"We take a little juice off the electricity cables. Service ducts aren’t too far away. We do a little freelance rewiring from time to time.” Smeng grinned at her again. Maybe it was just the lateness and exhaustion, but she was beginning to like him a little.
“Rani, I got business to take care of." He held the black package protectively to his chest. “Got to figure out what to do with you, too. Sleep on it, huh?" He unlocked a side door and ushered her into a little four-bunked cell. She’d have slept in a radioactive bomb crater if he’d put a bed in it. She could hardly take another step.
Maybe it was the excitement of the night, maybe some premonition, maybe just exhaustion that kept her awake an extra few minutes after Smeng had locked her in. She struggled to pull off her befouled clothes, then snuggled under the gray blankets smelling of naphtha. She lay there awhile, her mind racing too fast for sleep. When she heard murmurs and saw the light grow brighter in the crack under the door, she draped the blanket around her and crept through the dark to listen.
There was laughter, a few chinking sounds that could only have been glasses or mugs brought together to seal some bargain, then the stray word caught here and there. She didn’t hear her own name mentioned, but she heard Smeng speaking and other higher-pitched voices raised in reply. One word, though, sliced through her confusion and fatigue to jolt her fully awake.
Pershinkin.
That gave her something to think about! Rani managed five seconds’ thought before her body told her she’d pass out on the floor if she didn’t get back into the bunk. She settled for the latter.
15
Francesca did not surface until nearly noon. Wrapped in one of Geraint’s terry bathrobes she stumbled out of the guest bedroom, rubbing her eyes like a child and then bumping into a china cabinet in the hall because she wasn’t looking. Smiling indulgently. Geraint took her elbow, steered her into the bathroom and showed her the control panel.
“Red tab for the shower motor. Thirty-second floor so we need a motor, yes? You remember." She gave him a sleepy grin and squinted at him appealingly. “Flexidryer there if you need to do your hair. Shower gel in the sachets next to the shampoo. Girl’s stuff is in the pink sachet.” Geraint grinned at her pretense of a frown. Nice to have her back here, he thought.
"I brought over some clothes from your flat. I wasn’t too particular, but at least there’s a selection.”
She gave a sleepy “Mmm” and reached out blindly to put her arms around him, half a hug and half just holding herself up.
“You okay?” he asked. She nodded dopily. Geraint decided she was coherent enough to carry out her ablutions in private, so he went out, closing the door behind him. The shower motor immediately hummed into life. She wouldn’t want any breakfast, he guessed, so he just dumped some oranges into the juicer and scooped some Kenyan into the coffeemaker.
While waiting he jacked into his deck and downloaded some data from the Korean index. After his stint in the House of Nobles, he was itching to make some money again.
Francesca emerged from the bath brushing her long, fair hair with the brush from the overnight bag he’d brought for her. Somehow he thought it was best not to give her the usual female guest things. He had intuited that she’d feel better finding her own possessions around her when she finally awoke. But he had been wrong about breakfast.
"Geraint, sorry, but I’m so hungry I could eat a horse. God, I could eat a troll." She sniffed at the brewing coffee, and gulped down the juice. “Smells good. What’s in the fridge?”
He remembered her tastes and had shopped accordingly. “Waffles, real thing, of course. Strawberry, ginger, and melon preserves. And you’re a real good girl. I might just be able to come up with some ham and eggs.”
She gave him a knowing smile. “Uh huh. And what do I have to do to be a real good girl?" It was the same kind of smile she used to give him in the days when they’d breakfasted under more intimate circumstances-a complication Geraint didn’t want now. The doctors at Maudsley had probably given her a subcutaneous implant; if so, it would play havoc with her neuroendocrines for a couple of days at least. This was certainly not the right time to get into all that again.
“Just sit down and watch the screens. Let me know if anything comes through from Manila. But don’t you dare let me find you with a datajack plugged in when I come back,” he said, heading for the kitchen as the lure of coffee drew her to the table.
“Damn it, Geraint, I’m getting a tummy,” she complained, rubbing her lower abdomen. This was after stuffing herself with smoked bacon and eggs and more waffles than he could remember toasting. The ginger and melon had taken a healthy bashing, too. He felt good.
“Well, Fran, we’re both closing in on the big three-oh. Just one of life’s little indignities, I’m afraid. Past twenty-eight and it’s all downhill from there. I can give you the address of a good shadow clinic if you’re really worried," he joked, but kept a perfectly straight face. They held hands, lost for a moment to the world.
Then the moment was gone, shattered by the buzz of the doorbell.
“Can’t think who that might be. Surely the God-squadders selling redemption wouldn’t get past security. Oh well.” Geraint got to his feet and padded off down the hall to use the intercom. It seemed like a lifetime since he’d heard the voice on the other end.
“Open the door, you Welsh poseur," the elf chirped. “I got the money and I made it back to the Smoke. Come on. Who’ve you got in there?"
Geraint felt awkward when he opened the door, but he embraced the mage, biting on his lower lip to conceal his emotion. "Serrin, ace it! I never thought I’d see you again. Hey, Fran’s here. She’s got troubles too…" But the elf had already seen Francesca standing at the end of the hall, watching in curiosity.
Serrin took in the scene before him and jumped to hasty conclusions. Francesca was wearing what looked like Geraint’s bathrobe, it was the middle of the day, what else could he conclude? He felt like an intruder on their happy little love-nest.
