The Black Garden: Chapter 16

Dopamine, the primary reward hormone in humans and many other species, didn't last very long - a few minutes at most - while the cocktail of endorphins I'd been drip-feeding Mert would linger for an hour or two. After that, the withdrawals would start. Mert would spend the evening sour-mouthed and depressed. He might even wonder if I’d somehow spiked his beer. But by about ten am the next morning, his testosterone levels would be as high as those of a teenager, while his dopamine would be unpleasantly low. He would be jonesing for me, and fully primed to bargain.

Before I saw him off, we exchanged numbers. Mine was a burner. I was still saddlesore by the time I caught a cab – warily, now that I knew what had happened to some of my predecessors – and went to meet Jak in the lobby of Boris’s arco.

The building was one of those Palae’an structures that had probably been here since New Warder’s first days, maybe even constructed by the Contact teams who had shepherded the frightened, semi-hostile refugees of a dead Earth to Ideni. It would have once been covered in greenery, but this white building looked dead from the outside, like bleached coral. Inside, I was privately dismayed to see the distros had been turned into a supermarket and a department store. Jak was waiting for me by the entry to the former, leaning against a wall and watching the foot traffic with the studied patience of a herding dog observing his flock. He spotted me easily, even though I had toned down the flashy white-and-green of my skins to a more conservative matte navy.

“Good to see you, doc.” He gave me the once over, but not in the way Mert had. Jak had a type, and it wasn’t me. “Something the matter? You’ve got a limp.”

“Ten-hour shift, four surgeries, and mandatory team-bonding afterwards. It was a lot.” I smiled ruefully at him. “Sorry for being late.”

"That hospital has a year of backlog, yeh? Surprised you were able to make it at all." Jak had switched his gun and harness for a leather jacket, but he was apparently a full-time jeans man. "How was your night at the house?"

I shrugged and smiled, briefly imagining the cleaning robot singing to itself over the tadpole’s futile screeching. "No problems."

“Good. Come on. Place has probably been trashed, but they might have missed something.” Jak jerked his head toward the crowd, bumped off from the wall, and led the way through the plaza toward the elevator junction.

Boris kept a one-bedroom bachelor pad on the fiftieth floor of the arco. Jak had biometrics access, and I watched him scan his palm with a twinge of expectant empathy. The doors rushed open to reveal a tangle of broken furniture and torn bedding. Everything had already been roughly searched: the bed flipped and cut open, the drawers pulled out, everything turned upside down. Many of Boris's small personal effects had either been broken or simply left untouched. His computer workstation was missing entirely, stripped down to the charge ports. There had been one, a square mark on the desk where it had sat for many years. Even the fridge had been opened, the food pulled out and left to rot. The place smelled of stale milk and pickles.

"Kanker. Worse than I thought." Jak headed in with a sigh, making a beeline for the kitchenette.

The apartment felt anonymous, generic. I followed Jak at a short distance, keeping half an eye on the front door and glancing at a group of photos on the wall. They were the holoprint type, virtual pictures projected within frames. In the pictures that had included Boris, parts of the images were glitched out or faded to the point of imperceptibility.

I closed my eyes for a moment in grief. For Boris and Chani... but also for Jak. "Does this look like police work to you?"

Jak didn't seem to hear me. He went into the bathroom and drifted back out again with a well-worn towel held in his hands, looking lost. He slowly scanned the room and found the same wall of pictures, then stared at them with something between disbelief and disgust.

"Hey, doc...” His words were halting, trembling under pressure. “Why can't I remember what he looked like? Why can't I remember his face?"

I made a soft sound under my breath. "I'm sorry, Jak. It's... it's what happens when someone is destroyed by an Abyssal entity."

"There’s nothing." He looked down at the towel, bewildered. "There’s nothing. All of him is gone. I don't remember what he smelled like."

There were few words of consolation I could offer. I went to him, but before I could lay a hand on his shoulder, a quiver passed through the muscles of his face as his fingers tightened on the fabric in his hands. I lifted my hand away just before he suddenly, explosively threw the towel at the nearest wall.

"I knew him my whole. Damn. LIFE." His voice was hard, quiet, shuddering on every word. "We went to school together. Went through security cadet training together. But he didn't want to be a cop, so he split off into the military."

"Keep talking." I reached for him again, and gently squeezed his shoulder.

