Reboots: Diabolical Streak Read online

  Humph put the file he was holding down, casually flipping it so that it was right side up. “Is there a reason why Ms. Somerfield couldn’t attend to this herself? Why send you, Mr. Bevins?” Something told Humph that there was big money attached to this case, if it was going to turn into a job he would take. Then again, they could really use any job at the moment. The boys wouldn’t be too pleased if he got picky at this stage.

  Bevins gave Humph the hairy eyeball. “I cannot say, Mr. Boggart. My employer is not accustomed to divulging her reasons for her actions to her employees, nor are her employees encouraged to speculate on her motives. I’m sure you understand.”

  “I do, but you have to understand our position as well, Mr. Bevins. We’re not your boss’s employees, yet. And while a go-between such as yourself might not be privy to her motives”—Bevins noticeably bristled at being called a go-between—“it does come as a factor for us.” He took a puff on his cigar, regarding the suit. “That said, your boss can rely on our discretion in whatever matter she needs attended to; I imagine that’s why she’s using you in the first place. Discretion.” Humph loved to make guys like this squirm. Just because they were in service to people with power and influence didn’t mean that they were any better than the rest of the world; Humph took opportunities like this one to subtly remind people like Mr. Bevins of that fact.

  Fred was watching the entire exchange with a bemused expression, keeping his feet up on his desk. Watch and learn, boyo, the Boggart thought. It wouldn’t hurt to have two of them able to trade off as “boss,” especially if Fred learned some better people skills, particularly among his own kind.

  “What we need to know here, is fairly simple,” the Boggart continued as Bevins’ lips tightened. “Is this job going to involve anything skirting legalities?” He held up a hand before Bevins could answer. “Not to say that if it does, we won’t take it. It just means that things get a lot more expensive—and if I find out after the fact that it does, you really do not want to consider what the fee will be, unless you can get your hands on something equivalent to the expense account of Home Service back when they still had a few red cents to rub together.”

  “The job, Mr. Boggart, is simple. I need you to find a man and bring him to me, relatively unharmed. This is aboveboard, but my employer wishes to keep this quiet. Family is involved, you see, and the company cannot be the center of a scandal anytime soon.” He sneered, looking from Fred to Boggart. “I’m insulted that you would insinuate that my employer would ever be involved in procuring the services of anyone for less than sterling purposes. I’ve come to you, not for your apparently flexible morals, but because of your reputation of a being that always gets the job done. And that you can keep quiet about it afterwards.” His expression softened marginally, as he appraised the Boggart. “Or have I heard incorrectly?”

  Humph spread his hands, grinning wide enough to show his sharp teeth. “No, you’ve heard right, Bevins. Let’s get down to particulars.”

  ***

  “The Case of the Missing Heir!” Skinny Jim rubbed his hands together. “With our skills, this should be a—”

  “Hold it right there, don’t jinx it,” the Boggart warned, interrupting him. “We can gloat when it’s over and the money’s in the account. For now, assume everything that can go wrong, will.” A pessimist is never unpleasantly surprised, he reminded himself.

  “You are just a ray of sunshine, boss,” Jim groused. “All right, Fred, I’ll do the usual, you check on the company. Last one done buys the next meal.” Which in Jim’s case…could be expensive. Jim could eat the brain fungus he and Fred had found on the planet they’d taken refuge on. It grew just fine in the spare closet, and it would do in a pinch. He preferred the dehydrated animal brains you could get at the Zombie supply shop. But what he wanted was fresh. That got expensive. Even more expensive than Fred’s preferred steaks—unless Fred was really treating himself to the beer-fed Kobe-style beef that could only be gotten imported from off-planet.

  “Sounds like you two have your end of things well in hand. I’m going to head out, start hitting the pavement. Message me when you have a heading.”

  From everything Bevins had told him, the Boggart wasn’t at all confident that old-fashioned shoe leather applied to cement was going to get him anywhere. But what he was sure of was that he needed to walk in silence for a while. He needed to mull over the interview that had just taken place, and let his instincts see what intel they could extract from it. Because something seemed…off.

