The Recovery Man's Bargain Read online

  Nafti caught the girl by the arms and pulled them behind her. Tears sprang into her eyes.

  “Not so tight,” Yu said.

  Nafti loosened his grip. Yu walked up to both of them.

  The girl stared at him in complete hatred.

  “Sit her down,” Yu said.

  Nafti sat. The girl had no choice but to do the same.

  Yu crouched beside them. The girl continued to watch him, her pale eyes defiant.

  “Bend your head forward,” Yu said.

  She raised her chin ever so slightly. She never took her gaze off him. He both admired her spirit and worried about it. If the Gyonnese had sent someone else, her attitude could have gotten her injured or worse.

  “Bend your head forward,” he said in his most menacing tone, “or we’ll do it for you.”

  “No,” she said. “And you can’t make me.”

  The answer was childish. He hadn’t expected it from her. She continued to watch him, her cheeks turning a pale rose—whether from fear or anger, he couldn’t tell.

  Yu sighed, and nodded to Nafti. Nafti clutched her arms with one beefy hand and put the other on top of her head, pressing it forward.

  Yu brushed Nafti’s fingers, releasing a little of the pressure. Then Yu pushed aside the hair at the base of the girl’s neck.

  He didn’t see a cloning mark. By Earth Alliance law, clones were supposed to be marked with their number—the first clone getting a 1 and so on. He had expected to find a five.

  That he found nothing made him nervous.

  So had her behavior. Maybe he just wasn’t used to sixteen year olds, but he didn’t remember them being quite as reckless and childish as this girl. Maybe the Gyonnese had gotten it wrong. Maybe she wasn’t the original child or a clone.

  Maybe she was a sibling.

  “How old are you?” he asked.

  “How old are you?” she snapped back.

  Nafti grinned at him. Yu glared. He didn’t want the girl to know that she was impressing them.

  “Cooperate, child,” he said. “Then we won’t have to hurt you.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  Nafti clutched the top of her skull and slowly turned her head until the strain showed in her neck muscles. Yu shook his head at Nafti but didn’t verbally remind him to leave the girl alone.

  Yu moved so that he could see the girl’s face. It was red. Tears stained the corners of her eyes.

  He wanted to tell Nafti to stop, but before he did, he needed to get control of this girl. So Yu said,

  “It doesn’t matter to us what condition you’re in, so long as you’re alive. Doctors can repair almost any injury these days, so long as you don’t die first. But they can’t take away the pain you’ll experience until the injury is fixed. You’ll always have the memory of that. We can guarantee it.”

  She blinked at him.

  “Now,” he added, “tell me how old you are.”

  “I’m thirteen,” she said, tears in her voice.

  He was trembling. If she were a sibling, he had to take her and the mother. He wasn’t prepared for that. He’d only said that the ship had a crew complement of three. He’d have to find a way to explain the girl’s presence.

  “Thirteen?” he said. “Stop lying.”

  “I’m not lying.” The tears made her voice thicker. “Honest I’m not.”

  “You can’t be thirteen,” he said.

  “I am.” Her hands clenched against the floor, but she no longer tried to get away. “You’ve got the wrong family.”

  He felt a thread of panic. The houses did all look the same.

  “You’re Rhonda Shindo’s daughter, right?”

  “Yes,” she said. “But you confused my mother with someone else.”

  He didn’t answer that. She had no idea who her mother was.

  Nafti kept his hand on the girl’s head, but he watched Yu. “Maybe the mother shaved 29 Earth months off her age.”

  Yu thought about that for a moment. Maybe the mother lied to the daughter. She had lied about everything else.

  “Or maybe they’re counting her age in units other than Earth time.” Yu turned to the girl. “Tell me your age in Earth years.”

  A tear ran down her cheek. She looked confused. “I’m thirteen Earth years.”

  Yu cursed.

  “The tag has to be on the back of the neck,” Nafti said.

