Who Hunts the Hunter Page 20

  “Well,” Hills says, “corporations do go out of business."

  "Every corp that sold us one of the unaccounted-for items? That seems a bit coincidental.”

  Hill rubs at his brow. His aura shows that he’s somewhat more disturbed than before."Excuse me if I fail to grasp all the intricacies of this,” he says."But let me point out that, as you know, some of the materials we buy originate with, well ... unusual sources. Some of the people and corps we buy from are only in business long enough to market a limited quantity of a particular substance, then they move on to other things.”

  “Perhaps you refer to shadowrunners,” Bandit says.

  Hill hesitates."I’m not sure what you mean."

  "Shadowrunners have been known to market limited quantities of merchandise, then move on to other things.” Hill’s disturbance increases. His face seems paler than before. He sneezes, or coughs; one or possibly both."Damn allergies,” he says. He looks to Bandit, and says, “Well ... I’m sure Ms. Berman’s people make every effort to be sure we only buy from legal sources.”

  “Yes, we do,” Amy says."Prospective vendors are routinely investigated. What concerns me is the possibility that those investigations may have been a little too routine, and that we’ve paid out money to corps that exist only in name."

  "But if we received the actual merchandise ...”

  “I’m not so certain that we did. If our records of payment are wrong, our receiving records could be inaccurate as well. And if something fraudulent is going on, it’s entirely possible that whoever’s responsible for collecting things off the loading dock is part of it, by which I mean a paid accomplice.”

  “Don’t you think—” Abruptly, Hill turns aside in his chair, coughing harshly, like he might be choking. His face turns bright red. His aura is in turmoil.

  “Dr. Hill, are you all right?” Amy asks.

  “I’m fine,” Hill says, recovering, nodding his head."I was just going to say ...”

  “Perhaps you should explain,” Bandit says, “why you have an account with UCAS Bank. A very large account. Totaling almost three million nuyen.”

  Hill’s expression becomes composed. The reddish hue to his face fades into paleness. Yet, his aura churns with emotion. The dominant emotion seems like fear. Quietly, looking only at Amy, he says, “I wasn’t aware that an audit of Hurley-Cooper includes a detailed probe into its employees’ private finances.”

  “Ordinarily, it does not,” Bandit says.

  “Am I being accused of something, Ms. Berman?”

  Amy stares at the floor, then at Hill. Her aura shows almost as much turmoil as Hill’s."No,” she says."Let me apologize for Mr. Hatsumi’s abrupt manner. No, you’re not being accused of anything. All I’m hoping is that you can shed some light on what we’ve been talking about."

  "Including my personal finances?”

  “It’s your decision,” Amy replies. Her aura reveals her conflict, the clash between feelings of determination and softer feelings, sadness, sorrow, sympathy."As I said, no accusations have been made. I apologize if anything I’ve said or done gave you that impression. If you can tell me anything that would help clear things up I’d greatly appreciate it. So would Mr. Hatsumi.”

  “Yes,” Bandit says.

  Hill sneezes."Well,” he says, “as for the irregularities in the records, I don’t know what I could say. I don’t know anything about it. If you think there’s been some misconduct on someone’s part, then by all means it should be looked into. Personally, I find it hard to believe—”

  “So do I,” Amy says softly.

  This is really hurting her, Bandit realizes.

  Hill hesitates, glancing at Bandit, then says, “As for my account at the UCAS Bank, it’s not really my account. It’s my wife’s account. My name is on it because, well ...” Hill’s aura ripples with emotion. Fear, uncertainty."My wife is very ill. She’s not.... really capable of managing her own money. She inherited the money. It comes from a trust account that pays off in installments. My wife’s family was very well off ...”

  Amy stares, blinks her eyes. She seems astonished.

  Hill has another fit of coughing, then slowly gets to his feet."Could we continue this later? I’m not .. . feeling very well.”