  Like his namesake, the Boggart did his best thinking when he was shuffling down an empty city street, making his way from pool-of-lamplight to pool-of-lamplight.

  On the surface, this looked like a legit job, nothing that Humph would turn his nose up at even when business was good. The blue bloods regularly had guys like him do their dirty work so as not to sully their white-gloved hands. It was how the universe had worked for time beyond time, and that was just fine with him. If nothing else, it meant that there would always be a job for him. Still, he couldn’t place his finger on what it was about this one that bothered him. Bevins was the usual snob that lackeys could be; he saw himself as climbing the ladder to someday reach the lofty heights where his employers sat, never mind how much of a delusion that probably was. The job wasn’t unusual, a rich nobody had run off to the embarrassment of some rich somebodies, and needed to be fetched back. Par for the course.

  Maybe that’s it, he thought. It’s too simple, too normal. Whenever anything looks like it’s going according to plan, it’s probably not somehow. Humph tried to shrug the feeling off, but he just couldn’t shake it.

  Well, all right then. Plan for the worst, hope for the best. Make sure he still had some favors owed, bolt-holes open, options in place. He pulled a microdot out of a hidden compartment in his watch, stuck it in his PDA, and opened the files. Just to be sure.

  He frowned a little. There were fewer options open than he liked; still had some but…he made a note that if this panned out, it was time to spread the love around and buy himself a few more shady operators. It never hurt to have a few more cards to play when the chips were down. A little bail money here, a little bribe money there, and it all added up to favors owed. Favors that one day might mean the difference between nailing a case or ending up in a shallow grave.

  Humph’s comm unit chirped. He tapped a button, cueing up the earpiece he was wearing. “Boggart here, go ahead.”

  “It’s me, boss. Got a lead for you.” Fred was silent for a moment, and there was the sound of shuffling papers and data pads. “Looks like you’re headed for the pleasure district on the east side, not too far from where you are now. That’s the last place Jim found a cash withdrawal. Big one too. Looks like he was planning to find the original good time that was had by all.”

  “Wonderful. I’m heading there now. I’ll be sure to say hi to your Ma, Fred.”

  “Don’t bother,” Fred quipped back. “She’s too busy collecting all those nickels.”

  ***

  Humph had spent the next day and a half slogging all through the pleasure district before he finally hit paydirt. Humph didn’t like going through there, even though his work forced him to tramp through often enough. Too many holo advertisements, bright even in full daylight. Too many shills too eager to entice him into their dens of “delight.” As much of a city creature as he had become, it was also too crowded. Oxygen stations, brothels and sex clubs, trendy and exclusive bars with lines that stretched around the block, street vendors hawking everything from technological toys to sausages of dubious origin to the mostly legal drugs. All of it was pressed in on itself, commerce and vice squeezing into every crack and crevice that it could. He didn’t much care for the crowds either. Too many Norms trying to look like Paras. Too many Paras pretending to like the Norms. Kids too young to be here, decked out in Fur tribal gear. Jaded adults trying to find something new to jazz themselves, wearing outfits he couldn’t afford in a year’s worth of jobs.
Paras passing as the latter—but he knew them with a single sniff. A very few Paras not even trying to pass, but serving as the exotic shills at the doors of clubs and bars. Furs mostly, a few Satyrs, some things he didn’t recognize at first glance. There were a lot of mythologies out there, and it seemed Old Earth was disgorging a little something new out of them all the time, as Norms got the trick of Invocations and Bindings. Not everyone was out of the broom closet voluntarily; some, like Humph, had been dragged out, kicking and screaming, by a Norm who had learned some magic and wanted a Para pet—or slave. You never saw Reboots, of course. They were tidied away behind the scenes where no one would have to look at them. It wasn’t as if they had the capacity to care. Intelligent Reboots like Skinny Jim were one in a billion.

