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He told her what had happened and what he needed.

  “Yeah, your brothers in blue asked me about her. Indenture contract firm, Vilaka Temp. You know, one of those contradictory names?”

  “An oxymoron?”

  “Yeah, one of those. A temp service of permanent slaves.”

  Vilaka Temp operated out of a seedy warehouse in the industrial district, the rumble of magnafreighters shaking the reception area every few minutes. The Omale secretary stepped through an inner door to retrieve the person Maris had asked to see. The spare reception area held few comforts, a pair of chairs, a holomag from three years ago, an empty water dispenser.

  Maris knew the racket. They bought up the indenture contracts of Ohumes who'd flubbed several assignments or through misadventure had found themselves repeatedly returned to their original manufacturer as defective. Vilaka Temp then bought up the indenture contract and doled out the workers to businesses requiring cheap, fast, abundant, unskilled labor at rates way below the wage floor.

  Ohumes indentured to firms like Vilaka Temp earned little, were charged placement fees for every assignment, and found themselves accruing “membership” and other miscellaneous fees, all of which made their working themselves out of indenture a near-impossible task. Further, firms who contracted with Vilaka for the temporary labor shorted them hours, levied fees for even a modicum of work supplies, subjected them to the harshest environments, most hazardous conditions, and most dangerous tasks. Mistreatment, beatings, and rapes were routine. Since the Ohumes weren't employees, contract firms were immune to labor violations. Ohumes with the temerity to complain were told to take those complaints to Vilaka, who promptly told them their complaints needed to be taken up with the contract firm.

  He decided he'd waited long enough and followed, going the way the Omale secretary had gone.

  The door was locked. Other than the entrance, it was the only door off the reception area.

  His kick splintered the jamb, and the door slumped to the side on a hinge.

  Beyond was a small, empty warehouse, at the back an open door.

  Worse than I imagined, Maris thought, smirking at the sight. The business code required all firms to have a physical address but didn't specify the minimum amount of business to be conducted at that address. They could've rented a boiler room, he thought.

  He called in another favor from Crestonia Homicide.

  “Vilaka? Yeah, slippery bunch,” his contact told him. “Let me see what I can do.”

  In a few minutes, Maris had the name and address of the Vilaka Temp Ofem who'd delivered the Chinese food.

  The magnacar pulled off the thoroughfare and into a neighborhood that'd seen better centuries. Hovels had been scraped together with scraps of glasma and spare sheets of plasteel, pastiched together with baler wire and imagination. The streets looked like a rummage sale, the haphazard piles of junk free for the taking. Desperate eyes watched the magnacar maneuver between piles, most of the Ohumes here likely delinquent on their indentures. Maris suspected the magnacar wouldn't leave the neighborhood intact.

  “What do you want?” the half-bent crone screeched half-clothed from behind a half-open door.

  “I'm looking for Agnese Vanag. Don't tell me she's not here.” He had her location pinpointed, a map on his corn.

  She pulled her robe closed and pulled the door open. “In back.”

  “Back” was the next space over, barely separated from the front by a hanging cloth.

  Agnese was sitting on a grimy cot under a low ceiling, light streaming through the boards making up the patchy roof. In her hand was a mastoid dongle. “You got lucky—about to jack out of here. You gonna recycle me?”

  “Why? Delinquent on your indenture?”

  The woman nodded. “I ain't paid in so long, I don't know how much I owe.”

  “I just want to ask you about a Chow Fung delivery the other night.”

  “Yeah? That's all you want? You don't want to jerk me?”

  Maris shook his head. “Just information.”

  “Cost ya.”

  Maris shrugged.

  “Lady stops me as I'm coming out the back door, says she'll give me a fifty if I open the bag and look the other way. What the jerk, right? You gonna arrest me for that?”

  “Lady?”

  “I don't know who she was, I swear. Really, I don't. That'll be fifty lats.”

  “Fifty for no help at all?”

  “I'll throw in a jerk. How about it? I'm the best jerk you'll find around here.”

  “How about you do a worm?” He knew he could strong-arm her.

