. There's nothing he could do with it. He'd have one treatment series, and nothing more. Nothing to sell, and that's the important part."

  Bao nodded. "All I have is your word, Doctor. It's not as though I can identify the contents of the vials with my eyes. For all I know, you’ve poisoned the entire batch just to get your revenge after I've killed you."

  Netta forced herself to smile at his cold reason. "Exactly. But with me on site to monitor you, I'll be able to track your vitals through the first dose and keep you alive." She took a step forward. "You'd have to find someone to administer the remaining doses, but a person of your means shouldn't have trouble with that."