“Hey, look, if it isn’t a good time to-”
Geraint hushed him to silence. "Come in, come in," he said. “It’s been a little eventful all around lately.” He breathed out a sigh. "Guess we’ve got some catching up to do.” Geraint looked the elf up and down with a concerned eye. “Hell, you look skinnier than ever. Ham and eggs in the fridge, waffles ready for the toaster, go get yourself some brunch. Make some more coffee too. Go on, make yourself useful.”
The elf looked down at his scuffed shoes, uncertain how to behave.
"Sack of oranges out there," Geraint went on. “Squeeze a jugful. Go on, move it, move it!" He laughed good-naturedly as Serrin shuffled off to the kitchen, not sure where to look.
Francesca was staring at the pair of them, mystified.
"My life hasn’t been so quiet recently, either," he said by way of explanation, sitting down with her again. "Wait till we get some more coffee and juice and we can talk it all through."
Geraint steered Serrin’s curiosity away from Francesca’s mishaps in the Matrix. He thought she might not want to remember all the gory details right now, so instead he engaged the elf in reminiscences of that fateful night north of Cambridge.
“I don’t know who those other poor suckers were out at Longstanton, but I doubt any of ‘em got away alive." Serrin had recounted the broad details of their misadventure for Francesca’s benefit. "I dispelled the elemental that was after them, but the Fuchi guards probably got ‘em anyway. Poor bastards”
“I lost you, couldn’t see you in the dark,” Geraint said. “I stayed as long as I could, but then I had to make a run for it. The troopers were right on my tail. Clazz, that bike of yours is a rough ride.”
"Where is it? The rental company will get nasty if it’s not back tomorrow. Only took it for the week."
"Don’t worry. It’s extremely disreputable-looking but safe among the BMWs and Rollers in the garage downstairs Laughton got a nice tip to toss a tarpaulin over it and forget all about it. So, where’d you end up?”
Serrin spoke of the river serpent and the druid, but Geraint could see that the elf was not comfortable telling the story, becoming either over-discursive or vague on detail. He had clearly been affected by the experience. The mage shifted the conversation as soon as possible.
"Anyway, I managed to finish my report on the train down. Filed, sealed, and delivered. I was supposed to meet the delightful Smith and Jones yesterday, but they left an address for delivery with the hotel. And it must have arrived damn fast. I got my last few thou by straight debit over the desk.” He flourished a credstick happily.
Geraint was surprised. “But Serrin, aren’t you at all keen to know who was employing you? I mean, after what happened this weekend.
“Whoever hired me had nothing to do with that. Strictly solo, my chasing after Kuranita. They didn’t ask me to.”
“Mmm.” Something was nagging at the back of Geraint’s mind, but he let it pass. "Guess you’re right.”
Serrin was mumbling some thanks for the meal when Geraint suddenly got up and walked over to his work consoles.
“I think I want to check something out. Won’t be a minute. Talk amongst yourselves, ladies and gentlemen.” He jacked into his cyberdeck, leaving Serrin and Fran to catch up on the many years since last they’d met. For his part, Geraint was making a little run through the Matrix to the Crescent Hotel system. While the Americans were speaking of Paris, Florence, New York, and Nagoya, he was locating an entry in a datafile. Hotels usually only data-dumped at midnight.
The address Smith and Jones had left for Serrin was in Charterhouse Street, among a warren of tiny registered offices in the heart of the city. Most of them consisted of no more than one man with a dozen telecoms and wall-to-wall datastores.
Registration Services PLC was the name assigned to the address. That could mean anything: a fast-license service to deal with the Lord Protector’s Administrative Bureau, a business-data investigation franchise, maybe only a drop address. He engaged the browse program, cursing the names Smith and Jones. If they were McAllister and Hendrick, they’d be a damn sight easier to find.
The icon of the little browse clerk had just reached the fat Jones file when a subfile slipped neatly out of the folder and whipped through the datastore’s far node. Deleted, headed for limbo. Geraint followed it, the clerk puffing and panting beside the icon of his knight. Hell, I ought to reconfigure that program, he thought idly. Make it a squire or something more appropriate.
Limbo he perceived as a mortuary, a little flourish of his occasionally morbid sense of humor. The clerk checked name tags, flipped back a sheet, and jotted down a swift note. In the distance, the white-coated attendants were immobile. Datafiles would only be permanently erased at the end of the working day, and from the dated tags on the slabs it looked as if Registration Services hadn’t made its final deletions as promptly as they should have. He made his way hack to the main datastore, where the clerk hummed and hawed as he flicked through the Smiths and Joneses. Geraint made another mental note to upgrade his browse program sometime.
It had taken under a minute. He gave instructions for data compilation and left the laser printer to its work. That took less than a minute too. By the time Francesca and Serrin had journeyed as far as Cairo in their talk, Geraint was back at the table, leafing through the 129 entries.
The entry that got deleted just as he’d entered the datastore was one of the possible candidates. “Jones, Melvin Aloysius.” Aloysius? "Opened an account with Registration Services PLC two days before you were approached, Serrin. Only one other Jones from the start of November, and he’s got a very plush address in Hampstead. Anyway, Mellie-boy simply used the place as a dead-letter drop. Nothing else received that’s been recorded. Oh ho! Surprise, surprise, look at this. Package received at eleven forty-four this morning.” It was the other entry below that which was really making his mind spin. "When did you send it off, Serrin?”