I awoke lying on the floor. Penis the bonsai African elephant was sitting on my chest, staring at me.
The first thing I did was check my nose. It seemed okay. I also smacked my lips, trying to detect any funny tastes in my mouth.
“Rise and shine, sleepyhead.” McGlade was sitting at his desk. “While you were out, I injected your ribs with nanotubes. How do you feel?”
“Better,” I said. My brain was still a bit foggy, and my stomach felt like I’d been on a cruise during a typhoon, but my various aches and pains had all vanished. Except for my arm, where Sata had hit me. That was still numb.
“My fingers are tingling.”
“I noticed that. You’ve got some sort of nerve damage. That’s beyond what I can do here. You need to visit an ER for that.”
Penis trumpeted at me, spraying my face with elephant snot.
“Your pet sucks,” I said, gently shoving him off my chest.
“Yeah. But he’s really expensive.”
I sat up, letting the room come into focus. The first thing I thought of was Vicki. I pressed my earlobe. No dial tone. I pressed it again.
“Try hitting yourself on the side of the head,” McGlade said.
I gave myself a swift tap.
“Harder.”
I reared back and really whacked myself, almost tipping over.
“Is that how this is supposed to work?” I asked, shaking away the wooziness.
“Naw. I haven’t turned it on yet. I just wanted to see if you’d hit yourself.”
“Asshole.”
McGlade grinned, then pressed a button on a remote control he had in his hand. A dial tone came on in my head.
“Call Vicki.”
The headphone connected to hers, but I got voice mail. She must have still been dealing with the cops and couldn’t talk.
“Still with the SLP, huh, Talon?”
“Yeah.”
“You know, she’s got to be one of the last natural redheads on the planet. They’re almost extinct. She is natural, right? The carpet matches the drapes?”
“She’s natural.” If he hadn’t just saved my tail, I might have objected to where this conversation was heading.
“That’s so hot. You know, maybe I could reduce my fee if she could fit me into her schedule. Is she taking new clients?”
“No.”
“How about for quick sessions? I’d only need about two minutes.”
“Let’s stop talking about Vicki.”
“What if it wasn’t overtly sexual?”
“That wasn’t a suggestion, McGlade.”
“I like feet,” he stated matter-of-factly.
I stared at him.
“Maybe she could step on me sometime,” he continued.
Seeing he wasn’t going to let it go, I said, “I’ll check her calendar.”
“Thanks, pal. I also like blow jobs.”
I stood up and rubbed my neck. “How long was I out?”
“An hour. I threw your clothes in the washer/dryer. Should be done by now.”
“You have a washer/dryer?”
“I get it. You said that because my clothes are always dirty. Jackass.”
“Next you’ll say you have a maid.”
“I do have a maid. But when she comes over we spend the whole time in bed and she never has a chance to clean anything.”
“Does she have cute feet?”
“No. Her toes are hairy, and they smell like cheese. But I let her step on me anyway.”
I reminded myself that I’d come here willingly. “Where’s my DT and belt?”
“All your shit is in the laundry room.”
I walked out of the office. McGlade scooped up Penis and followed me.
“You want something to eat? I could order out. There’s a place up the street that delivers. They do the best bald eagle nachos. I know most people think bald eagles are vermin, like rats. But these things melt in your mouth.”
I found the laundry room. The clothes were on the drying cycle, with a few minutes left. My utility belt and gear were on top. I picked up my DT.
“Can you hack my Taser?” I asked. “Make it work again?”
“No. Wi-Fi is hackable because there are so many free hot spots. Tesla electricity is all chip-based, dependent on ID and account numbers. Unhackable.”
“Can I buy one of your Tasers?”
“Mine are DNA-specific. Only I can fire them.”
Just like mine and every other registered Taser out there. I couldn’t even use his bullets.
“How about the Magnum?”
“Sure. Do you have half a million credits? Because that’s what it’s worth.”
“You’re supposed to be this legendary black market dealer, McGlade. Don’t you have any weapons?”
“Really? Legendary?”
