Alien Nation #4 - The Change Read online

  He held up a mental finger and corrected himself. The colors were real. They were symptoms of a real biological condition. Seeing the colors, however, didn’t make Buck purple and Molly red and gold. Seeing things for what they are and accepting that it is so. Wisdom. The solution to every problem in the world; every problem in the universe.

  Was wisdom a skill of Maanka Dak’s? Could he see things for what they are and accept that it is so? George slowly shook his head as a wealth of answers flooded his mind. He knew that from that exact moment he would never see things exactly the same way again. The Buck he knew a few minutes ago was in the process of being replaced by an entirely new being, one who could see other beings without their destructive, meaningless labels. From moment to moment it was all changing, growing, becoming what the universe allowed. Everything was changing save Maanka Dak, and that was Dak’s flaw.

  George’s attention came back to the present moment when he saw another person, a Tenctonese man, walk up to Buck and Molly. He seemed very familiar.

  “Who’s that?” the Hila asked.

  The man held out his left arm, and George started at the tattoo surrounding his wrist. “Overseer!” George whispered. He looked at Malcolm Bone and smiled sheepishly as he said, “I may have some more work to do on the flower and the weed.”

  “We all do, brother.” Malcolm nodded toward the garden. “Who is he?”

  George studied the Overseer from his natty gray suit to his bracelet tattoo. The man’s face showed no emotion, and possibly his being contained none. “His name’s Iniko. Paul Iniko. He works for the FBI and was at the autopsy trying to limit the number of witnesses.” George shifted his gaze to Malcolm Bone. “In answer to your question, Hila, I don’t know who he is. Not yet.”

  C H A P T E R 2 3

  THAT NIGHT MAANKA Dak sat in the back of the van, routing calls through the police command center, responding to orders, and issuing a few orders of his own, all with voices synthesized from the voice prints of their owners. The city was a vast chessboard, and Maanka the master, playing both sides of the deadly game.

  Thorough revenge.

  In his vikah ta Dak had yet to settle which was more important: killing Stangya and his memory, or making Stangya wait for it, knowing that the fact, as well as the moment, of his death was within Maanka’s power. On the one hand he entertained the staff of the command center, duping them into believing their orders were being carried out. On the other hand, he moved about the pieces in the field, directing force and skill into wells of impotence.

  Yet Carrie Norcross, with her petty privileges and nonbinding promises, presumed that she controlled him. Up until Maanka Dak, all authority understood was control. But control of any kind over Maanka Dak was rank fantasy. It was Maanka who was in control, who had always been in control, and who would continue in control until the death of all authority.

  At precisely 10:05 P.M., however, the incoming calls ceased. In addition, none of Maanka’s outgoing calls originating at the van could make a connection. Nothing worked. It was as though the entire universe of semiconductor theory had been proven false and every microchip in L.A. had pulled up its own pins and had withered away.

  Another player had entered the game.

  Maanka smiled. The new player had discovered his transceiver control package. That was all. “But one control does not a redundancy make,” he sang to a Gilbert and Sullivan tune.

  He pressed the voice delay. “I do believe that pulls the plug on the evil Maanka Dak,” he said into the voice pickup mounted on his collar. Captain Grazer’s voice came from a sound column, saying, “I do believe that pulls the plug on the evil Maanka Dak.” Maanka grinned and turned to face the computer. The screen still had a spot of Brick Wahl’s blood on it. He hadn’t noticed that before. He licked the tip of a finger and wiped off the blood.

  Placing his fingertips upon the keyboard, he gave the command to engage the backup control he had installed at the command center.

  A warning prompt at the bottom of the screen flashed. The control would not engage. Maanka tried the command twice more before he leaned back against the inside wall of the van and frowned.

  “They couldn’t have found the backup,” he whispered.