  It was mostly Norms though; Mildred was hardly an exotic world. There wasn’t much here to attract a Para that didn’t have to be here. And as a hub for Norm trade, if there were any aliens on-planet, he’d never spotted them.

  It had taken a little bit of effort, but not too much; the usual haunts were scoped out, palms of bouncers and madams were liberally greased, bartenders and maitre d’s at some of the more upscale hotels and casinos were discreetly questioned, with credit chips passed along just as discreetly. He’d come across just what he was looking for when he bribed a senior bellhop into allowing him into a room that Harry frequently reserved when he wasn’t on the lam; it turned out that he had been there just the night before, and the room hadn’t been turned over yet. Humph found a crumpled receipt printed out from the desk net-unit. It was a confirmation for a reservation at a different hotel, not nearly as upscale but still way out of Humph’s price-range, across town. Harry had made it under an assumed name, and it looked like he was paying with a quick-use cred card; it was the sort you could pick up for a preset amount. When bought with cash, they were nearly untraceable; no name was attached to them, and once they were empty you just threw them away and bought another one.

  Untraceable, unless, of course, you could winkle out the card number from the receipt and the transaction. Well, he’d leave that to Skinny Jim and Fred if he somehow missed the mark at the new digs. He gave them a quick heads-up, and a scan of the receipt, and he was off. Rule number one of being a PI: Don’t be stupid. Rule number two: If you have partners, tell them where you’re going. Humph didn’t much care for having the starring role in a chump comedy. If he got in a bind that he couldn’t handle on his own, having his partners know where he was going would at least give them a heading for where to send the cavalry. Or the coroner, depending.

  His destination was The Troposphere Hotel. It was done up to look old-fashioned, somewhere around the early to mid 20th century, while still having all of the modern amenities that the rich and shameless could want or need. Harry probably thought that it was a low-key place to lay low at, since it was a couple of rungs down the ladder from his usual accommodations, never mind the fact that it would have taken six months’ worth of pay for someone like Humph to even spend a night there. Monied myopia, sometimes the rich really like to make things easy for me. Barging in through the front door wasn’t going to be that much of an option, not this time; despite the evidence to the contrary, Harry might have been canny enough to bribe someone at the front desk to alert him if anyone suspicious came around. This called for something a lot more subtle, something that would get him quietly and seamlessly past the hotel security—which at this level of things, would have living bodies attached to guns along with the usual electronic surveillance.

  First place to look, the service entrances. If there was any way of getting inside without attracting notice, it would be there. At the third one—at a guess, it looked as if it was somewhere around the restaurant area—Humph hit paydirt. There was a crew of workmen in paint-spattered coveralls loitering there, obviously on break. And from the look of them, this was a bunch hired from a temp-labor outfit; it seemed that none of them knew each other all that well. Easy money. Humph was wearing a general laborer outfit already for just such an occasion. It was the top of the hour, which meant their break was probably almost up; he confirmed it when they all started to put out their non-carcinogenic cigarette butts and get up. Humph was already in similar basic work clothes, old and worn enough that a lack of paint wouldn’t be noticed. Invoking some fast and dirty magic quickly and putting on one of his generic faces with his glamour, Humph surreptitiously slipped into the group as they shuffled back inside.

  He dropped to the back of the group as soon as they were inside, and kept his nose alert. The smell of hot water and strong bleach told him when they were near the laundry, and he slipped away, following the scent. It was easy enough to find a janitor’s coverall—no Reboot janitors for this joint—and sneak it out of the pile waiting for pickup and distribution to the locker room.

  Places like this didn’t bother with ID tags, which could be duplicated, passed off to a friend, lost, or stolen. For low-level help like housekeeping and janitorial staff, they relied on RFID—radio frequency identification—tags sewn into the uniforms, uniforms which you had to put on when you arrived and take off when you left. Perfect for his purposes. A janitor tag would allow him access to everything but the high-roller suites without question. He changed faces again; no sense in tipping anyone off as to what he was up to, since there was always the off chance that someone watching a security cam feed was actually paying attention. Next objective was to find a terminal hooked into the hotel’s registry; somewhere near the kitchen ought to work. Following his nose again combined with his knowledge of general hotel layout, it didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for. The terminal was set up for the waiter staff so that they could ferry room service orders promptly to the guests. It was a closed system, which meant that it wasn’t connected to any outside net. He was going to need a hand to get the information he needed out of it. Tapping his comm unit, Humph spoke in a whisper. “You still paying attention, boys? I’m in, and need you to actually earn your overly generous wages.”

