Tears in Rain Part 31

"I have to kill. I have to kill a lot of people."

"What!? But why?"

"If I don't do it, they'll torture Gummy," she wailed.

"Gummy? Who's Gummy?"

"My son! My son!" she yelled.

Lizard looked at her, stunned, as if someone had just hit him on the head.

"You don't have any children, Bruna," he whispered.

The buzzing was becoming deafening.

"I have to go."

"No, wait! Where are you? Listen carefully to what I'm saying. You can't have children. You're a rep!"

Four years, three months, and eleven days.

"What does four years, three months, and eleven days mean, Lizard? You must know."

The inspector looked at her, bewildered.

"I have absolutely no idea. Please tell me where you are, Bruna. I'll come and get you."

She shook her head.

"I'm sorry. If I don't do it, they'll torture Gummy."

"Wait-please. How do you know? How do you know they won't hurt him anyway? Maybe you'll kill those people you have to kill and then they'll hurt him anyway."

Bruna thought that over for a few moments. No. They wouldn't do that to him. She knew that with absolute clarity and certainty. If she did her part, the child would be saved.

"You're in Montera Street! I've located you. Don't move; I'll be there in five minutes!" he shouted.

"I can't. I'm off."

"Where?!" asked Lizard, in agony.

"To the sky-tram interchange," Bruna replied.

And turning around, she headed outside, dizzy, nauseous, deaf to her surroundings.

She walked quickly, enclosed within the bubble of her nightmare, oblivious to the preaching of the Apocalyptics, the racket from the public screens, the looks of fear or revulsion that she was stirring up in her path. She walked like an automaton, totally focused on what she had to do. But when she reached the enormous star-shaped interchange, her feet stopped. The buzzing inside her skull became more intense, a noise that was beginning to be painful. She visualized the circular, jagged blade of a saw cutting her brain in two and she shuddered. Then, from who knows where, the image of a woman with a black line drawn around her body-a woman split by her tattoo-came back to her. Four years, three months, and eleven days. For a few seconds, she couldn't move and she could barely breathe. Then Gummy's face burst into her head, and everything went into motion again. She checked that the belt was ready and decided to take the elevated walkway so as to enter through the side door of the building. Just then, a car screeched to a halt on the sidewalk next to her and a man leaped out. It was Lizard. Bruna stepped back a few paces, on guard, ready to fight him if he tried to stop her. But he remained standing a few feet away.

"Bruna...relax..."

"Don't come any closer."

"I won't. I just want to talk to you. Tell me, whom do you have to kill? How are you going to do it?"

"Let me past. You can't stop me."

"Listen, Bruna, your brain has been manipulated. I think they've injected you with an induced-behavior implant. They've made you believe you have a son, but it's not true. We have to remove that implant before it kills you."

The buzzing intensified. Maybe Lizard was right. Maybe the implant business was true. But her son was still in the hands of those monsters. Small, terrified, and defenseless. The terror she imagined the child must be experiencing almost made her scream. She deactivated the safety catch on the belt and moved her hand toward the touch-sensitive membrane.

"They told me what they'll do to Gummy if I don't obey," she said, her voice breaking. "I can't stop myself. I have to release the gas before noon. If I can't do it in the interchange, I'll do it right here."

"Wait. Hold on, by all the d.a.m.ned species! Please! Don't do it. If it's gas, it won't have the same effect here in the open air as it would in the interchange, right? They wouldn't want you to release it here."

"Perhaps. But it's a very effective neurotoxin. I know it kills in under a minute and it's very potent. It will work here, too."

Paul looked around. A few feet away there was a travelator loaded with people. And then there was the overhead walkway, cars, buildings.

"s.h.i.+t, Bruna, I'm begging you; wait a minute, please. Please! I've called a friend of yours. He must be just about here. Wait, please."

The rep panicked. She touched the membrane with two fingers. She left them there, pressing on the belt.

"If you've called for reinforcements...if you're thinking of shooting me...I've already deactivated the safety catch. If I take my fingers away from this membrane, the ampoules will open and the gas will escape."

Lizard blanched.