  “Only in the Alliance,” Yu said. What if Shindo had cloned the daughter outside of the Alliance? Then he wouldn’t be able to tell if she was a clone or not.

  “What tag?” the girl asked. “What’s a tag?”

  Yu ignored her. He reached for his pouch and said to Nafti, “A couple places do put the tag under the skin.”

  He opened the pouch and brought a penshaped laser identifier. He hated these things. They weren’t always accurate. But it should at least reveal if she had a hidden tag.

  She was watching him. “You’re not going to cut me open, are you?”

  The identifier couldn’t cut open skin. It was designed so that it wouldn’t harm anyone. But apparently, she didn’t know that. So he decided to use it to his advantage.

  “Naw, honey,” he said coldly. “Head wounds bleed.”

  He moved the identifier toward her. She closed her eyes.

  Nafti turned her head back to a normal position and Yu held the identifier about the base of the skull.

  “Nothing,” he said in frustration. He didn’t want to take her with him.

  “Some of these places allow tags anywhere on the back of the head, so long as they’re not in front of the ears for humans.” Nafti said. Yu wondered how he knew this.

  Yu moved the identifier. He shoved more hair aside and then moved the delicate edge of her right ear. A number flared up at him.

  “There it is!” Nafti said as if he had discovered it himself.

  But Yu wasn’t excited. He was irritated. The Gyonnese had it wrong. She wasn’t a Fifth.

  “It’s a six,” he said. “A damn six. When were you born?”

  The girl was shaking. She gave the date and the year in Earth time, then repeated it in Alliance Standard.

  “Thirteen Earth years ago,” Nafti said as if Yu couldn’t do the math himself.

  “Six. That bitch put her here as a decoy.” How many children had that woman created for the sake of her own ego? How many had been captured by the Gyonnese before being let go as unworthy?

  “What?” the girl asked.

  She had the right to know what her so-called mother did to her. She had to know that she wasn’t here as a beloved child, but as an extra round of protection for her mother.

  “You weren’t born, you know,” Yu said. “You were hatched. You know that, right?”

  “What?” she asked again, her voice even smaller.

  “Maybe she doesn’t know,” Nafti said. Was the girl getting to him too? “Or maybe she had things erased. You want to check?”

  For once, Nafti had outthought him. Of course he would want to check. If the girl knew where the original was, then Yu could go back to the Gyonnese with that information—and without Rhonda Shindo.

  “Please don’t mess with my brain,” the girl said. She sounded truly terrified for the first time.

  Yu ignored it. He had to.

  “I don’t have the skill to do a full memory recovery,” he said. He didn’t have the skill to do a memory recovery at all. “I was just supposed to bring her back. Humans are out of my league.”

  “There are truth drugs,” Nafti said. “I’ve used them before. Here, hold her.”

  And then he swung the girl toward Yu. Yu grabbed her, feeling startled. Nafti must have worked with Trackers. Otherwise he would have had no need for truth drugs.

  Nafti got up and left the room. Yu’s heart was pounding. Would truth drugs hurt the girl? He had no idea.

  The girl didn’t say anything. She just trembled. He respected that silence. She was terrified, but she wasn’t going to beg.
/>   Nafti returned with a small vial. He poured some leaves from it into his hand. Then he grabbed the girl by the face, forced her mouth open, and shoved the leaves into it, massaging her throat until she swallowed.

  She coughed, and then choked. That was enough. Yu didn’t care what she knew. He reached around and pulled the herbs out of her mouth.

  Her eyes were already lolling in the back of her head.

  “How much did you give her?” Yu asked.

  “Normal dose,” Nafti said.

  “For what size human?” Yu snapped. The girl fell limply against him.

  “I dunno. Most.”

  “This girl is younger than most. Get some water.”

  Nafti disappeared again. When he came back he had a glass. Yu rinsed the girl’s mouth. He’d hate it if she died.

  “Can this stuff kill?”

  Nafti shrugged.

