Chapter Twenty-Three
Dex left Free Robots and as he walked down the street he messaged El Presidente and canceled his room. He settled the tab and copied the invoice to Ivy for her records. He continued down the street and stopped in at the store on the corner for another one of those extremely expensive bottles of water. While he wandered the aisles of the store, he booked his return train ticket. He would have a few hours before the overnighter ran, but he was happy to hang out at the train station. As much as he might like the physical world, he decided he’d had enough of the people here in Guadalajara.
Since he had time, Dex decided to walk to the train station. It was only a few klicks and the map he’d originally used on his way into town would show him the way. It was late in the day now and the lower humidity and heat made for a comfortable walk. Once he found his stride, he pinged Annabelle. She answered and opened a voice channel.
“So, what’s the good news?” she asked, her voice light.
“Hrmph,” Dex grunted. “I guess the good news is that I’m on my way to the train station.”
“You’re done with being a world traveler?”
“For now,” Dex answered. “There isn’t anything keeping me here and I have to go back to work day after tomorrow.”
“You didn’t get anywhere with Bish?” Annabelle asked, her voice hardening a little. Dex grunted again and sent a copy of the audio track from his recording of the meeting.
“She doesn’t strike me as dangerous,” he said. “Crazy, maybe, but not dangerous.”
“I’m not sure you’re seeing the situation clearly,” Annabelle said and Dex sighed aloud.
“I know you think she’s up to no good,” he said, patiently, “and you may be right, but I just don’t think she cares enough about any one person to be bothered with killing someone.”
“Hrmph.” It was Annabelle’s turn to resort to sound effects as communication.
“What about Ljundberg?” Dex asked.
“I’m pretty sure he’s holed up in his apartment in Guadalajara,” Annabelle said. “I checked his employment records and he has a place in town. He’s trying to be sneaky, since he hasn’t logged on yet and he bypassed the door lock mechanism by using a mechanical key, but I’ll give you 20 to one odds that he’s there.”
“Oh?” Dex indicated that she should continue.
“He’s sending his little friend Marta out for provisions,” Annabelle said, sounding pleased with herself. “I’ve tracked her ID chip at a store near there a couple of times now. You’d think they’d be smarter than that, but there it is.”
“There it is,” Dex said, with a little less glee than Annabelle had expressed when she uttered the words. According to the map superimposing itself over the vision on his right eye, Dex was more or less following the local train’s route to the station. He was a block or two west of the tracks and he couldn’t see or hear the train, but he knew he was on the right path. Even walking he would have more time at the station than he needed, but he was sure he could catch up on some work while waiting.
As if she could read his mind, Annabelle said, “I had an idea last night, but it’s going to take some time and I don’t know if it will even be useful...”
“What is it?”
“Well,” she said, “you mentioned that you have a list of all of Bish’s staff members, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, maybe someone ought to go through the whole thing and see if any other names pop up. You know, just in case?”
Dex rubbed his face with his hands and found that his head was covered in a fine shimmer of sweat. “Yeah, that’s not a bad idea,” he said, reluctantly. “And I’ve got time, too. I’ll do it.”
“It just seems like we ought to be covering our bases, you know?” she said, as if she still had to convince him.
“I know,” he said. “I’ll do it. It’s a good idea. So, l while I’m reading names until my eyeballs bleed, what exciting plans do you have for yourself?”
“Well,” she said, “I’ll have one eye watching Bish and Ljundberg’s movements in the meat-- I mean physical world and I figured I’d see if I can trace their online movements for the past week or so. See if I can tie either of them to the actual spot of Reuben’s murder. Or maybe to the attack on you.”
“Good thinking,” Dex said. “Now, I’m going to end this call before I pass out. I’m walking to the train station and this talking and walking at the same time is making my head spin.”
“You’re doing what?” Her voice was almost shrill. “Why can’t you just take a train like a normal human being?”
“I was bored,” Dex said. “And besides, I’ve never been to Mexico before. I ought to at least see the place before I leave.”
“You are so twentieth century,” she said, laughing. “Catch you later.” She broke the connection and Dex panted a little, trying to get his breath back.
• • •
Dex continued the rest of the journey to the train station without focussing on anything else, just the map and the sidewalk and the scenery. He decided that Guadalajara wasn’t that great after all, it was just a warmer, damper version of every other city he’d been to.
He had an hour and a half to wait before the train north would be leaving, so Dex found a spot on the cramped and uncomfortable seats in the waiting area. The station was not very busy, so he stuck his small bag at the end of one of the benches, then using it as a pillow, stretched out longwise on the bench. It was no lap of luxury, but he thought that his various body parts might not fall asleep in the ninety minutes he had to kill.