  Jim was the first one to reply. “On it, boss. Whaddya need this time?”

  The Boggart attached a miniature transceiver to the data link on the side of the terminal, checking over his shoulder as he spoke. “Need you to do a remote hack, find out which room Harry is holed up in under his fake name. Got it? Link is up and ready whenever you are.”

  “My magic fingers are at your command,” Fred quipped, sounding actually chipper. “Oh, this is sad, sad and pathetic. You’re gonna need to remember this one, boss, there is no ice and no firewall from this terminal, and they left ‘support’ as an ID and ‘guest’ as a password. Amateurs. Room 1210.”

  “Good work.” Humph retrieved the transceiver and was about to cut the comm line when that familiar feeling of unease crept into his belly and up his spine. “Do me a favor, keep digging about our employer and the mark. I’ve got a feeling on this one; it’s been too damned easy so far.”

  “Bugger. I hate it when you get feelings. Are you sure it wasn’t just something you ate?” By this time in their association, Fred knew very well when to trust Humph’s gut. He waited a few beats, and then sighed. “Roger. Preparing for excrement to hit rotating blades. Out.”

  Time to figure out my next move. The room that Harry was staying in was on the high-roller level of suites, which made sense; the playboy wouldn’t be caught dead in anything less, even when he was on the run. This presented a problem for Humph; that level was security-restricted, and the low-security rating RFID tags in his clothing wouldn’t grant him access. Guess I’ll have to break out a moldy oldie from my bag of tricks. Since the terminal was still open, he put in an order for room service to an occupied suite on the same level as Harry. Putting in an order to Mr. Somerfield’s room might tip him off, and Humph really didn’t want the aggravation of a foot chase this late in the game. Access to the level was really what he needed. Once there, Humph would have more time to observe the situation. Nine times out of ten in his job, roundabout was better
than going straight to the objective. Besides, with no idea whether or not Harry was in the room, alone, with companions, or hosting a free-for-all orgy, manifesting right there would be a very bad idea.

  After the order was completed and the terminal powered off, Humph made his way to the pickup area and waited. Just as he expected, a snooty-looking waiter arrived soon after, checking the details for the order on the terminal; Humph saw that it was for the order he had put in. Sidling up to the waiter, he used some well practiced sleight of hand to slip his pocket watch into a pocket on the waiter’s jacket; a simple-brush-by was all it took—that, and a craven apology. The waiter might have looked snooty, but at least he wasn’t mean to the help. “Think nothing of it,” he murmured, hoisting the heavy tray up over his shoulder.

  When he was sure that no one was looking, he slipped into the nowhere-space connected to his watch, and waited some more. He had called it the Between. It wasn’t “like” anything at all, he had a vague idea of where the watch was going, but other than that, the closest you could come to describing what used to be the Between was that there was literally nothing to describe. But it was a great place for a nap.

  Back when he had been a simple Boggart, the Between had been something else entirely. He had been tied, not to an object, his pocket watch, but to the Land, and the house on it, and to a certain extent, to the people living there. For some immortals, like the Boggart, there’s no concrete Beginning; you just are. That had given him a different nature entirely, and access to more expanded powers. He had been a trickster, but one that confined his mischief to amusing or useful pranks as long as he was given his portion of what the farmer produced—usually in the form of some of the food at meals, and of the drink the farmer brewed. But most importantly, he had access to the energy the land and the people produced. And the Between, his other space, had given him immortality, let him sleep for centuries if he chose, and gave him what was, essentially, his own little world. A repository for his Power, what he drew on from the land and the people on it.