  “Down at the station, right?”

  He was surprised she came with him so willingly. In a precinct interrogation room, the neuraworm snaked down from above, a shimmering coil of braided tubing. At the end was a skullcap, its insides smooth and black, as featureless as a timeless void.

  “Will it hurt?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, not knowing whether it would or not.

  “All right,” Agnese said. “As long as it doesn't hurt, you can jerk me afterward.” She didn't seem to understand he wasn't interested.

  The skullcap molded itself to her head, and her gaze began to glaze, the worm inserting nanotendrils into her brain. The interrogation room wall lit up, aswirl with chaos.

  “Concentrate on the night you were called to the restaurant.”

  Lumps of light coalesced into golden-tasseled lamps hanging from curved eaves. A cyber dragonhead turned and squeaked.

  “Pickup for Ilsa Janson?” asked the cashier.

  Money was exchanged for a bag full of food. The scene changed to the exterior. A woman in fedora and trenchcoat approached, the gaze averted, a straight nose above luscious lips. “I'll give you fifty if you open the bag and look away.”

  Maris disengaged the worm, which retracted into the ceiling.

  “All done?”

  He handed her a fifty and gestured toward the door.

  “That didn't hurt at all. You can still jerk me. Here, let me climb on the table.”

  Living a lifetime from bed to bed, partner to partner, could do that to a person, he supposed.

  Maris ushered her to booking, and then he returned to the interrogation room and sat.

  The images flashed past him over and over, the woman in fedora and trenchcoat, the straight nose, the luscious lips. “I'll give you fifty if you open the bag and look away.”

  He must have watched it fifty times, and he still couldn't believe what he was seeing.

  Chapter 17

  Think! Maris told himself. How could she do that? Ilsa was in the magnacar with me the whole way back from Balozi Neurobiotics. How could she be approaching the delivery Ofem and slip a dose of nanochines into the Chow Fung? How could she?

  And ruin a good meal besides?

  No matter how he tried to put it together, Maris couldn't account for Ilsa being in two places at once.

  Head down, he strode into the setting sun, the encroaching night threatening more bad dreams. Traffic herds migrated toward home through Crestonia streets, the whine of magnacars at peak pitch, screaming to get their occupants to their abodes.

  He'd arrested Agnese Vanag for indenture delinquency and accessory to a felony, and she'd slid to her knees at his feet, blubbering and slobbering about her eternal gratitude, since she'd now have a triple hot cot until the end of her days. He hadn't had the heart to tell her that if convicted, she'd be recycled.

  Whoosh and whine to one side, empty storefronts to the other, Maris plodded onward, grinding the conundrum through his neurons as the ground wound past his feet.

  “Please, Sir, spare a lat for a little girl?”

  He stopped and looked toward the voice.

  In a narrow embrasure between buildings crouched a waif, scraggly hair falling to thin, tatter-covered shoulders, dirty feet bursting from rag-wraps, her big eyes pleading and plaintive on a drawn, smudged face. The girl couldn't have been six years old.

  The face wa
s resonant of a dream he'd once had, a daughter he'd once wanted, one of his very own. He wondered if she'd escaped from the Plavinas Development Crèche.

  A place he realized was just a few blocks away. He squinted into the setting sun toward it, but couldn't see into the glare.

  The girl was gone from the embrasure.

  As his eyes adjusted, he tried to see farther back into the narrow space between buildings. He pulled a coin from his pocket and stepped that direction. Turning sideways, he barely fit, despite his fellow officers' mocking him for being so slight.

  He squeezed farther in, cold stone brushing both front and back. Behind, he heard a slick double click, like the rattle of a snake. Plasma pistol, distinct and satisfying only when it was in his hand.

  And his was in his holster.

  “Don't even try it. Hands up.” A hand extracted his plasma pistol. “Keep going.”

  Farther in, where the gloaming couldn't penetrate, another slick double click. One ahead, one behind, both armed.

  Betrayal fueled a vengeful fire. They'd baited the trap with the girl. He obeyed for now, watchful for opportunity, sidling further into the embrasure at their prompts.