"No, please. I've only alerted a friend of yours, honestly. Give me ten minutes-no, twenty. That's all I'm asking you. It's not 12:00 yet. I'm only asking you for twenty minutes. If you still want to go into the interchange at 11:30, I'll let you go. I'm begging you. Twenty minutes, and in return for that I'll take care of your child. After you're dead. Someone will have to look after him."

Bruna felt a dizzy abyss opening up in front of her. It was true; she hadn't thought of that. Someone would have to take care of Gummy. Four years, three months, and eleven days. She gasped in anguish and pressed her fingers a little more firmly against the membrane.

"Okay. Till 11:30. And you'll take care of my boy. But don't call anyone, and don't move."

"I won't do anything. Calm down."

They were the longest twelve minutes of Paul Lizard's life. As far as the rep was concerned, they pa.s.sed like a nightmare, like a feverish delirium. Like a slow fog perforated by sudden horrendous images that flashed across her mind like knife strokes.

Pablo Nopal arrived at the thirteenth minute.

"Hi, Bruna."

The android studied him anxiously. She knew him. And he disquieted her in some way, though she didn't know why.

"What a beautiful necklace. What a lovely netsuke. It was your mother's, do you remember? When you were little and your parents were going out for dinner, your mother would come into your room before she left. You pretended to be asleep but you could see her bending over you, slim, and making a rustling noise in her elegant clothes, perfumed, outlined by the light from the corridor. And this little man would be dangling from her neck. Then your mother would put a hand over the netsuke, and like that, while she was holding it, she would brush your cheek or your forehead with her lips. No doubt she would hold on to the necklace so it wouldn't hurt you as she bent over, but that scene crystallized those ingredients inside you forever: the promising night; the glow of the corridor; your mother's kiss as she grabbed the little man as if he were a talisman; the secret key that would allow her to teleport herself to that mysterious, happy life that awaited your parents somewhere."

That's what Nopal said with his serious, calm voice, and suddenly Bruna saw herself there, inside that sleepy body and that bed, inside the warm coc.o.o.n of the sheets and her mother's fragrance, which wrapped around her like a protective ring. The burning memory cut through her sharply, leaving her breathless, and it was just the first of many. Nopal unraveled memories from the tangled ball inside her mind and little by little, the hazy outline of everything began to recover its definition. Half an hour later, Bruna had gone through her dance of the phantoms again; she had cried again as the deception was revealed, and she understood that she was a rep. That she couldn't have children. But Gummy was still crying deafeningly within her. Her child continued to call her and need her. The rep moaned. Tears burned her eyes. With her left hand, she reactivated the safety catch and then withdrew her numb fingers from the membrane. Lizard moved as if he were going to approach her, but Bruna halted him with a fierce yell.

"Don't move!"

The inspector stopped in his tracks.

"Now I'm the one asking you for five minutes."

No one said a word.

The rep bowed her head and closed her eyes. And she set about killing Gummy. She remembered the weight of the child in her arms, his warm animal smell, his sticky little hand touching her face, and then she told herself, It's not true, he doesn't exist. He doesn't exist! She repeated the words with a silent shout until she had managed to erase the image bit by bit, like the pixels of a defective graphic. Then she moved on to her next memory of the little boy, and the next. His first wobbly steps. That quiet, blue summer afternoon when Gummy ate an ant. The way he said "candy" in his funny baby-speak-dandy; the little bubbles of saliva at the corners of his mouth. And how he used to put his hand inside hers when something frightened him. None of that existed! It didn't exist! The memories were disappearing, bursting like soap bubbles, and the pain became ever more unbearable, more searing. It was like burning yourself and then sc.r.a.ping the blister. But Bruna kept going, agonizing, suicidal, scratching around in living flesh until she reached the final memory and burst it. And right down there, in the depths, after she'd completed Gummy's imaginary death, Merlin's real death was poised, waiting for her. Bruna Husky was back, whole.

Slowly, she opened her eyes, exhausted and aching. She looked at the expectant Lizard and Nopal.

"So, is the implant still going to kill me, like it did the others? Will my brain explode? Will I gouge out my eyes?" she asked in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

And just at that moment she lifted her head and saw herself. Suddenly, her image was swamping the public screens: Bruna as she actually was, and as Annie Heart; Bruna entering the Majestic Hotel; Annie entering the HSP headquarters. And she saw the big, red 3-D flashes signaling breaking news: "Techno Bruna Husky Guilty of Torture and Murder of Hericio." It was just on twelve o'clock.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR.