Jak reached up to grip a handful of his own hair. "We... we were just friends, for the longest time. He thought I was straight, I thought he was straight. We lost touch for a while. He was doing army shit, I was working my way up through the ranks, figuring out my career. Then he... he went to Punawahu, for exchange. He got back in contact, started speaking to me every other day. Didn't even realize he was hitting on me until we got talking about being bi in New Warder. We're probably a thousand years behind the rest of Ideni here. He was telling me how easy it is everywhere else. No need to be on the down-low. Asked me if I wanted to join him. I fucking turned him down. Told him I couldn't leave my job. So he came back and set up his business here. For ME."

I listened carefully, fully aware by the way Jak was speaking that the memories were already slipping. He hadn't used Boris's name once since I'd arrived at the apartment, and likely wasn't even aware that he was forgetting it. A week from now, there would be nothing left other than a nebulous, aching sense of loss – not unless Jak got in touch with some of the specialized archivists of the Abyssal Response Fleet.

"Jak... " I was about to try and counsel him, but he shook his head and slipped my hand, stomping back over to the kitchen. He crouched down in front of the small freezer-fridge unit, and began to pull it out from the wall. I watched on in confusion and a little concern as he tugged it this way and that, working it loose from the counter. A couple minutes of tugging, he hauled the fridge out and away from its charge port, grunting as he peered into the cavity.

"I just remembered why I wanted to come here," he said heavily. "Safe."

“Safe?” My brows lifted. I padded over and crouched down. “Ohhh. Safe.”

There were two discreet buttons flush with the wall. Jak ran his tongue over his teeth, gazing at them intently as he interfaced with the virtual lock. After a couple of seconds, there was a beep and a seal appeared, letting him open a narrow mailbox-like door. Inside was a Confluence-style memory crystal, some small boxes, and a stack of actual papers: rough, handmade pulp paper, yellowed with age and stored in faded army-green manilla folders.

"Crystal is yours," Jak said thickly, reaching in and snagging it. "He kept his Conf noosphere link. Backed up his logs here... didn't even have to open the safe to do it. Crazy tech you guys have. No one in New Warder can use these, except maybe the executives. He told me to come get this if anything ever happened to him during his merc work."

I took the crystal between thumb and forefinger and called up my ATLAS interface, accessed the high-security panel, and connected to it to access the contents. My surprise only grew as a huge tree of files unfolded ahead of me. "Oh wow."

Thousands. There were thousands of logs. Boris had kept daily backups of his movements since his time in Punawahu: journals, logs, information on his clients. I bit my lip as I quickly created a secure channel to COMMS and sent a brief 'incoming' to Digger before copying the lot over. "I'll send this to my support team for analysis, but let's have a look at the last couple of entries. Looks like Boris was... going out a lot with Chani to various meetings and events. What's the 'New Warder, New Horizons' thing about?"

"Oh. That." Jak's expression flickered as I spoke Boris's name, a moment of puzzlement before it clicked. "Vornn's pet project, yeh? He's been hyping up a whole lot of new development... infrastructure, modernization to make us competitive with the other cities. Which is a pipe dream, because we aren't catching up with the Confluence any time soon."

"Boris and Chani's last event before they died was a meeting with Governor Zeelander and the Environmental Resources exec from Vornn Industries. Someone named Tiana Leeborger." I said. "Two days before they were zeroed. But it looks like Chani was involved in this Horizon program, somehow."

"Everywhere I fucking turn on this, the Governor's name keeps coming up." Jak stood and turned to glare at the front door, fuming. "Cancerous son of a bitch."

I frowned. Jak was almost right - but not exactly. If I was reading Mert’s information correctly, the Governor's involvement was a front for Vornn himself. The local conservationists had been raising a stink to Vornn's company, threatening it... they'd tried to interfere with Vornn's grand plan. But they hadn't been destroyed via demon, or Mert wouldn't have remembered them after all this time. They were just ‘normal’ deaths. So what had Chani known - or said - that had earned her and her bodyguard the special treatment?

While Jak stormed around the apartment, kicking and lifting furniture to look underneath, I glanced at the papers in the locker, at the typewritten Cyrillic. My ATLAS began auto-translating the text I could see. They were letters... letters from Boris's father to his mother, back from Earth. And to his son, only an infant at the time. Letters to Boris in case his father - a hero of their dying planet - had not lived to say what he wanted to say to him.

"Jak, I need you to listen to me." I rose and turned to stare at him.

The man’s nostrils flared as he turned to look back at me. “What?”

