Chapter Twenty
Dex didn’t know what to say. He was so flummoxed that he even forgot about the caffeine coursing through his body and sat stock still for the first time in hours. “How can that be Bish?” he finally got out. “Keeping time with an anti-tech group?”
“It’s her, all right,” Annabelle said, the grin still plastered on her face. “I pulled off the highly improbably task of breaking into the central records in everywherenet.”
“Central records?” Dex asked. “That’s the database that matches biometrics to accounts to ID chips. It’s the big box that keeps us all tagged and identified and watched. And I got in.” Her voice was almost breathless and although Dex didn’t really understand what she was talking about, he could tell it meant a lot to her.
“Good job,” he said, smiling. “If anyone could do it, it’s you.”
“Thanks,” she said, her face flushing slightly. “Anyhow, I now have access to the matched set of online identities to physical world images. The first file I sent you is Sterling Ljundberg’s most recent facial image. You should have no trouble identifying him. And I ran all the images you sent through a facial recognition program and she came up as Stella Bish.”
“It can’t be...”
“That’s what I thought, too,” Annabelle said, interrupting him. “So I looked for her online. Not there. I poked through the history and she disappeared last night. I double checked the biometrics of this Stella Bish against she who rules Marionette City and it was a perfect match. It’s her, Dex, there’s no doubting it.”
“Shit,” he said and started thinking aloud. “So if Ljundberg is doing this Offline Cleanse thing, which I guess we don’t even know for sure at this stage, he’s probably got a connection with Bish other than just business. I mean, they’re both here in the same city and it looks likely that they spend time at the same java joint. Which makes me wonder why he isn’t already on staff...”
“Good question,” Annabelle said, her avatar’s face wrinkling into a frown. “And if he’d already pals with the boss, why would he need to get rid of Reuben in order to be next in line?”
“Damn it,” Dex said, ‘”this fucking case. Every time I think I’m getting somewhere, the whole thing turns thirty degrees and I’m tossed around and confused. It’s bloody annoying.”
Annabelle smiled. “But it’s what you love.”
“Since when do you know everything about me,” Dex asked, scowling. Annabelle looked a little taken aback, then Dex broke out in a grin. “Fine, I love it, okay. Happy now? So let’s get to solving this bloody great puzzle, shall we?”
“Okay,” Annabelle said, smiling again. “So, what’s the plan?”
• • •
When Dex had finished talking to Annabelle, he refocussed on his hotel room to discover that the coffee buzz had worn off and he had gotten unpleasantly cold. He sat up on the bed, stretching his sore muscles. He stood, running his tongue over his gummy and sour mouth. He picked up the clothes he’d earlier thrown on the floor and put them back on. He rummaged through his bag to find the bottle of water from the morning and he downed what was left of it in one go. He vigorously rubbed his hands over his face in an attempt to imbue some energy into his body.
He headed out the door of hotel room and checked the time. It was early evening, which seemed like the kind of time he figured the Cleansers to gather. Of course, it was all just guesswork, but with no way to contact Ljundberg or Bish, Dex had to rely on his gut. He took the stairs down to the ground floor and saw that the brightness of the afternoon sunlight had dimmed somewhat. The ambient light from outdoors was now more like what he was used to. He hoped that the temperature had moderated some as well.
When he pushed open the hotel’s main door, the climate wasn’t as stifling as it had been that morning — the humidity was lower, though it was still warmer than Dex would have liked. At that moment, though, the heat was taking the chill off of his body that had accumulated while he was in Marionette City with Annabelle and Dex resolved to enjoy the heat for a long as possible.
Dex turned right once he got to the street, heading for the small store he’d passed the night before. He needed food and he didn’t trust the stuff on offer at Free Robots. The store sold the usual necessities — food bricks and energy drinks, cheap beer and water. Dex picked up a five pack of bricks which were reasonably inexpensive and a small bottle of water which more than doubled the cost of his purchases. With this heat, though, Dex couldn’t afford not to get the extra liquid.
He ate one of the food bricks en route to Free Robots and he drank half the water, too. By the time he reached the nondescript building, he felt almost as good as if he actually had taken a nap instead of talking to Annabelle. He pulled open the door and then walked into the café. He had guessed right — where there earlier had been maybe a dozen people in the large group, now there were twice or three times that number.
They had more or less taken over the cafe, though there were still a handful of free tables. The music was louder, perhaps to compensate for the increased din from the large group of talking, laughing people. Dex headed for the bar and decided to splurge by ordering a double dark rum and real ginger beer from the touchpad. He figured that the amount of money he was saving Ivy by staying in a dive like El Presidente more than offset the price of an expensive drink. The robotic arm mixed his drink and presented it to him in record time. Dex took a sip and was instantly transported back in time.
The first taste of the smooth sweetness of the rum immediately reminded him of the old days with Maks, then the spicy aftertaste of the ginger beer almost burned his tongue and the feeling of almost literally being transported in time intensified. He hadn’t tasted that sweet, spicy concoction since the night Maks left. Dex chalked up the pinpricks he felt starting in his nose and climbing up to his eyes to the heat of the drink, though that was really only part of it. He took his glass to one of the empty tables and nursed the first half of it while watching the large group and fighting his own memories.
He pulled up the images of Ljundberg and Bish that Annabelle had sent him and scanned the room. He found Bish easily, at the centre of the largest grouping, dominating conversation. He couldn’t see Ljundberg anywhere, though. There were a few people who were behind the others and he couldn’t really make them out. He ran the magnification program and this time was prepared for the vertigo it created. As he looked closer at the group, he became more convinced than ever that Ljundberg just wasn’t there.