  Most of the control had been software hidden in the operating programs. The receiver and engagement control was one of the reprogrammed Niyezian implants, barely the size of a clipped nose hair. It gave off no measurable energy emissions, and had been inserted beneath the edge of some tape that had been holding a sheet of typed instructions onto the central processing unit. It simply couldn’t be found unless one knew exactly where to search and exactly what the object of the search looked like. Maanka Dak was the only one who knew that.

  What else? All of the equipment replaced?

  Why? For what reason?

  His eyes studied the banks of lights and dials he had assembled from Radio Shack, industrial electronics, and telecommunications warehouses he had broken into. “Very well. No need to panic. Perhaps the other side has finally put someone competent on the team.”

  Maanka could feel his blood quicken. A challenge to his intellect of any kind was so rare, and he did so enjoy a true challenge. It could have only one possible outcome, but it was more exhilarating to track and chase the quarry through difficult terrain before killing it than simply dropping it in a zoo.

  “I am the hunter,” he said as he punched buttons on his keyboard, attempting to slave the video monitors at the center. “Where are you, little wabbit? Wubberhead Fudd has something for you.”

  None of his taps into the video monitor feed at the command center were operative. They not only wouldn’t respond to being controlled, they didn’t even indicate that they were there.

  A power failure?

  A power failure didn’t make much sense, Maanka thought. Something as important as a police facility should have a backup generator. “Still, authority is just another way of saying a mind is a terrible thing to waste.” A power failure was a possibility.

  He did have audio monitors that were battery operated. He tried one, then the next. The one on Francisco’s desk was dead, as was the one he had planted in Captain Grazer’s command terminal. There was another battery-powered audio monitor, however. A bug he had placed in a light fixture above the command terminal. He punched in the command to activate it, and was surprised to find himself relieved that it, at least, still worked.

  “—don’t know, J.J. It sure looked to Officer Toledano like you were ripping off that appliance store. Now, maybe he was jumping to conclusions. You looked suspicious, though.”

  “Suspicious, hell. I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. Suspicious.”

  “Well, man, you were running down the street with a double armload of high definition TV. See what I mean?”

  “No. You tell me.”

  “See, it wasn’t like you had a flag or a sign protesting the oppression of the masses.”

  “Climb outta my face, Tom boy. I was makin’ a political statement. You know what whitey’s been doin’ for the last four hundred years. I’m just gettin’ a little back for the brothers, see?”

  “Four hundred years, man?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You don’t look that old, J.J.”

  “Man, don’t give me this shit. If your great-granddaddy raped my great-grandmama, the guilt’s yours! You hear me?”

  “Not under this country’s constitution, Spartacus.” There was the sound of a chair being pulled out. “J.J., J.J.”

  “Don’t call me J.J. My name’s Jamil Jafar!”

  “Ah, J.J., J.J. We searched your apartment, J.J. You been makin’ a lot of political statements lately, haven’t you? You just about nailed Simon Legree’s hide to the wall with this haul.” There was the crackle of pages being turned. “Twenty-three color televisions, forty-four VCRs in their original packing boxes, sixteen microwave ovens, eleven laptop computers . . . Fifty gift sets of the Alien trilogy? You got a thing
for Sigourney Weaver, J.J., or do you like ’em gray, slimy, and full of drool—”

  Maanka Dak shut off the sound and continued staring at the paddle switch he had just thrown. The command center had been set up in an interrogation room. The evidence seemed to support that it was an interrogation room once again. That, however, made absolutely no sense whatever. He threw the switch on again.

  “—the oppression of the people’s all the justification I need, man. Now, I don’t wanna say nothin’ more till my lawyer gets here.”

  “J.J., J.J.—”

  Once more Maanka turned off the switch. The command center must have been moved. But it would have to be set up with all new equipment. Had it been done without notifying any of the principals? Perhaps they had done it outside the command net. Perhaps the police really had put someone on the job who knew what he was doing.

  They had discovered he controlled the center. Did they know how far-reaching his control was? Where was the new center? It couldn’t have been set up with all new personnel. At the very least, someone from the previous center had to be there to brief the new team.

