Tears in Rain Part 20

Serra smiled contemptuously.

"As Hericio says, there's nothing more legal than disobeying the laws of an illegitimate system. Okay, Annie Heart, I want to talk to you. In one hour's time, at Saturn."

And he cut off.

An hour! The rep grabbed her travel bag and raced off to the Majestic. She went upstairs as Bruna Husky, transformed herself quickly into Annie Heart, and headed back downstairs praying to the memory of the great Gabriel Morlay that she hadn't forgotten any detail of her disguise. When she got to the ground floor, she breathed deeply to reduce her agitation. She stepped calmly out of the elevator with a relaxed air, as if there were no need for haste, although it was almost the time the HSP deputy had set. And yes, she hadn't been wrong in her a.s.sumption. Her tail was back, the young man from yesterday, or maybe another one-all those supremacist pups looked the same. That was precisely what they valued: h.o.m.ogeneity, sameness. She allowed herself to be followed as she walked with studied calmness toward Saturn. Although it was quite close to the hotel, her lazy pace meant it was twenty minutes before she was within sight of the bar, but she didn't actually manage to enter. A car stopped beside her and raised its door with a pneumatic hiss. Serra was sitting inside.

"You're late," he grumbled.

Bruna settled into her seat and arranged her lips into a coquettish but contemptuous pout-the sneer of a disdainful blonde, which she did well.

"I'm not accustomed to being treated with such rudeness. I'm not one of your little foot soldiers to be ordered urgently hither and yon."

Serra chuckled. Today, instead of a vest, he was wearing a sleeveless T-s.h.i.+rt made of a thin, s.h.i.+ny material that stuck to his artificially inflated muscles. No doubt he wants to impress Annie, thought Bruna. The car was on autopilot, without a driver. He didn't want any witnesses.

"Don't be offended, sweetheart, it's just work. And an element of basic caution."

"Why are we here?"

"Here?"

"In the car. Are we going somewhere?"

"We thought it would be best if we were seen together as little as possible. We're doing it for your sake. That's what you want, isn't it? All the trouble you've taken so your mobile isn't traceable."

Bruna cautiously agreed. She didn't like the slightly sarcastic tone she thought she detected in the man's words.

"Yes, indeed."

"Speaking of which, how did you do it? Can I have a look at your computer?"

Bruna could feel her shoulders tensing. Did they suspect something? Worse still, did they know something?

"Of course," she replied matter-of-factly.

And she immediately removed the thin, flexible, semitransparent device from her wrist and pa.s.sed it to Serra.

The deputy took the machine, turned it over in his fingers a few times, and switched it off and turned it on again. The mobile restarted and the screen welcomed Annie Heart, and Bruna mentally thanked Mirari for her impeccable work. At that moment she realized with horror that she was carrying her own mobile in the pocket of her elegant trousers. In all the rush, she had forgotten to leave it in her hotel room when she was getting changed. And on top of that, she now couldn't remember whether or not she'd switched the mobile off. And if a call came in? A sudden wave of anxiety left her in a cold sweat. Luckily, Serra was too busy inspecting the computer, because the rep was convinced that her expression had changed. Vaguely, on the other side of her anxiety, she sensed that the man was saying something to her that she hadn't managed to pick up. She breathed deeply and felt the powerful c.o.c.ktail of antistress hormones that strengthened her combat rep body kick in. An invisible line of lucid calmness descended through her body like a curtain of water extinguis.h.i.+ng a fire. She put a smile on her face to distract him. Just in time. The deputy turned his face toward her and looked at her.

"Aren't you going to tell me?" he asked.

"What?"

"I was asking you how you did it. If you try to cancel the GPS and you don't have an authorization code issued by a judge, the machine self-destructs."

Bruna reflected coldly for a fraction of a second and decided what she was going to say.

"Well, you see, it's quite complicated. You can only do it in parallel sync with a central computer. You connect the mobile peripherally and then you type a virtual port link into your mobile's IDD; you manipulate the values until you access the residual profile of the HTC and the apex code. You can do this with a cryptorobot, but it's slow and difficult. Even though I used some special algorithms, I still needed to search through millions of numbers before I found the code...Are you with me?"

Serra nodded yes, even though his expression clearly showed that he'd become lost in the tangle of words. Bruna had no idea what she was saying, but she had a.s.sumed that the supremacist wouldn't be able to work that out.

"So, what you do is trick the mobile into thinking it's part of the mainframe."

"You seem to know a lot about all that."

"Well, I am a professor of applied robotics."

The man scowled and gave her back her mobile. The rep adjusted it on her wrist while she thought about the other mobile she was carrying in her pocket; she had to get out of the car as quickly as possible.

"I see we're going round the block. Are we waiting for someone? Why did you make me come?" she asked.

To sniff around in my hotel room in the meantime, she answered herself. Which wasn't a problem. Having antic.i.p.ated that possibility, she had scattered the likely contents of a basic suitcase around the room. In reality, the fact that Serra had made the appointment in order to be able to search her belongings was a rea.s.suring supposition; it meant her plan was working.