  The ground underfoot sloped downward, and the embrasure widened.

  They pounced before he could act, pinioned his arms, immobilized his legs, and then bound both in shrinkrope. A light flared inches from his face, blinding him. Somewhere, a gasp. He squinted to see its source. “It's him.” An Ofem voice, oddly familiar. The light went out.

  “Maybe there's a reward.” An Omale.

  “Fool! He can lead us to her.” Eerily familiar.

  “We don't—”

  Someone shushed them both. The susurrus of motion took two people out of hearing.

  Maris tried to reconnoiter the space and its occupants. Breathing from at least three others. One plasma pistol whined at high pitch, barely audible, its usually-lighted tip turned off. He couldn't hear the second one. One person stood behind him, the breathing sounds indicating someone large, and two other people stood in front of him.

  How large is the space? he wondered, and he scraped his foot. The shrinkrope immediately tightened. The echo indicated large, as in a substantial basement storage area, but with a low ceiling. There would be pillars and the remnants of tenants long since departed. The smell was musty and dank, the air cold, therefore unoccupied. They knew the space well, had used it often, didn't always use it.

  “What do you want?” Maris ventured.

  “Silence,” one hissed. Male, large, in front of him. He was beef, there for his meat. Two beefs, one in front, one behind. The plasma whine didn't come from either beef, neither with weapons.

  Maris pitched his voice toward the one plasma whine, wondering where the other'd gone. “I gotta pee.”

  “Hold it,” the person replied. Male and female vocal registers blended to mix up his senses. An Ohume for certain, probably male, but soaked in less testosterone during development than the beefs in front and behind.

  Footsteps approached, two sets, with them the second plasma pistol whine.

  “Do you know where she's at?” Familiar registers in the voice were reminiscent of someone Maris had once known.

  The plasma whine came from beside her. She commanded the group. Her lieutenant with the pistol enforced her orders. Maris looked her direction. “Who wants to know?”

  The beef behind him yanked his arms up between his shoulders. Pain exploded in the joints as they neared dislocation. “Just answer the question.”

  Maris gasped out his answer, not knowing where Ilsa was, knowing only that she lurked at the edge of his life.

  “Do you know how to find her?” The Ofem voice had a familiarity that sank deep into Maris. Someone he knew well, or had known well.

  “My freedom for my help.”

  The beef yanked again, and Maris yelped.

  “Untie him.”

  Two voices objected. “But—”

  “Now.” The order was simple and direct, without hurry, the voice without stress.

  His arms unbound, Maris rubbed his wrists and flexed his shoulders, testing for range of motion. “You really want my help.”

  Silence, just breathing, the whine of plasma, the susurrus of cloth.

  In the darkness, Maris thought he saw the outline of a face. His mind supplied what his eyes could not. It was Ilsa's face, a subliminal wish sublimated onto sensory deprivation. Of course, it couldn't be Ilsa's face.

  “She's using your undercover idents. You can expose her.”

  Undercover could have exposed Maris long ago by flagging the idents they'd given him. Someone at the Telsai precinct still had his back. One neuramail would expose Ilsa. “What's in it for me?”

  “Your life,” the male lieutenant said, the whine coming up to his shoulder, a faint white glow accompanying the motion.

  Maris smirked at the odds. Five of them, two with blasmas. One of me, barehanded.

  A susurrus, and the weapon returned to the lieutenant's side.

  “The Coalition off your tail,” said the all-too-familiar voice.

  Then it struck Maris. Crèche sister. Genetic and social sibling, gametes cloned from the same geneprint kept in zero-kelvin cryo, brewed from the same soup of egg and sperm, cultured in the same Petri dish, whelped from the same gestation racks, reared side by side in the same crèche pod.

  She probably does look like Ilsa, Maris thought. Two places at once suddenly became plausible with a crèche sister. “Chow Fung,” he said.

  “Yes, Detective.” The voice was simple, sad. “A different time, before the betrayal.”