  Wheels turned and connections were made as Maanka’s mind pieced together a counter plan at top speed. He reached out his hand and switched the function of the voice synthesizer to voice-print matching. He had the voice prints of all three shifts of cops that worked out of the command center and every principal connected with his escape, the massacres on Soto and Wilshire, and the family, friends, associates, and acquaintances of George Francisco.

  His fingers flew over the keyboard as he entered the commands to begin a print search of the phone lines of the likely divisions. Enough voice identifications and routes would show a pattern pointing right at the new location of the command center, unless the new opposition was very sophisticated indeed.

  On his screen, print identifications slowly began registering: Bradley was calling someone. Watkins, Rolfe, Yamato. It was late. The second team was on. Except there were problems with the call origins and destinations. Lieutenant Yamato’s call had originated at University Division. The call he made was to a number in El Centro. Police line, official call, absolutely nothing to do with the command center. Dak punched the keys and called up the data on the Watkins print.

  Sergeant Watkins had called from a phone box. He was back on the streets in Hollenbeck. The call was to his watch commander.

  Sergeant Rolfe was back with the SWATs. His call had been to his own home. Lieutenant Bradley from homicide also called home.

  Dak frowned as he continued the search. There were three more calls: Weyl, Llada, and Macdonald. Weyl was back in University Division making a call to the airport. Llada, calling his home from the Hollenbeck station, was still on the line. Maanka cut in and listened.

  “—call, Rafael?”

  “Lisa, Lisa! I got the transfer to West Hollywood!”

  Thence emanated from Lisa Llada a high, ear-piercing scream that would have dogs and bats for a six-block radius calling their therapists. “We can get it, then, the house in Santa Monica! Right?”

  “Right, baby! We are on our way to the ocean!”

  Another bat-shattering scream and Maanka cut off the switch. He sat there for a moment, staring at the sound column. “What in the hell is going on?” he muttered. He reached out, switched the call selector, and flipped on the monitor.

  Macdonald was still on the line, waiting for the results from the lab on some suspected cocaine nabbed in a bust outside the police station on First and St. Louis.

  A strange feeling ate at Maanka’s stomach. It was a eccentric feeling, something akin to what he always imagined fear to be like. He switched the selector to another line. Lieutenant Yamato was calling El Centro again, and Maanka cut in to listen to the call.

  “—to catch you in, Chief. Look, we’re trying to get a line on a perp named Rico Fontana, five-foot-seven, a hundred and twenty soaking wet, brown and black. He’s an alky with a child-molesting rap sheet down to his ankles. He’s on the computer, and I faxed his face and specs down to your Sergeant Rayburn. We’ve gotten word he might be in your area.”

  “I got the fax, Lieutenant,” came the voice from El Centro. “Ugly dude. What’s the warrant?”

  “Rico’s graduated to the big time, Chief. Murder uno.”

  “We don’t have him, but I’ll pass this around, Lieutenant, and—”

  Maanka cut off the switch and glowered at the screen before him. Had they scripted out an enormous citywide charade—statewide charade—to trap him? Had they set up an entirely new command center manned with entirely different personnel? It would have to use all new equipment and be in a different location, but that would answer it all.

  There was another print ID on the screen, Captain Bryon Grazer. Whatever was going on, he’d have to be connected with it. The call was from Grazer’s home in South Pasadena to an address on Mission. Maanka selected the call and switched on the audio monitor.

  “—any pumpkin ice cream?”

  “Pumpkin?”

  “Pumpkin ice cream,” Grazer pleaded. “It tastes just like pumpkin pie. I have to get some.”

  “I never heard of pumpkin ice cream. If the stuff tastes like pumpkin pie, why not get your wife a pumpkin pie?”

  “Pumpkin pie?”

  “Yeah, you said it tastes like pumpkin pie. Why not get your old lady a pumpkin pie?”