"It's just a security procedure. You have to understand our caution. The party finds itself in a very difficult position thanks to this puppet government," said Serra.

"That's precisely why I want to see Hericio. I'm beginning to think that you talk a lot but don't actually do anything. Like all the others," said the android.

The man stiffened.

"You don't know what you're saying. You know nothing."

"Oh no? What don't I know? What are you good for, apart from appearing on the news spouting big words?"

It was such crude bait that Bruna didn't expect the man to bite, but sometimes you get information in the most ridiculous way. Not this time. Serra frowned, annoyed, and touched the panel in front of him. The vehicle stopped next to the sidewalk and opened the door.

"We'll give you a call," the man grunted.

"It had better be soon. Tomorrow or the next day. I leave town on Sunday," Bruna answered imperiously; the cover Mirari had provided wouldn't last much longer.

Serra didn't answer. The car shut its door and sped off again. The detective watched it disappear and repressed the urge to take her mobile out of her pocket; it was possible that her tail was still nearby. Above her head, the public screen was showing dreadful images of combat androids slaughtering humans. They were old tapes from the Rep War. "Are you going to allow this to happen again?" the soundtrack kept repeating on a continuous loop over the ma.s.sacre.

Back in the hotel, the detective took off Annie with a sigh of relief. This dual-personality work was eating at her nerves like acid. She checked and found that her own mobile had not only been switched off but deactivated. Then she put the power source back in its place and switched on, and instantly there was a call from Lizard. The policeman must have left his automatic reconnect activated.

"What are you up to, Husky? You've been switched off and untraceable for hours," he grumbled.

"Why are you so irritated? Because I get away from your bloodhound surveillance, or because you're concerned about my well-being?"

Bruna had fallen back on a very old trick: when you are asked a question you don't want to answer, reply with another question-an annoying one if possible. So she had behaved according to the manual, but she felt that she was gliding unstably over the words like someone slipping on ice. She felt she really wanted Lizard to answer. To rea.s.sure her that, yes, he was worried about what could happen to her in this world, which was ever more dangerous for her. But he didn't say anything like that.

"I was looking for you because I got an appointment with the chancellor-priest at the Emba.s.sy of Labari. In case you wanted to come. It was you who suggested I give him a call."

Yes, of course she wanted to. The legation was quite far from the Majestic, so she decided to catch a cab again despite her renewed intention to economize. But after wasting ten minutes standing at the edge of the sidewalk failing to get anyone to stop, she had to catch the subway. It was clear that the human cabdrivers didn't want to pick up a combat techno, and in Madrid the cabdrivers' union had prevented the adoption of automatic cabs like those that existed in other cities. As far as techno cabdrivers were concerned-they seemed to have disappeared. In reality, reps were hard to find anywhere.

She arrived at the appointment feeling exhausted; it had turned into a wretched day of nonstop rus.h.i.+ng around. The headquarters of the representatives of Labari was an enormous, very old building located on Estados Unidos de la Tierra Avenue, next to the Prado Museum. It had been a Catholic church-San Jeronim.o.-.f.or centuries, until it was burned down and half-demolished during the Robot Wars. The impoverished Catholic Church, driven to the wall by its internal crises, the progressive secularization of the world, and the fact that individuals eager for certainty preferred more radical doctrines, found itself obliged to sell the ruins to a consortium that was actually a front for their most vitriolic rivals, the Ones of the Kingdom of Labari, who constructed a heavy, cheerless version of the chapel. Now, gazing at that ma.s.s painted in ritualistic Labaric dark purple, the detective s.h.i.+vered. That archaic, overwhelming, and severe building represented a declaration of principles, a definition in stone of intransigence.

"Come on, Bruna, what are you doing? Don't lag behind. We're late," muttered Lizard.

And the rep forced herself to walk behind the policeman and into the emba.s.sy of a world on which her species was forbidden.

The interior must have been a soaring nave in its time, as the inside of Catholic churches used to be, but it was now compartmentalized like any other building, with various floors and normal living s.p.a.ces. Or almost normal. As they pa.s.sed from room to room, from the entrance to the security precinct and then to the waiting room, the detective felt a vague tightness growing in her chest. The height of the rooms was much greater than their width. They were, in fact, unpleasantly narrow and their never-ending walls were covered with thick, bruise-colored curtains that fell heavily from above.

"What a cheerful place," murmured Lizard.

Just then a man came to fetch them. His head was shaved and a chain had been driven through his earlobes and hung over his chest like a collar. Maybe he's a slave, the detective said to herself as they followed him. Up to that point, they hadn't seen a single woman. Before allowing them to enter the office, the possible slave turned to them.

"Call him Your Eminence. That's his t.i.tle. And you must use the old polite form of address. You must address him formally. Don't forget."