  Bandit pushes his spiritual self onto the astral and follows Hill out of the lab, down the hall and into a lavatory. Hill stumbles into a booth, bends over a toilet, sneezes, grunts, and then vomits. He goes on coughing and choking for several minutes. Bandit returns to his body. Amy’s shaking his shoulder and urgently whispering his name.

  “My god!” she exclaims softly."I thought—”

  “Hill’s yarfing up his guts.”

  “Oh, god.”

  Amy’s very upset.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Bandit supposes they might just as well. They’ve found out what they most need to know. Hill’s probably guilty. His astral response to questions about the UCAS Bank account more or less proves that. He’s afraid of being revealed as a thief. Probably that stuff about his wife was a lie, too, an explanation invented on the spot, with no basis in reality. It’s in the nature of most thieves to lie, when necessary. Thieves don’t like to be caught.

  Amy leads Bandit out of Hill’s office and through the lab to the door to the hallway."Oh ... Dr. Phalen. Good morning.”

  “Good morning, my dear.”

  The slag who meets them at the doorway is tall and slim, gray-haired, and looks maybe sixty. He smiles in greeting Amy and seems very pleased to see her. Bandit takes a look at his aura. What he sees almost stops his heart.

  The aura of a magician is distinctive, immediately distinguishable from the aura of a mundane. All the more so in the case of an initiate, but an initiate can veil his aura, conceal his arcane powers and so “appear” mundane. It becomes second-nature, keeping secrets, veiling the truth. It comes without effort. Only another initiate can see through the veil.

  Bandit shifts to his astral perceptions and looks across the astral terrain at Phalen, and finds Phalen looking back at him. In that instant, Bandit sees through the veil and assenses an aura unlike any he’s ever encountered. It’s brilliant with power, more power than one man should be capable of possessing, and almost wholly devoid of emotion, like a chair or a rock or some other inanimate object. So great is Bandit’s surprise that he hesitates, captivated, before catching himself and casting a deliberate mask about his own aura.

  Almost simultaneously, Phalen’s aura is also deliberately masked, shrouded in a mundane guise that would take strong magic to penetrate. Bandit shifts back to his mundane senses. He finds Phalen gazing at him and smiling “This is Mr. Hatsumi,” Amy says."He’s with the KFK audit staff.”

  “Yes, of course,” Phalen says, still smiling."An auditor. I’m very pleased to meet you, sir.”

  “Yes,” Bandit replies."Very pleased.”

  The subtext is blatantly obvious. Phalen must know that he’s looking at a magician, maybe his equal, maybe not. Bandit wonders what the game is. What does Phalen intend?

  Phalen looks to Amy."Is there anything I can do for you, my dear?” he asks.

  “Later, perhaps,” Amy says quickly."But Dr. Hill may need some help. He ran off to the lavatory. I think he may be ill.”

  “Yes, you’re quite right,” Phalen replies. His smile turns sympathetic."I was there when he came in. The poor man hasn’t been feeling well all day. I think I may send him home.”

  Interesting.

  Phalen wasn’t there when Hill stumbled into the lavatory. Bandit was there and he saw that no one else was in the room. Why would Phalen lie about something of so little consequence?

  Could he be hiding things, too?

  48

  They’re back in the rented Toyota Elite and heading along Jerome Avenue before Amy’s heart stops pounding. She was absolutely convinced that Dr. Phalen would see right through her stupid ruse and recognize Scottie as an intruder. She’ll never do anything this ri
sky ever again! Never!

  “Hill was scared.”

  Amy glances across at Scottie. He looks as calm as a bowl of soysoup, completely unaffected."You’ve done things like this before.”

  “It’s in the nature of shadowrunning.”

  “I can’t believe we actually got out through the gate."

  "Raccoon can escape any danger. His paws are cunning, and he knows many tricks.”

  Just what she needs at a moment like this: shaman-talk. Amy hardly knows what to make of what he’s saying. She thrusts it all out of mind because this isn’t the moment for it."You said Dr. Hill was scared. What do you mean?”