  “I don’t get her goddamned pumpkin pie instead of pumpkin ice cream, you dip, for the same goddamned reason that you buy cherry ice cream when you want cherry ice cream instead of goddamned cherry pie! And let me tell—”

  Maanka cut off the switch and frowned. How long could everyone keep up the act? But then, perhaps it was no act. If that were so . . .

  Maanka smiled thinly as he activated one of his remote telephone transceivers and switched back to the voice synthesizer, disguising his own voice print. He dialed the COP FINK number, energized his trace detector, and punched his elapsed time meter.

  “Perhaps it’s time to dangle some bait,” he whispered.

  “LAPD Hotline,” answered a voice after the third ring. Three rings was just the right amount of time not to appear too eager; not to appear too obviously unconcerned. Maanka wondered if somewhere there was a federally funded study on how long to wait upon answering a suspect’s telephone call to produce what effect.

  “Yes,” he said into his collar pickup. “My name is Norman Lewis. I have some important information concerning the mass killings on Wilshire and on Soto. Could you connect me with the proper authorities?”

  “One moment.”

  No click, no hum, no reverb vibrations. The trace detector worked both ways: catching the attempt to trace him and allowing him to trace anyone on the other end of the line. It worked very well at detecting taps too. COP FINK recorded all of its incoming calls for insurance reasons, the same as did all emergency services. “That’s right, friends,” said Maanka to himself, “sixty-four cents out of every tax dollar goes to a lawyer.”

  He could hear the hollow rattle of a keyboard being punched as he hummed another line from his prison composition, “Kill a Lawyer for Jesus.”

  Funny how that had worked out when Rand freaked in the Bucky McBeaver’s. “Kill a lawyer for Jesus!” he had screamed, making the patrons scream with him. “Kill a lawyer for Jesus.”

  According to the news, he had started a movement. Supposedly there were men and women picketing in Sacramento carrying Kill a Lawyer for Jesus signs.

  The COP FINK voice came back with, “Neither one of those cases have special lines, sir. Our records show that both of those investigations have been dropped in grade. No special command center or task force. In such cases, any follow-up would be handled by homicide or the division in which the incident occurred. If you have something to add to either investigation, I can give you the number of the appropriate divisions, or I can take the information myself. Whatever you prefer, sir.”

  Maanka frowned, trying to anticipate his opponent�
��s next step. Actually, he was attempting to anticipate his opponent’s anticipation of his next step. “Perhaps the people I want are listed differently,” he said at last. “Is there a command center organized to apprehend Maanka Dak, an escapee from China Lake? The information I have relates to his location.”

  “One moment.” Again the sounds of fingertips working a keyboard. A pause, a small curse, another pause. “How do you spell that?”

  Maanka spelled his own name and checked the trace detector. Nothing was being run on the line. At least, it was nothing he could detect.

  “I’m sorry, sir. There is no Maanka Dak on our register, not with that spelling, at least.”

  “I said he escaped from China Lake.”

  “Let me check the federal register.” More keys being punched, more delay, very skillful. Still the trace detector showed nothing. Yet no one knew better than Maanka that any electronic measure was little more than an invitation to a future countermeasure, which was in turn an invitation to still another countermeasure.

  He rose from his seat, poked his head through the blackout curtain to the cab and examined the dark service alley. He could see the wrapped remains of the two winos he had killed for reasons of privacy. There were no flashing lights, no indications from the motion detectors mounted on the outside of the van. He heard the telephone operator burst out with an involuntary laugh, and he pulled his head back through the curtain.

  “Mr. Lewis?” the operator said.

  “Yes?”

  “According to our records, Mr. Lewis, Maanka Dak, also known as Pete Moss—” She gasped another laugh. “Sorry. He was a federal prisoner. So he’d fall under the jurisdiction of the federal authorities. Would you like me to give you the number of the Justice Department?”

  “No. Thank you.”

  He cut off the connection and stared with hatred at the sound column. Pete Moss. The name still rankled. What a strange person Tom Rand had been to insist that all of his Tenctonese prisoners use their Tenctonese names.