  Yu glared at him. “House,” Yu said. “Do you have medical protocols?”

  “I do,” the House said.

  “And a baseline for the daughter of Rhonda Shindo?”

  “I do,” the House said.

  “Analyze this and tell me if it will harm the girl.” Yu looked at Nafti. “Go pour that truth drug on the card near the main control panel. Now.”

  Nafti disappeared into the living room. There was a momentary silence, and then the House said, “There are no harmful herbs here. Depending on the dose, the girl will either be quite talkative or she will sleep for several hours.”

  “Looks like we got sleep,” Yu said to Nafti.

  “If you would like,” the House said, “I will do a body analysis to see if the herbs have interacted with anything in her system.”

  “Yes,” Yu said. “Do that.”

  A small needle formed out of a nearby piece of rug. It took some skin and blood samples from the girl, and then disappeared into the rug again.

  Yu stared at it. He knew there was a reason he didn’t own his own home. It could attack him at any time.

  “She will sleep for twelve Earth hours,” the House said. “She has ingested no other drugs. She will awaken slowly and might be confused about what has occurred.”

  But he wasn’t sure he would be off-planet within twelve hours. He had to make sure she didn’t notify the authorities.

  “Put her in that closet,” Yu said to Nafti. “Make her comfortable. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  ***

  The rest was reprogramming the House computer yet again. He locked the girl in the closet for twenty-four hours, making sure the House wouldn’t let her out. He programmed the House computer to reset its security protocols in thirty hours, so that the girl could call for help if she couldn’t figure out how to leave on her own.

  That was the best he could do for her.

  Then he prepared his message for the authorities.

  He attached a holo unit to the side door. The unit replayed a recording of the spraying that Shindo had done. The Gyonnese had designed the holo unit. The Gyonnese had kept cameras on the field where their larvae were growing. The cameras were for the parents, so that they could see each moment of their child’s development.

  The recording had been edited down to just a few short minutes. First, it showed a wind-swept field under a blue sky. Light seemed thin, washing out the tall grass and the mountains beyond.

  A running clock in both alien characters and regular numbers showed time lapsing. A vehicle hovered low over the grass, spraying a liquid.

  Then the flying car disappeared and the grass died. The ground was brownish red, but parts of it turned black. The Gyonnese showed up, their whiskers moving in agitation. They bent in half and dug at the dirt, pulling up the dead larvae.

  Larvae were usually light brown. These were black and shriveled.

  The Gyonnese folded themselves in half, hands raised to the sky in a sign of complete and utter distress.

  Eventually the image faded and words covered the screen: Ten thousand died in the first wave. Twenty thousand families lost generations of genetic heritage. This act was repeated twice more. Sixty thousand Gyonnese have paid with their futures.

  How has Rhonda Flint paid?

  The Gyonnese had set up a contact button at the corner of the image, and that proved the hardest to attach. Because the House’s communications with the rest of Valhalla Basin had been shut off, Yu couldn’t test to make sure he had set up the contact button correctly.

  He had to hope that the instructions the Gyonnese had given him were correct.

  He finished with very little time to spare. He checked on the girl—she was still unconscious, and she seemed unharmed. He made sure the closet was secured, then he went searching for Nafti.

  Yu found Nafti watching a holoshow in the other bedroom. He had sprawled on the bed as if the place belonged to him.

  Yu flicked the show off. “You were supposed to be monitoring the House.”

  “The House monitors the House.” Nafti stood like a kid who’d been caught in his parent’s room.

  “And we shut that off, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Yu had to remind himself that he had hired Nafti for his muscles, not his brains. “We’re going to wait for the woman outside.”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to catch her in here?”

  It would have been, if Yu hadn’t already shut down a lot of the House’s systems and installed the holoimages in the kitchen. Rhonda Shindo would know the moment she walked in the house that something was wrong.

  “Stop asking questions. Just do what you’re told.”

