Alien Nation #4 - The Change Read online

  “Nothin’ much to tell.”

  She turned her head to the left. “They wouldn’t flag you if it was nothing.”

  Duncan shrugged. “Nothin’ to worry about, unless you take that vikah ta stuff serious. You know anything about vikah ta?”

  “When I was a child, back on the ship, there was a family that all died violent deaths. The older children said it was vikah ta. How do you know about it?”

  “Years ago, back when that first crop of Newcomers graduated the academy, I had a probie named Francisco. His second week out with me as his T.O. and we stumble into a shit storm. It was a federal fubar operation and the FBI was everywhere except where they were supposed to be. So we had three Newcomers who’re making off with the contents of a Wells Fargo car, no backup; zip. Francisco knew the perps from the ship and tried to talk ’em, but they came back with lead. I got dropped, Dak and Fangan were wounded, and the third one, Dak’s brother, was killed. We took ’em in, they swore the vikah ta on us, and that was about it.”

  “Did you do any of the shooting?”

  Duncan shook his head. “Couldn’t. I got a slug through my wrist before I could get off a shot. Francisco took ’em all down. Let me tell you, that boy could shoot. Top of his class, you know.”

  “That Francisco? Samuel Francisco?”

  A slightly pained look flitted across Duncan’s face. “Yeah, but he changed his name to George. Why? You hear about him?”

  “Sure. He was the first Newcomer to make detective. You were his T.O.?”

  “That’s right.”

  Ruma smiled and looked back at the street. “You’re a fraud, Officer Duncan.”

  “What?”

  “You’re a fraud, a fake, the original three-dollar bill You’re a complete failure as a racist, sexist monster. You sound as though you’re proud of Francisco, filthy rubberheaded slag that he is.”

  Duncan cocked his head to one side and held up a hand, dropping it back to the steering wheel. “Well, hell, he saved my life. For someone who’s really desperate, that’s worth something. Maybe I am a little proud of him. But don’t kid yourself, Kavit. I am one of the big haters of the universe. Maybe I’m proud of a slag cop, but I wouldn’t let my daughter marry one, if I had a daughter and believed in marriage.” He moved the cigar from one side of his mouth to the other as he gave Ruma Kavit a long, vertical leer. “I might marry one myself, though. For a bald space-freak cop with tits, you’re not bad. A wig on you and a couple shots of Right Guard for me and we could get it on.”

  “You better stop smoking that stuff, Duncan. It’s burning a hole in your reality pan. A dead skunk couldn’t kill the stink of that after-shave.” She nodded toward her T.O. and asked, “Did you ever tell Francisco you were proud of him?”

  “What? Francisco? Hell, no!” Duncan’s eyebrows were arched in shock at the suggestion. “I wanted him to learn cops, not kiss me.” He pulled the black-and-white over to the curb and stopped. Pointing with his cigar toward a news and smoke shop, he asked, “Got a brand?”

  “What? Tobacco?” Ruma’s eyebrows went up. “You really want a probie who stutters so bad she can’t make a radio call?”

  “Sorry. I forgot. How ’bout some otter noses or maggot muffins? They got all kinds of rubberhead snacks.”

  “Eye of newt, toe of frog?”

  Duncan laughed and nodded. “Okay, okay. Serious, though. They have Tenct snacks.”

  “I have to watch my waistline, but thanks.”

  “I don’t worry about my waistline.”

  “I noticed.”

  “Okay. Keep an ear open for the radio.”

  Duncan took his hat and baton, opened the door, walked around the car, and crossed the sidewalk into the smoke shop. Ruma listened to the radio calls and shook her head at her inability to pick out the call signs. It seemed like so much gibberish. She looked at the 3-A-14 she had scribbled at the top of her note pad and allowed herself a tiny feeling of victory. She had a lot to learn, but Bill Duncan had a lot to teach. In his own way, the slag-hating terror of the University Division was treating her like a cop; not an equal, but a student worthy of being taught. There would be, should she choose, even a free cigar or bag of otter noses now and then. It was going to be all right.