Dex paged over to the file he’d gotten from Uri Farone and started reading.
Aadams, Adelman, Ariane, Avalon, Barnett, Basri, Bellinger, Bischoff, Bosun, Buttle, Cameron... Dex scanned the names, but by the time he got to the Gs his eyes were already starting to glaze over. He focussed harder and slowed down, checking the list more closely, but nothing jumped out at him. The list wasn’t up to date — his eyes had stumbled over Cobalt — but even so there wasn’t anything that struck him.
He found the link Farone had given him to the list of people who were next in line for work. There were fewer names there, but only Ljundberg’s name rang any bells for Dex. He was starting to think that he was looking in all the wrong places. Maybe it was just a coincidence that Ljundberg was a pal of Reuben’s and was going after the former multi’s job. Maybe it had nothing to do with Reuben’s work. The trouble was that Reuben didn’t seem to have any enemies and there was no doubt that this was no random act. The code that caused Reuben to destroy himself was coded specifically to fulfill that very particular job and then destroy itself along with its victim. If this had been about “cleansing Marionette City of multis,” the code would have been, at least potentially, self-replicating. As it was, the code was carefully written to destroy itself.
So, Dex figured, this had to be someone who cared about not unleashing a multi killing virus on Marionette City. He thought and came to the conclusion that this one fact made it even less likely that Stella Bish was involved. Dex doubted that she had any interest in actively destroying multis, but she certainly didn’t seem to care enough about anyone to specifically try to avoid any kind of collateral damage. That seemed more to be Ljundberg’s style. He was emotional and this was an emotional crime. It was personal in both senses — the act was meaningful to the killer and it was about Reuben specifically. If only Dex could have gotten through to Ljundberg.
• • •
Dex spent the rest of the time at the station thinking about the case, wondering if he had taken on an unsolvable crime. Only two days earlier he had been so sure that he was on to it. He had been certain that could feel the unravelling starting and now he felt as tied up in the threads of the mystery as he had when he had first begun. He was wasting Annabelle’s time on this case and he worried that if they never got a result that she would hold it against him. He wondered why that
thought mattered to him. Until recently, Dex had always been perfectly happy to use other members of the Cubicle Men — that was what they were for. More like Stella Bish than he’d like to admit, Dex had seen his colleagues as resources to be used, no more and no less. But now, it seemed like something had changed. Dex wasn’t sure that it was a positive change.
The chime in the station sounded and Dex rolled off the bench. He grabbed his bag and boarded the train. He found his seat and settled in. After the hard station bench, the train’s seat felt like it was made of pillows. Dex debated about killing the trip with SleepingJuice’s perfect oblivion, but he wasn’t tired yet. His brain couldn’t take thinking about the case any more and although he found that he wanted to talk to her, he didn’t know what to say to Annabelle. He paged over to his video collection and opened up his viewer.
He picked a recording of a night from what he thought of as the end days — after Maks decided to move but before he actually did. They were lying on the floor of the apartment, listening to music like usual. The song was fast, with a strong and steady beat. The track was maybe ten or fifteen minutes long, the notes jumbling together but still distinct, with a rhythm that somehow drove into Dex’s body, lifting and carrying him along the crests and troughs of the song. Even hearing it now, sober and with the gulf of time between himself and the moment, he felt the hypnotic effects of the music on his body.
There wasn’t a lot to see in the video record. They didn’t talk during the song, each lying on their separate patch of floor, eyes closed, a private journey fueled by the music. Those were the moments that were the hardest to explain and the ones that he missed the most — the memories that cut into him with a terrible burning pleasure. It was the times they didn’t talk, the times they were alone but together. It was the one thing that virtuality could never even pretend to emulate. Dex knew there was a kind of intimacy in that silent, solitary experience that was shared and yet entirely personal at the same time.
He watched as the song ended and they each slowly stirred back to life. Dex saw Maks sit up, rolling his shoulders to work out the kinks they’d developed lying on the hard floor. He saw his younger self roll over and sit up, eyes blinking to get accustomed to the dim light. He saw his eyes meet Maksym’s gaze and saw the other man smile. Maks had always been a pretty happy go lucky guy, but Dex thought he saw a hint of sadness on the other man’s lips. They had looked at each other in silence for a moment, then Maks had nodded and his smile broadened. “Nice,” he had said, the word drawn out and imbued with meaning.
Dex saw himself nod, acknowledging the shared experience of the song and its effects. He ended the video, closed his eyes and put the song on loop. It must have repeated twenty times before he shut it off as he got off the train.