"Speaking as a Hunter, as a representative of my corps… I’m going to request you let me evacuate you.” I straightened. “Everything I’ve uncovered so far suggests this goes right to the top of your government. There are forces lining up in the shadows right now, and I guarantee that when once we leave this building, they will be hunting you. And because this is systemic, then tonight, maybe tomorrow... you'll be sitting in your car or sleeping, and someone - some THING - will destroy you."

Jak opened his mouth to argue, but I held up my hand.

"No. Please. I fully believe you are a tough, capable son-of-a-bitch. And if this was a case of an individual criminal actor or mastermind, I wouldn’t be saying this.” I didn’t mask the concern in my voice as I spoke. “But I have other information I can't tell you, information I got today via another source. And there is literally nothing that any one person can do to stop this."

"Bullshit," he snapped. "Zeelander is murdering people. He needs to be held accountable."

“No. Vornn Industries, the system, is murdering people,” I said. “That’s the difference.”

He was visibly fuming now. “So what? I can’t do anything, but you can?”

“If it was me, alone, no. But I’m not alone.” I spread my hands. “I’m just one of the fingers that is pushing chess pieces around the board. We’ve confirmed that demons are active here in New Warder. That’s enough for the Abyssal Response Fleet to take action on behalf of a protected world. And I hate to say this, but Boris and Chani aren’t just murder victims. They’re casualties in a war between two apex species that’s been going on since before our ancestors crawled out of the ocean. So I'm asking you: let me evacuate you from the battlefield. If you take Boris's letters and the memories you have remaining, we have specialists who can help you preserve them before the Abyss takes them. Live the way he would want you to live."

Jak's hard, handsome face set into mask-like lines through the speech. But his cheeks and eyes reddened as I urged him. He looked down and to the side, fighting back tears. "... I couldn't remember, doc. I couldn’t remember his name until you said it."

"I know." I went across to him, and after a moment, drew him into a tight hug. "You've done your part. My people have already arranged you an alias and a ticket out of New Warder. So we’ll drive to the airport - right now - and board you on the first flight to Punawahu. And if there isn't one, then a charter is going to pick you up and take you there."

"Right now?" He froze in my arms. "But-"

"Everything you need can be gotten once you're safe," I said. "House? It's yours. Car? They can print you one that looks the same as the one you have, if you can give the distro her specs. You can't be a cop in the Confluence, but there's plenty of work for guys with security training. Hell... you can even join CEIDR. Join the Response Fleet and come back alongside me and others like me. Fight from a position of strength. There’s a better life for you than this."

"I don't have the money-"

"There IS no money." I leaned back, gripping his arms. "YOU are the most valuable thing to us. We let down Chani and Boris, but let us save you."

I could have fucked with his brain chemistry, the way I had done with Mert's. But I didn't - and I wouldn't. This had to be his choice, and his alone.

Jak looked past me, back into the open safe, as he swallowed back tears. "Okay. Fine. Take me."

My ATLAS hummed, and Gaius's voice broke through. "Just confirming: there's a Conf plane leaving New Warder in about thirty minutes. Next one is in the morning. We've got the ticket and exit fee covered if you can get him there in time."

"Come on," I said. "I'll send you the alias packet. Let's get you off the front lines before they lock down New Warder completely."

***

Jak insisted that I drive, which surprised me. He had packed a few things from Boris's apartment into a gym bag, silent other than to help me locate any unfamiliar controls. As I pulled up to the boarding gate, I was unsurprised to see the same huge guys who had tried to stop me patrolling the sidewalks, walking in pairs. There were also several uniformed police. Floating drones bobbed along behind them, swiveling to gyroscopically scan the environment around them. None of them seemed to recognize - or flag - the car.

"Okay. Once you get out... just go," I said. "Walk and don't stop."

"Right." Jak gazed past me at the entry, and exhaled thinly through his nose. "Thanks, Doc. It hasn't been long, but it's been a pleasure."

"Same to you." I smiled at him.

The corner of Jak's mouth twitched, but his eyes were hollow. "Keep the car and the keys. You've got my address. There's stuff you can use there... guns, ammo, food. Just promise me something. You're not allowed to die here."

"I won't," I said. "It would take a real hardcore motherfucker to kill me."

Jak hesitated a moment, then reached out and gave my shoulders a brief one-armed squeeze. Then he opened his door and left. I watched him stride for the glass doors, a lump in my throat. One of the Hellions glanced at him on the way past, thumbs hooked in the straps of his tac harness, but he boredly resumed watching the rest of the arrivals after a bare second of interest.

"That’s it, Jak. Last chopper out of 'Nam," I muttered, pulling back out onto the road. “You’re on the last fucking chopper out of ‘Nam.”