  As much of an apology as he'd ever get. Ilsa had betrayed everyone. She'd betrayed her crèche sisters, escaping from the Coalition with Maris by seeking sanctuary among fugitive Ohume. She'd betrayed him by disguising who she really was, an Ohume resistance operative.

  Just like these Ohume.

  “Why won't I betray you, lead you into a trap?”

  “They tried to lock you up for life. You'd be a fool to do their bidding still.”

  “What will you do to her?”

  “Not your business. She's not your indenture,” the lieutenant said.

  “A crèche sibling always nourishes the pod,” the Ofem said. “Willingly or not.”

  Recycle, Maris decided, the hydrocarbons redistributed among the surviving members. He realized belatedly he was negotiating, which implied he'd already agreed. Only the details needed working out.

  “Stop sterilizing the Brehume with nanochines,” he demanded.

  “You're in no position—”

  The Ofem cut off her Omale lieutenant. “We can't help you. That's not our fight.”

  “What is your fight?”

  “End indenture. That's all.”

  Maris heard more in her voice than she was saying. Everyone loses in a zero-sum game, he thought, and this one isn't adding up. He refused to believe that's all they wanted. Ohumes outnumbered Ihumes nearly nine-to-one and didn't need Ihumes anymore to perpetuate themselves. Of course they wanted to rid the galaxy of Ihumes and Brehumes.

  She's saying they're not behind the sterilization, he told himself. The information crumbled the central pillar of his hypothesis. His case crumbled with it.

  If not the Ohume resistance, then who was sterilizing them? Maris wanted to ask this crèche sib why she'd help Ilsa in the first place, but he knew the answer: because she was a crèche sib.

  “No deal,” he said, shrugging. “You find her first, fine. Do me a favor and don't feed her tainted proto to the pod, all right?”

  “You won't help?”

  “I won't stop you. She's low-hanging fruit, barely ripe. The top of the tree interests me.”

  “You won't like what you find.”

  And he sensed they were backing away, vague shapes fading into darkness, and before he knew it, he was alone.

  Where's my blasma pistol? he wondered.

  He kicked it with his foot on his first step.


  Holstering it, he made his way up the ramp and out through the embrasure to the street. The city spilled sticky light upon him, too bright for darkness-adjusted eyes. Thin clouds veiled a starry sky from suspicion. Occasional magnacars hummed past, jeering at the way he plodded up deserted streets. Detritus of the day tumbled in the breeze, taunting him with its trashy freedom. The wind wormed its way under his trench coat, chilly snakes slithering across his skin.

  * * *

  “Sorry, yes, I know it's late. Can you see if she's available?”

  Nurse Zanna Vasiļjev came to the door after a long while. “You! Please, come in.”

  She led him past the locker rooms into the employee area, Maris and Ilsa having taken this route out of the building. Sterile walls painted institutional green remained impervious to sentiment. Speckled tile reflected indifferent lighting. Antiseptic smells resisted the comfort of human occupation. Mausoleum silence deafened the sounds of childhood joy.

  “What can I help you with?” When he told her, Nurse Vasiļjev looked at him quizzically. “Your colleague came by yesterday and requested those secuvids, insisted on the originals, in fact.”

  “And you don't have them anymore.” It wasn't a question.

  “No, we don't.”

  Maris winced. “What about copies?”

  “She insisted we destroy them. Angst Division regulations, she said.”

  Got here before I did, he thought, turning to leave. What about the other sites?

  “Where are you going?”

  “Thank you, Nurse Vasiļjev, you've been very helpful. Contact me immediately if she returns, please.”

  She looked at his comcard. “Homicide? You mean Edgar Sirmais was murdered?”

  “Yes, Nurse Vasiļjev. And Ilsa Janson is wanted for questioning.”

  “But why…?”

  “Why indeed. Thank you for your time.”

  The magnacar he caught outside took him right to his destination.

  The lung-emptying thunder still stomped on his chest. Lights swirled in dazzling profusion. On the dance floor, a few early goers went at it, their mastoids aglow with active jacks, but too few bodies to buffet him with hot sciroccos, as last time.

  “Secuvids from when?” the manager asked, her mouth close to Maris's ear.