  “Three-A-Fourteen, Three-A-Fourteen, see the man—”

  “Duncan!” she yelled out the window as she scribbled down the Western Avenue address. “Duncan! We have a call! Duncan!” When there was no response from the smoke shop’s open door, she reached over and blew the horn. She debated touching off the siren, but there was a directive restricting the gratuitous use of sirens for anything other than moving through traffic at speeds higher than the posted limit. She rogered the call, stepped out onto the sidewalk, and ran the eight steps to the door of the smoke shop. “Duncan? Duncan! We have a call.”

  She stepped into the shop, the rich aromatic tobaccos making the air thick and close. Duncan was standing before the counter at the far end of the narrow shop, his back toward the door. “Hey, Duncan!” she shouted.

  Bill Duncan turned, pulled his weapon, took aim, and fired three rounds in rapid succession at Kavit. The first shot whizzed past her head, while the second went through the fleshy part of her left upper arm. As she leaped behind a display shelf filled with porcelain figurines, the third shot went through the open door and hit the black-and-white’s windshield, shattering it.

  By the time she had her weapon out, a fourth shot exploded one of the porcelain figurines, dusting her dark blue shirt with white powder. “Duncan, what in the hell is wrong with you?” she shouted. A fifth shot went through the shelf and struck her in the front of her left thigh, making her cry out. She returned fire, rolled to her right, came to a kneeling position and fired again. The gun dropped from Bill Duncan’s hand as he teetered in place, then fell facedown on the green-tiled floor.

  Ruma slumped to her right side as the pain in her left leg forced her to cry out. She placed her weapon on the floor and reached to place her hand over the wound to stop the bleeding.

  “Are you all right?” asked a male voice from the open door.

  “Check my partner,” she gasped as she closed her eyes. There wasn’t much she could do about anything right then. Someone else would have to take care of things. But what in the hell had gotten into Duncan?

  “I’m afraid you’ve killed him, Officer Kavit.” The man pronounced the name correctly. Ruma opened her eyes to narrow slits and saw that the good citizen was a Tenctonese male in his early sixties. She was about to explain the curious-Iooking circumstances when she saw something silver flash in front of her eyes.

  “It really was terribly inconvenient of you to kill Officer Duncan. He figured rather prominently in my plans. Now you’ll have to take his place.”

  “Take his place?” She frowned, unable to comprehend what the man was saying. Dimly, awareness fought its way through her pain. “Dak.” She reached for her weapon, but it was no longer next to her on the floor. “Maanka Dak.” He removed her handcuffs from her belt and cuffed her hands none too gently behind her back.

  Dak pulled her down and cradled Ruma Kavit’s head on his lap, steadying it, and said, “Now this is going to be a little uncomfortable.” First she felt a pin prick above her left eyelid, then her entire being exploded in electric shocks. Then nothing.

  C H A P T E R 1 5

  LATER THAT NIGHT Cathy Frankel stretched out in the strange bed and looked past the back of Matt Sikes’s head at the hotel room’s alarm clock. The yellow numbers showed the time to be just after ten at night. She listened carefully and could hear Matt’s breathing between the roars of the planes going in and out of LAX. He wasn’t asleep. Her left hand reached out and her fingers traced down his spine to his taiibone.

  “That doesn’t work the same on humans as it does on Newcomers,” Matt grumped.

  “I wasn’t doing it for you, honey bumps. I was doing it for me.”

  “Honey bumps?”

  “Yes. It’s a
term of endearment.” She leaned over, molded the arc of her body against his, pressed her naked breasts against his back, and nibbled at his ear.

  Matt shook his head, rolling it on his pillow. “Not for me it isn’t. Not honey bumps, sweetums, pookie, pumpkin, thunder thighs, or huggy bear.”

  Cathy froze, sat up, and held the covers to her breast. “Look Matt, if you’re worried about George, why don’t you call him?”

  “Who said I’m worried about George?”

  “In about fourteen hundred different ways, you did. Give him a call. Once you find out that he’s all right, you’ll be able to relax.”

  Matt pounded his pillows, sat up with his back against them, and ground the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I can’t call him. There’s a communications blackout. Maanka Dak’s computer mania has everybody spooked.”

  “What’s the point of the blackout, Matt? It’s no secret where George’s home is.”