  “I mean Hill was scared.”

  “Scared of what?”

  “He started feeling fear or something like fear when I asked him about the UCAS Bank account. His aura was very turbulent. He seemed disturbed from the start. I think he’s hiding things.”

  “Do you think he’s guilty of fraud?”

  “Probably.”

  “Well, was he lying?”

  “Almost definitely.”

  “Scottie ...” This is frustrating."From the way you were talking about your abilities, I thought you’d be able to tell me definitely. All you’re saying now is that Dr. Hill might be guilty of something or he might not. I knew that going in! If you can’t tell me, if you don’t know ... why did we take this risk?”

  “You’re upset.”

  “Of course I’m upset!”

  “You’re shouting.”

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry . . .”

  “Magic isn’t science,” Scottie says."Some people call it art. I could have done some things to Hill to make him give up his secrets, but that would have been dangerous.”

  “So what are you saying? Tell me again.”

  “I think Hill has things to hide. He was scared. He probably lied.”

  “So what do I do?”

  “You’re the suit. What would a suit do?”

  “Hand everything I know to the executive VP.”

  “So do that.”

  “I don’t want to do that, Scottie. I want to get to the bottom of this myself. At least I thought I did. I kept hoping that Dr. Hill would say something to clear everything up. Do you believe that story about his wife?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Amy exhales heavily, feeling not just frustrated but incredulous, too."Well, I can clear that up for you right now. It’s a lie, or a fantasy, or I don’t know what, but it isn’t the truth. Dr. Phalen’s wife is terminally ill. Dr. Hill doesn’t have a wife. He never married!”

  “You’re shouting again.”

  “I know, I know. I’m just ...”

  “How do you know Hill has no wife?”

  “It’s in the personnel files.”

  “Maybe the records are wrong.”

  Amy can’t believe that. Prospective vendors might be investigated only routinely; prospective employees are investigated in depth. Dr. Hill never had a wife. He was lying. There’s just no room for any doubt about it."No,” Amy says, shaking her head."I just can’t understand why Dr. Hill would say something like that, something so obviously false, when surely he must know that I could check it out in an instant if I didn’t already know.”

  “Maybe he couldn’t think of a better explanation.”

  What other answer could there be? The big account at the UCAS Bank is his guilty secret. He’s been skimming off Hurley-Cooper and she’s found out and now he knows that and so naturally he’s scared."I just can’t believe he’d do something like this. He’s such a nice man. He’s a respected scientist!”

  “What about Phalen?”

  “What about him?”

  “He lied, too. About being in the lavatory when Hill went there. Phalen wasn’t in the room.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Scottie’s reply is almost incomprehensible—more shaman talk. Amy struggles to understand. From what Scottie says, it sounds like he traveled out of his body somehow and followed Dr. Hill into the lavatory. That must be what happened when Scottie went as limp as wet noodles. For a moment, Amy had feared that he’d had a stroke and gone into a coma. Now it sounds like some kind of trance ...

  But what Scottie says about Dr. Phalen points out the one thing she knows for certain, the thing she’s learned, her one small payment for the risks they’ve taken. People are lying to her. There has to be a reason for that and whatever the reason is, whatever the cause, it can’t be good. Two very respectable scientists do not just start telling lies because they’re in a mood. Scientists are at least as conscious of their reputations as bankers. Saying the sky is green when in fact it’s gray or brown would only make them look foolish and that is the one thing no scientist wants.

  “I’ve got no choice,” Amy decides, at length."I’ve got to tell what I know. I’m only hurting myself if I delay any further.” The longer she waits, the more time she spends looking into this on her own, the greater the chance that she’ll be seen as an accessory or just plain incompetent.

  “Maybe I can do something,” Scottie says.

  Amy looks at him."What do you mean?”

  “Let me think about it.”

  49

  The room is rectangular, a uniform platinum gray. There are no furnishings, no pictures, no decor. No windows, no way to tell if it’s day or night, no way for Tikki to know for sure how long she’s been here. She woke up here a while ago, at least a couple of hours ago. Outside, it must be getting on toward midday. Here in this room, nothing has changed.