“Weapons, McGlade.”
“No, Talon. Weapons are so 2050. I deal in books, posters, art, real denim blue jeans, that kind of shit. Didn’t you hear we’ve given up violence as a species in favor of a green utopia?”
“I heard. But someone isn’t playing by those rules.”
McGlade folded his arms. “Yeah. You’re that someone. I saw the transmission, you and that old ugly chick. Remind me never to play Twister with you.”
“That wasn’t me.”
“The ID chip proved it was.”
I stared at McGlade. “ID chip?”
“Yeah. The transmission zoomed in with electromagnetic radiation.”
I picked up my DT and tuned in to CNN. They were playing the video of Aunt Zelda’s death. But not the early one; the one I assumed Teague made. They were playing mine, which showed the close-up of Alter-Talon’s ID chip.
Sata? Had he given his copy of the transmission to the police?
No. The channel cut to the wreckage of my beautiful Corvette, the newscaster saying they took my TEV out of the trunk and found the recorded footage. Teague came on next, talking to a reporter. His arm was in a sling, and he looked seriously pissed. I switched from closed captioning to sound.
“The woman is still unidentified, and I just spent the last two fucking hours chasing a fucking raccoon. But it doesn’t matter. I’m a timecaster. I’ll follow him like a bloodhound until his ass is mine.”
“Is that Teague?” McGlade said. “He looks seriously pissed. I thought you guys were buddies.”
I switched off the sound, then accessed uffsee.
“Franklin Debont, inventor of UFSE, bio,” I told the voice command.
Uffsee brought up the file on Debont. It was an extensive biography. I glossed over the early years, his fifteen search-engine patents, the global utilization of uffsee on the intranet, and got to his eventual retirement. No mention of his gender change, of becoming Aunt Zelda, or of living on Wacker Drive.
“Franklin Debont, living relatives.”
It came up with one. And it wasn’t Neil. It was Franklin’s nephew, a man named Rocket Corbitz.
“Rocket Corbitz bio.”
Rocket had a one-word intranet entry.
Disenfranchized.
“He’s a dissy, huh?” McGlade asked.
I didn’t answer, momentarily lost in thought. I still believed Teague had set me up, but I had no idea how. Hopefully Sata would be able to figure that out.
But why didn’t the intranet have any record of Debont’s sex change? Or of his nephew Neil? That was impossible.
Then again, Debont was the creator of the greatest search engine in the history of mankind. He could have easily altered the entry about himself. Maybe he was a private person, and wanted to live his new life out of the spotlight.
It still didn’t make sense why Neil didn’t know his aunt was really one of the richest men on the planet. And Neil had mentioned he went to Teague before coming to me. Were they in this together somehow?
I needed to talk to Teague, but I doubted I’d be able to get any quality one-on-one time with him. He was probably already tracing my steps, and as soon as he learned my whereabouts he’d call for backup. Neil might also be compromised, and Teague could very well be using him as bait.
I called Sata on my headphone, to see if he’d figured out anything about the TEV transmission. I got his voice mail.
That left only one lead to follow up on. Rocket Corbitz.
“You still have ties to the dissys?” I asked McGlade.
“You need a tracer?”
“Rocket Corbitz. He may know something.”
McGlade stroked his elephant’s trunk in a vaguely obscene manner. “My standard fee is a thousand credits a day, plus expenses. And if Teague is on your ass, it will lead him here, so expenses are going to include disappearing me until this shit all blows over.”
“My Vette was insured. Two hundred thousand credits.”
He bowed. “Harry McGlade, tracer extraordinaire, at your disposal.”
McGlade smiled. Penis farted. I rubbed my eyes, figuring with McGlade’s help I had maybe a 10 percent chance of clearing my name.
Penis farted again. I waved away the foul air.
“It’s all the beans he eats. This elephant is crazy for beans. I know I shouldn’t keep giving them to him, but after a while you get used to the smell. It’s actually kind of aromatic.” McGlade took a large sniff. “Like elephant fart incense.”
Make that a 5 percent chance.