  Matt lowered his hands. “It’s still a secret where we are: you and me. It’s a secret, unless Dak put a bug in a cop’s head outside the door or down at the command center.”

  “Is that really likely?”

  “The computer geeks Grazer called in seem to think that Maanka Dak is capable of anything down to and including walking through walls. They say he wiped his records from the police, Justice Department, and federal court computers and from the computer at China Lake. Not just the working files, but all of the backups too. How could he do that with just a lousy little portable?”

  “I don’t know.” Cathy pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them as she frowned at the question.

  “All we have on the bastard right now are a few notes found in the back of Warden Rand’s desk and whatever the individuals who knew the clown can remember about him. Most of them are cons and they’re not real cooperative. The electronics and computer instructors at China Lake’s vocational rehab unit are sure impressed with Dak. There’s also a Dr. Carrie Norcross, a neurosurgeon. There was some correspondence with her concerning Dak on Rand’s desk. Grazer’s trying to track her down. She seems to think Maanka Dak is some kind of technomedical genius.”

  “He is.”

  Matt turned his head and frowned at Cathy. “You knew him? Back on the ship?”

  “Not well, but I knew him. He was a technician in the ship’s biological maintenance unit.”

  “Where you were assigned?”

  “Yes, but my assignment was in a different area, caring for children. Dak was assigned to surgery and later to pain administration.”

  “Pain administration?”

  She nodded and stared into the dark. “After our slave transport unit was removed from Planet Itri Yi, Maanka Dak was one of several technicians assigned the task of programming and implanting the neural control modules the Overseers received from the Niyez.”

  “What about his buddy, Sing Fangan?”

  “He was another, and Maanka’s brother Sita too. The remaining technicians were killed in the crash.”

  “Go ahead. You were saying about Dak.”

  “Maanka Dak was as hated as any Overseer. The modules were used to control those men and women who couldn’t be controlled chemically. They were also used for punishment. Indescribable punishment. What’s the worst pain you ever had, Matt? When you were shot in that arrest attempt last year?”

  Sikes instinctively placed the palm of his hand on his right side, above his hip. He shrugged and then shook his head. “That hurt. It hurt a lot. To tell you the truth, though, that didn’t hurt half as much as an abscessed tooth I once had. I was a week into the wilderness and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it for days. That really brought me to my knees—or to the dentist, which is about the same. Why?”

  “The frightening thing, Matt, is that it wasn’t your abscessed tooth that was doing the hurting.”

  “It sure seemed like it was hurting.”

  “Matt, if I have complete control of your mind, I have complete control of your pain. Pain is not in your side or in your teeth. Pain is in the brain. You see, with a neural controller implanted in your brain, an experienced operator could give you the pain of that abscessed tooth, or the pain of thirty-two abscessed teeth, or a thousand abscessed teeth, if he wanted.”

  “Okay, I get the picture.”

  “I always wondered why the Ahvin Yin didn’t execute Maanka Dak until I found out he was the organization’s leader.”

  “What better cover for a resistance leader than being part of the problem?”

  Cathy reached out her hand and placed it upon Matt’s shoulder. “Look, you could call the command center and ask them to call George, couldn’t you? That wouldn’t give Dak anything he could use to find us.”

  Matt frowned, thought upon it, and frowned again. “Damned Maanka Dak has me spooked too.” He gave a grudging nod. “Okay. That sounds good. I mean, he can’t be everywhere, can he? He’s only got two ears and there must be fifty lines going into the command center.” He reached to the telephone, picked up the handset, and punched in a number. Cathy slid down in between the covers and listened as a slight panicky feeling teased at the back of her mind.

  Although she hadn’t known Dak well, she remembered him very well. Brilliant, yes, but cold, emotionless, devoid of compassion. At least, that was what everyone had thought. He was almost under the control of one of his own implants, with all feeling pegged to the dead side. Cathy hadn’t known him well because no one had known him well.

  “What the devil?” Matt said as he looked at the handset, then he nodded. “Hello? Hey! Yeah, hello. Good. Lost you for a second. Yeah. Look, this is Sikes. Detective Sergeant Matt Sikes. I want to talk to Captain Grazer, Lieutenant Yamato, or whoever’s running the command center. That’s right: track-a-Dak.” He glanced at Cathy and covered the mouthpiece. “I got ’em.”