  Nafti must have caught the note of exasperation in Yu’s voice because he nodded. They collected everything they had brought, then Yu stopped and directed a housebot to thoroughly clean every room except the kitchen and the closet part of the girl’s bedroom. It wouldn’t prevent the authorities from figuring out who took the woman — especially since the girl had seen him — but it would slow them down, and give them time enough to authenticate the message the Gyonnese had left.

  That message would turn the attention from him to the Gyonnese. Then he could continue with his quiet life, finding little objects for people who paid him too much money.

  He helped Nafti out of the house, found the man a hiding spot near the backyard—one that would be in the line of site from Yu’s hiding spot—and instructed Nafti to move only when he got the signal.

  Then Yu slipped into his own hiding spot, not too far from the side door.

  Rhonda Shindo arrived five minutes later. She was slim like her daughter, but not as tall. She had the same bronze skin, but her hair was dark and pulled back. Her eyes were dark too. The girl had apparently gotten her striking looks from the father who believed her dead.

  Shindo wore a pantsuit and heels, conservative like the rest of this place. She carried a briefcase, which surprised Yu. So far, she didn’t seem to notice anything wrong.

  He wanted her to just get inside the door before he grabbed her. Then he and Nafti could drag her to the backyard and their vehicle without catching much attention.

  But she touched the door before opening it and drew her hand back, as if she had been shocked.

  He could hear her speak—and the House answer—but the words weren’t clear. He cursed silently. He hadn’t expected her to talk to the House from the outside.

  He crept forward. The House was reciting an ad for an upgrade and Shindo was looking annoyed.

  She set down her briefcase as she said, “Just tell me if Talia put the electronics on the door.”

  “Not this time,” House said. “The electronics were placed by a man who deleted his identity from my files. He conducted a thorough scrub but forgot to delete the section in which I monitored his deletion.”

  Yu silently cursed. What else had he forgotten? Or just plain missed? Could the House still notify security? Had it?

  “Would you like me to bring that up on the wall panel to your left?” the House asked Shindo.

  She was frown
ing, deepening the lines around her nose and mouth. “Yes, I would like to see that.”

  The visual would alert her to the problem. The element of surprise was slipping away from him, and he wasn’t in the right place to alert Nafti.

  So Yu stepped forward. He stopped right beside her. She was his height and thinner. He could probably subdue her himself.

  “There’s no need to see it,” Yu said. “I did it.”

  She turned. Her eyes widened ever so slightly, the only sign that she was startled. “I don’t think we’ve met, Mr.—?”

  Politeness. He hadn’t expected that. He waved his hand beside him, a small signal for Nafti, but he wasn’t sure if Nafti could see it from this angle.

  “We haven’t met, ma’am,” Yu said. He could be as polite as anyone else—more polite, even, if he needed to be. “But I know who you are. You’re Rhonda Shindo. And just so that we remain on an even footing, let me tell you that I’m a Recovery Man.”

  Her body stiffened. “I’ve never heard of a Recovery Man.”

  “I think it’s pretty self-explanatory.” He was watching her, but out of the corner of his eye, he was hoping to see Nafti. “I recover things. Sometimes I even recover people.”

  That last was a lie, at least until today.

  He added, “I work for the Gyonnese.”

  Her mouth opened. He couldn’t tell if she was surprised or not.

  “And don’t play dumb about the Gyonnese,” he said. “It’s all on record.”

  That seemed to help her find her voice. She raised her chin, just like her daughter had done. It seemed to be the family gesture of defiance.

  “That was settled,” she said, “long ago, under Earth Alliance law.”

  She glanced toward the front of the house. She was thinking of running. If she got too far out, she would be able to call for help through her links.

  “Actually,” Yu said, staying close to her, “the case would be settled if you’d handed over your daughter to the Gyonnese. But you didn’t. You hid her.”

  His words startled him more than they startled her. He wasn’t talking to her just because he was waiting for Nafti. Yu still wasn’t sure he wanted to do this.

  He wanted to hear how she answered.