The chancellor-priest received them in a room whose walls rose dizzily to a dark and distant vaulted ceiling. It must have been the height of the original San Jeronimo church, but the room was a relatively small s.p.a.ce with a hexagonal floor, which made it feel like a stifling well. The purple hangings covered only the lower half of the walls, and farther up, the bare stones were lost in the shadows. The diplomat was a mature man with long, gray hair caught up in a ponytail on the top of his head in the style typical of Labaric leaders. He was seated behind a large, solid wooden table.

"The Sacred Principle is the principle," he said pompously, using the ritual greeting of the Ones.

"Thank you for receiving us, Your Eminence," Paul Lizard replied.

"It's my job," the man muttered with icy arrogance.

There was something odd about his face. At first glance, his high cheekbones, pointed chin, and elevated eyebrows-shaped like circ.u.mflexes similar to those in the old drawings of the devil-gave the impression of a long, severe, and bony face. But then you noticed the quivering chubby cheeks, the overall flabbiness of the flesh, and the roundness of his squashed face. It was as if a pudgy man with a big head were transforming himself into a thin, angular person, but the process had been halted by mistake halfway. The cheekbones, the chin, and those impossible eyebrows, which looked like two pointy little roofs, had to be the product of a surgeon's knife. Bruna had read somewhere that the Labaric religion didn't allow plastic surgery solely for aesthetic purposes, but it did if the operation had a moral purpose. Perhaps endowing this flabby, insipid person with a more imposing and spiritual appearance had been considered a sacred mandate.

Lizard took a holograph ball from his pocket and activated it. The word revenge floated above the One's table. The image was no doubt taken from the body of one of the victims, although you couldn't see what the word was written on in the holograph, and the tattoo had been enlarged four or five times.

"Is Your Eminence acquainted with this?"

The man glanced at the holograph indifferently.

"No."

"There's nothing about it that seems familiar?"

"No," the amba.s.sador repeated without even bothering to look at it again.

The inspector manipulated the ball, and the image expanded until it was evident what it was: a tattoo on the back of a dead woman's naked body.

"And now?"

The legate considered the body for a second with a blank expression. Then he looked at Lizard.

"Now even less."

"But that script...Those letters are from the Kingdom of Labari," Bruna retorted.

The chancellor-priest didn't even look at her. He continued to address Lizard.

"At first glance, it might appear that that type of writing bears some resemblance to a certain script used on my world for ceremonial occasions."

"The Labaric script of power," stressed the rep.

The man ignored her interruption and continued.

"But I'm sure we're dealing with a copy."

"I've seen power writing and the script is identical," Bruna insisted.

"Why do you think...my apologies. Why does Your Eminence think we're dealing with a copy?" asked Paul.

"How do you know when a replicant is a replicant and not a real person, even though it's such a good imitation?" replied the One.

"By the eyes."

Bruna was furious with Lizard. She was outraged that he would answer a comment clearly formulated to humiliate her.

"Labaric writing has its own 'eyes' for those who know how to look. And this is a forgery, absolutely no question. Anything else?"

"Yes. Do you know whose dead body that is?"

The priest sighed in annoyance as if he were dealing with an idiotic question, although his expression of utter disdain was somewhat undermined by the wobbling of his chubby cheeks.

"I a.s.sume it's one of the replicants who was recently executed by other replicants."

"If the writing really is a forgery, who might be interested in implicating the Kingdom of Labari in a case as foul as this one?"

"The One Truth has more enemies than there are grains of sand at the bottom of the oceans. The Primordial Order is always being attacked by the henchmen of disorder, of whom there are many. But we are accustomed to it; they've been trying to distort our words for millennia. They have no effect."

"Millennia? The Labaric Cult began less than a century ago," interrupted the rep sharply.

The chancellor-priest continued to ignore her.

"The One Sacred Principle was the beginning of everything. Then, feeble man forgot who he was and what he knew. We have merely gone back to uttering pure words," he declaimed.

He leaned forward and fixed his blazing eyes on Paul, and his face became contorted with revulsion.

"Moreover, what do we care whether or not they kill those things? They were not part of the Principle and they do not count. They do not exist. They have no more significance than the buckle on your shoe. You see, they seem so imperceptible and irrelevant to us that we have even allowed you to bring one of those things here-here, into the Emba.s.sy of Labari! And what's more, a female."

The man stood up abruptly, although if truth be told, you couldn't really tell; he was considerably shorter than was suggested by his bulky head.

"May the Sacred Principle be your Law," he muttered ritually.

And he left the room, dragging the shapeless, purple robe that was too long for him along the ground.

Bruna left the building as quickly as she could, anger adding to her speed. Lizard was following a few steps behind, circ.u.mspect and phlegmatic, suspecting an outburst.

"Hold on, Bruna. Where's the fire?"

The rep whipped around and pointed a shaking finger at the policeman.

"You...Thanks for your support in front of that miserable racist," she roared.

"Professionalism, professionalism. A detective like you should know that a major portion of our work consists of interrogating nasty people, and nasty people are unpleasant. You mustn't lose your composure, no matter what they say. They say all that to distract you. And it's worked in your case."

In reality, deep down the rep knew it. Lizard was right. But she was too enraged to stop.