  Cathy nodded absentmindedly as she allowed the panicky feeling to fill her. As Matt talked, the feeling within her grew until it was overwhelming. At the center of her panic was the look in Maanka Dak’s eyes.

  It had always bothered her, that look. Every slave on the ship had a look, but the look was different. Usually it was a dull, beaten look; a visible sign of passive resignation. If not that dullness, the look was one of fear. Yet Maanka Dak never had either look. He always appeared as though nothing could touch him. It wasn’t that he was in control. It was just that nothing could touch him. The hammer would come down, as it always had come down, and men and women would be crushed. The look in Maanka’s eyes said, however, that Maanka Dak was not going to be one of them. It was not a desperate boast or an article of faith; it was a known of the universe. His look back then had frightened her. The memory of that look still frightened her.

  Matt punched off the phone and placed it on the nightstand. “I talked to Bradley. He’s running the command post tonight.” He turned and faced Cathy. “George’s okay. The whole block is blue with officers, uniforms and plainclothes both. Bradley says nothing larger than a flea can get through. Susan, Emily, and Vessna are hidden away too.”

  “What about Buck? Have they located him?”

  “Not yet. All of the officers on George’s house are on the lookout for him, though.”

  Cathy studied Matt’s eyes. As he turned away, she asked, “What is it?”

  “Nothing.”

  “A big something, your nothing.”

  He turned back and shrugged as he faced her. “I mean it might be nothing. Bradley told me an officer named Bill Duncan was killed late this afternoon in a shop on Jefferson. The owner of the shop was killed too. Duncan used to be George’s training officer.”

  “Is there a connection to Maanka Dak?”

  Matt nodded. “When George tangled with Dak and killed his brother, he was with Duncan.”

  “There’s more, Matt. I can see it in your face.”

  Sikes scratched the back of his neck and bit at the skin of his lower lip. “Duncan had a tiny wound above his left eye, just like Mark Diaz and War
den Rand.”

  “But you said he’s dead.”

  Matt nodded. “Yeah. There’s another thing too. Duncan’s probationer, a Newcomer named Kavit, is missing. They went out together and no one’s been able to track her down. I figure it’s a good bet that Maanka Dak has her and she has one of those gadgets stuck in her head.” He looked into Cathy’s eyes. “All those cops around George’s house; she wouldn’t exactly stand out in a crowd like that.” He swung his feet to the floor, reached for his clothes and began putting them on.

  “You’re not going to George’s.”

  “Bad guess.”

  Cathy tugged on his arm. “The task force knows about this missing officer, doesn’t it? They’ll be on guard for her.”

  “Who is they? What about the other officers, Cath? All that bastard has to do is get someone alone for a minute and he has himself another gun. Any of the officers guarding George could be next. Hell, for all I know, Bradley down at the command center has a plug in his head.” He shook his head as he stood and pulled on his jeans. “I can’t trust anybody. George is my partner; my friend. To the task force, George is just a slab of bait.”

  He picked up his joggers, walked to the window and peeked through the blinds as he pulled on his foot gear. “Look at ’em. Our own cops already have the yawns. I should be able to get by them without much trouble.”

  “Matt?”

  “What?”

  “Did you hear what you just said?”

  “Yes.” He pulled on his shirt and looked through the blinds once more. A palm tree, its fronds motionless in the dead-still air, stood out blackly against the motel’s floodlighted pink stucco exterior. A figure was poorly concealed by the shaggy trunk. Sikes shook his head as the shadowy figure lit up a cigarette and loosed a cloud of tobacco smoke. “It’s like going after Professor Moriarty with the Keystone Kops.”

  Cathy rose from the bed, walked around it and stood in the dark behind Matt. “Don’t go. Please. I’m afraid.”

  He tucked in his shirt, checked and holstered his weapon, and pulled on his jacket. “I’ll get word to you as soon as I can. Don’t let anyone in.” He turned, put his arms around her, and whispered into her ear fold, “It’d take someone a lot braver than me to sit here and just wait. I gotta go.”