  The air coming in through the vent in the ceiling carries many scents. Tikki discerns the scents of many two-legs, vague and airy, as if from far away, but none that she can identify. The smell of her own frustration and outrage fills the air, gnawing at her. Like instinct gnaws at her. Battling to control her mind.

  Again, on four legs, she walks around the periphery of the room, sniffing where walls meet floor, and wondering which of the panels dividing the walls might conceal a door. Every panel is about the size of a door. Every panel looks and smells about the same. She keeps thinking that she must have missed something, some subtle clue at the very limits of her perception, but she’s been around the room more than a dozen times already and discovered nothing new.

  One thing is clear: the elf O’Keefe was here. He and one of his female accomplices—not Shaver, Whistle. This tells her that O’Keefe played a part in bringing her here, as if she didn’t already know. The thought brings a discontented rumbling into her breath. She would like to drag her claws through O’Keefe’s face, down through his chest and belly, and keep tearing at him till only shredded meat remains. She would like to make him die very slowly. Slowly and with much pain.

  How does she get out of this place, this cell? That thought has monopolized her attention. She tried the obvious approach. She hurled herself bodily at the walls till cartilage crackled and bones snapped and finally pain conquered instinct, persuading her that brute force alone would earn her nothing, not now, anyway. She managed to dent one of the wall panels and scraped shick out of the floor—that’s all. Not worth the price in blood.

  Now, she sits with her back to one of the shorter walls, and she thinks some more. Where is she? Why is she here? What comes next? Maybe the idea is to keep her here till she starves to death. That doesn’t make much sense, but with two-legs, who knows? With two-legged elves involved, anything’s possible.

  There must be a way out of this.

  Something above her hums. She looks. A voice comes from the ceiling, a strange computer-modulated voice, neither male nor female."I know what you are,” it says."And I know who you are. And now you’re going to pay.”

  What is this ...

  The words are hollow, a meaningless threat. It’s the voice that incites Tikki to anger. The thought of some two-leg speaking to her from the safety of another room arouses her rage. She bares her fangs and roars and batters the walls with her paws. If the creature wants to speak to her, let it come and fac
e her. She may be confined for the moment, but she is far from helpless and she will face any creature, two-leg or four, with just the weapons nature has provided her. What she will not do is listen to two-leg noise.

  She fills the room with her own voice, her fury, her menace, her promise to exact a savage vengeance for this outrage—roaring louder and louder—till the voice from the ceiling finally stops.

  The silence that follows is more easily endured.

  50

  The first indication Harman has that something is amiss comes when he feels a stinging at the nape of his neck.

  He lifts a hand, and suddenly everything gets very dark.

  Then, he’s sitting in a chair, a very rigid, uncomfortable chair that seems to have no cushions. It’s a macroplast chair with arms, and, for some reason, he can’t move. He’s several moments struggling with that, trying to lift his hands to rub his eyes. He feels like he’s just woken up, but that cannot be. The morning’s already past. He was just heading out to lunch when ... when ...

  Harman pulls his head upright. He’s sitting in a small, dark, sparsely furnished room with no windows. He can’t move because his wrists and possibly his ankles too are wrapped with thick black straps and fastened tightly to the chair. Another strap rings his chest. What the hell is going on? This is intolerable.

  A door opens on his right. A stocky Asian male with eyes like gleaming black marble enters, then steps around to face Harman directly. This man is accompanied by an Anglo male with facial features of a vulpine cast. The Asian looks young; the Anglo a well-kept middle-age. Both wear suits and cool expressions.

  “Who the devil are you?” Harman inquires."Release me!”

  “That’s not possible,” the Anglo replies.

  “What the frag do you think you’re doing?”

  “Only what’s necessary,” the Anglo says."You may call me Neil, Mr. Franck-Natali. May I call you Harman?”