He reset his vision and blinked a few times to readjust. He pinged Annabelle, asking if Ljundberg had turned up online yet. She answered almost immediately that he had not, but that his ID chip had registered again at the same store Dex had been in earlier. Dex asked when that was and she told him it was less than a half hour earlier. Dex abruptly thanked her and stood, getting ready to go out and look for Ljundberg. Just as he turned toward the door, it opened and Ljundberg himself walked in.
• • •
He was shorter than Dex expected him to be; the image Annabelle had given him hadn’t shown him in context and Dex still had the memory of his avatar from Marionette City in his mind. Ljundberg was one of those people who took the opportunity of making a new image for himself seriously. He could only have been more the opposite of his avatar had he been female. He had light coloured hair that was closely cropped to his skull, no facial hair of any kind and he was fashionably soft around the middle.
He walked into the Free Robots and paused a moment at the door to let his eyes adjust. He looked around, seeming to scan the large group, as if looking for a particular person. His eyes locked on someone and he made a bee line over to one of the smaller groups. It wasn’t Stella Bish’s table, but Dex was pretty sure it was a group of Cleansers.
Dex let Ljundberg greet the group, get a seat and a drink. He watched from a distance as the man talked earnestly with the others. Dex remembered that his conversation with Ljundberg had easily d
evolved into armchair philosophizing and he imagined that Ljundberg could happily talk up a storm with this group as well. He couldn’t hear their conversation from his vantage point, but he guessed it would be boring and intense.
After about half an hour of watching and waiting and the last half of his drink, Dex decided it was time. He had pinged Annabelle and was streaming the video feed that he was recording so she could follow the action. They also opened a voice channel so she could talk to him if she came up with something. Dex subvocalized, “Here goes nothing,” and walked over to the table where Ljundberg was sitting.
“Excuse me,” Dex said, addressing the group, “I’m looking for Sterling Ljundberg.” Ljundberg turned to him, looking surprised, but answering immediately.
“Yes,” he said, “that’s me. Do I know you?”
“We’ve spoken,” Dex said. “Andersson Dexter.” Ljundberg’s expression was blank for a moment, then he frowned slightly, trying to remember if and where he’d heard the name before.
“Mr. Dexter...” Ljundberg murmured the name, then his eyes popped open and he said, “The investigator. About Reuben, yes, I remember, now.” His expression went from being pleased at remembering to worried in an instant. “What are you doing here, Mr. Dexter?” “Looking for you, Mr. Ljundberg.”
“Looking for me?” the man repeated, sounding confused. One of the other people at the table, a plain looking woman, spoke up at this point.
“Sterling,” she said, her voice nasally and slightly whiny-sounding. “What’s going on? Who is this man?”
Dex heard Annabelle’s voice in his ear say, “And who are you honey?”
Ljundberg turned to the woman and said, “Don’t worry, Marta, it’s nothing.” Turning back to Dex, he said, “Maybe we should talk privately?” He stood and indicated a table in the corner. Dex nodded, as Annabelle said she’d start looking up the woman and the two men walked away from the now silent group. Dex stopped at the bar.
“Drink?” he asked Ljundberg as he entered an order for a regular rum and gingapop. The other man shook his head and Dex picked up his cool glass, then gestured for Ljundberg to lead the way. He followed the man to a table in a quiet corner. They sat and Dex noticed that the other man’s hands were shaking slightly. Even though the café was nicely climate controlled, small beads of perspiration were appearing at Ljundberg’s hairline.
“You’re a tough fellow to find, Mr. Ljundberg,” Dex said.
“And you just happened to be in the neighbourhood, Mr. Dexter?” Ljundberg’s hands were now hidden under the table, but his voice betrayed the shaking they were certainly still doing.
“I can’t say that I was,” Dex answered, “though this place is almost worth the train ride.” Dex took a sip of his drink and slowly moved the glass across the table, making patterns with the condensation. Annabelle told him that she got an ID on Marta — she was a clerk at the same firm as Ljundberg. There was nothing particularly interesting about her other than that she’d last been online the same time as Ljundberg.
“I’m guessing lovers,” Annabelle said. Dex subvocalized his thanks and he waited for Ljundberg to fill the uncomfortable silence. He didn’t wait long.
“I don’t understand,” Ljundberg said. “Why are you here? I don’t know anything about what happened to Reuben and you didn’t need to come all the way here to hear me tell you that again. Besides, I’ll be online again in a couple of days.”
“I didn’t know that,” Dex said. “All I knew is that you were missing and your name popped up again in my investigations. It all seemed rather... implausible.”
“I don’t understand,” Ljundberg repeated. “My name... what do you mean?”
Dex wasn’t ready to lay his cards on the table quite yet, so he decided to try a different approach. “This thing you all are doing,” he gestured at the other patrons in the café. “The Offline Cleanse, is that right?” Ljundberg nodded. “What’s it all about? Are you a bunch of weirdo tech haters who want to destroy the ’nets or what?”
Ljundberg laughed nervously, seeming to be more comfortable now that he had a question to answer. “Not at all, Mr. Dexter. We think technology is good and important and we use the ’nets just the same as everyone else. We’re not trying to undo the gains we’ve made through technology. We just think that the ’nets aren’t a substitute for the real world.”
“Hmm,” Dex said, looking thoughtful. “So what then, I wonder, must you make of people who exist only online? Are they not real people, to you? Or even worse — abominations to be destroyed?” Dex paused for a beat. “Is that why you killed Reuben Cobalt?”