36
GOMEZ’S LATEST RENTED skycar came without intrusive commercials. Whistling “Cielito Lindo” with his tongue pressed against his upper teeth, the curlyhaired detective was piloting it over the hills surrounding Chattanooga. Spotting his destination, he tapped out a landing pattern.
The skyblue cruiser dropped gracefully down through the sunny afternoon, settling to a gentle landing in a woodland clearing. At the far side of the glade stood a parked two-story mobile home. It was painted in camouflage colors.
When Gomez tried to disembark, he discovered his doors wouldn’t open. “Hey, qué pasa?”
The dash voxbox spoke. “Who the frak are you?”
“This is my own rental asking me that?”
“C’mon, c’mon, dimbulb, answer up.”
“I’m Sid Gomez of the Cosmos Detective Agency. Is this Arlo Harmon?”
“Would Arlo Harmon go around with a voice like an aluminum cockatoo? Stop gabbing and answer the questions, huh? What’s your business here?”
“I arranged a meeting with Harmon. I want to hire Cyberwacky Services, Ltd.”
“What was the agreed on fee?”
“Two thousand dollars, which is a hell of a—”
“No, nope. You got that wrong, fella.”
“I never get a fee wrong. I agreed to pay Cyberwacky the sum of—”
“It’s 2,500 dollars in front,” said the voxbox. “Otherwise, junior, you can fly your woebegone butt right on out of this sylvan setting.”
Gomez leaned back in his seat, poking his tongue into his cheek. Narrowing his eyes, he looked out at the trees surrounding him. Most of them were real, mixed with only a few holoprojections. Finally he said, “Two thousand five hundred dollars it is. Provided Cyberwacky can do exactly what I have in mind.”
“Cyberwacky Services, Ltd. can do any darn thing you can think of, dimwit. C’mon in, kiddo. And wipe your feet on the doormat.”
The car let him get out.
DR. VINCENT CHEN said, “I suppose I do owe you a small favor, Jake.”
His private office was large, with a wide window giving a view of a bright, secure section of the Miami Enclave. There was no desk and Jake was in an armchair facing the psychiatrist’s armchair. “I need a fairly large one, Vince.”
“When we were both cops in SoCal, you did … Excuse me a second.” He picked up the lap phone from the floor beside him. “Yes? Dr. Chen here.”
The phone had an earbug, so Jake didn’t hear the other side of the conversation. He turned to watch a row of shimmering palm trees out on the street.
“His brain implant monitor ought to be functioning perfectly by now, Mrs. Henzler.… Suicidal? No, that’s not a common side effect.… Yes, of course. Talk to Nurse Gallardo about getting him in to see me early next week.… I understand, yes, but we don’t have a thing earlier.… Fine, goodbye.” He dropped the phone to the floor. “Now, Jake, explain this to me.”
“I have to get in and out of the Bergstrom Clinic,” he said. “Safely.”
“Very exclusive place, all kinds of tough security.” Chen rubbed his palm down across his face. “They run a … Excuse me a second. Hello? Dr. Chen here.… Moodjax should be helping you already, sir.… Sui cidal? Well, maybe I better switch you to Calmtex.… No, I don’t think you need an implanted monitor just yet.… I’ll contact your drugbot. Better talk to Nurse Gallardo about coming in for a visit early next month. Right, bye.” He frowned across at Jake. “Is this a criminal case you’re working on?”
“In a way, yeah,” he answered. “I also have to spring a patient out of there.”
“Jesus, Jake—that’s mighty near impossible.”
“But not completely so, Vince.”
“Give me some details, will you?”
“Sure,” said Jake. “The president of the United States is being held there against his will while an android dupe of him is running the country.”
Chen picked up the phone once more. “Nurse Gallardo,” he requested, “hold all my calls.”
ARLO HARMON WAS short, had crinkly brown hair and was forty-one. The parlor of his mobile home was a maze of gadgets, large and small, winking, blinking and humming. One wall was jammed with twenty-three small television screens, each tuned to a different channel.
Standing wide-legged, hands behind his back, the proprietor of Cyberwacky Services, Ltd. was scanning the screens. “You came while three of my favorite soaps are airing,” he mentioned in his deep, chesty voice. “Marriage on the Moon, Microsurgery Center and Love Among the Robots. You follow any of ’em?”
“Not lately,” admitted Gomez, who was leaning against the detached torso of a silvery robot. “Before I hand over this outrageous amount of dough, suppose—”
“I’m not in the mood for flapdoodle, Gomez,” said Harmon, perching on the edge of a dictadesk. “Twenty-five hundred smackers is a mere spit in the deep blue sea to a topseed private eye outfit like yours. I’m fully aware of what a Cosmos expense account reads like, so—”
“Can you tear yourself away from this romantic gunk long enough to—”
“A guy who, according to the personality review I ran on you, watches air hockey games when he’s—”
“Suppose we concentrate, the both of us, on the job at hand?”
Harmon pointed at the wall of screens. “There’s your boy—third row, second screen from the left.”
President Brookmeyer, or rather the Brookmeyer simulacrum, was up there grinning broadly. He was sitting, legs dangling, on the rail around the imitation train car he was traveling in.
Harmon pointed to another wall and a large vidscreen materialized. It provided a blowup of the presidential talk.
“… fellow Americans, I just want to tell you how happy and delighted I am to get close to you all like this. You folks are the …”
“And similar guff, etcetera, etcetera.” Harmon killed the sound. “He is the one you’re interested in, isn’t he? This second-rate android?”
Frowning, Gomez inquired, “How’d you find out he was a fake?”
When Harmon shook his head, his hair made faint crackling noises. “You’re chinning with the CEO of Cyberwacky Services, Ltd., fella,” he reminded. “I can’t spot an andy at twenty paces? I can’t find out what you and Cardigan have been up to in that shaky banana republic? I’m not six jumps and a couple of hops ahead of what you’re contemplating in that coco of yours?”
“Do you know why I dropped in on you?”
“There you’ve got me, Gomez,” admitted the electronics wizard. “I can make some nifty guesses, though. But tell me how we can serve you.”
“The folks who touted you to me, Harmon, tell me that one of your specialties is remote control, telemetry and related areas.”
“That’s one of a multitude of our specialties, sure.” He glanced at all three of his soap operas for a moment. “Bam! I’ve got it, right on the noggin. You want me to take over that pitiful sim and—”
“Can you do it?”
“For 3,500 dollars.”
“Wow, the inflation rate in these parts is something awful.”
“We’re talking a very tricky task here, dimwit.”
“A thousand bucks more tricky?”
“That’s a thousand skins in front,” corrected Harmon. “Plus, maybe you ought to jot these figures down so they don’t slip out of your sconce, plus another two thousand bucks when it’s over.”
Gomez moved closer to the screens. He watched the imitation president speaking to a small crowd in Atlanta. “Okay. The Cracker Barrel Express will hit Chattanooga tonight at around sundown. Let me explain what, exactly, you’re going to do for me.”
“I’ve got a pretty fair idea already,” said Harmon.