It was Bruna's idea. She needed to have the implant removed, but if she went to a hospital, she'd be arrested. Then she thought of Gandara.

"The medical examiner?" asked a surprised Lizard.

"He knows how to remove artificial mems, even if it is from cadavers."

"Yes, but are you sure about him? He's a strange character. Won't he turn you in?"

Bruna shook her head, and that was enough for the world to start spinning. She was feeling increasingly dizzy.

"No, he'll do the right thing; he's a friend. And if we give him some money, he'll be even friendlier," she murmured weakly.

She was convinced she was going to die and her only hope was that Lizard would prevent her from gouging out her eyes. The inspector called Gandara. The medical examiner worked nights and wasn't at the Forensic Anatomy Inst.i.tute, but Paul gave him some vague excuse and managed to make it sound official and urgent enough for Gandara to promise he'd be there quickly.

"I'll make sure he keeps his mouth shut," grunted Nopal.

"What do you mean by that?" asked the inspector, somewhat concerned.

"I'm talking about money. I'll give him some Gs."

The three of them were in the policeman's car. They'd ordered the vehicle to darken the windows in order to hide Bruna; the public screens were showing images of her incessantly, and unfortunately she was too easy to recognize. Lizard and the memorist seemed to have signed a truce, a temporary alliance the rep would have found very odd if she had been in a state to think about it. But she was feeling so awful that ideas didn't seem to register in her brain. In fact, she hadn't noticed something even stranger: instead of arresting her, the inspector was helping her escape.

By the time they reached the Forensic Inst.i.tute, Bruna's heart was beating abnormally fast and she was experiencing cold sweats. Lizard stopped in a discreet corner of the parking lot, left Bruna in the car with Nopal and went in search of the medical examiner. He returned with the doctor in tow after what seemed an exasperatingly long time to Bruna and Nopal.

"You look terrible, Bruna. You look like my usual customers," said the medical examiner by way of a greeting.

They had brought a robot-cart with a capsule.

"We'll have to remove her clothes," said Gandara.

They took off her clothes and the netsuke necklace, laid her down inside the capsule and lowered the transparent lid. The clearly visible bruise marks made her role as a corpse more credible. They entered the building and pa.s.sed through security control quickly and almost without any checks, no doubt thanks to the caustic and somewhat imposing presence of the medical examiner. Then they rolled down the corridor until they reached one of the dissection rooms.

"I've indicated it's a secret official matter and given the order that no one is to come in," Gandara informed them.

He told the robot-cart to park itself in the middle of the room underneath the instrument module and open its lid. The room was icy cold. Lizard looked at the rep's naked body, so pale and defenseless inside the capsule, and felt cold for her. And devastation and fear, too, and something akin to a distressing weakness that might have been tenderness.

Gandara put on his lab coat and gloves and switched on the powerful antibacterial light above them.

"Well, now...how are you feeling, Bruna?"

"Bad."

Concerned, Gandara looked at her.

"Do you know what day it is?"

"Monday...January 31."

Her voice sounded fuzzy.

The medical examiner checked all her vital signs with a body meter.

"Tachycardia, slight hypothermia...Right. We can't waste any time. If you've got a mem, it has to be removed now."

With quick, precise movements the doctor pulled down a frightening machine hanging above his head and switched it on. It began to emit a menacing hum.

"You have to keep very still. Is that clear? Imagine you're a corpse."

The rep opened her eyes wide in acquiescence. Gandara placed the metal tip of the machine in the android's nose and pressed a b.u.t.ton.

"There goes the probe."

Bruna whimpered and her hands contorted painfully.

"By all the d.a.m.n species, Gandara! Can't you make it more bearable for her?" growled the inspector.

"What do you want, Lizard? We don't have anesthetics here. I don't know if you realize it, but we don't need them. Keep very still, Bruna; it will be quick. And it isn't really such a big deal. Hey! n.o.body's ever complained, ha-ha."

The progress of the nanoprobe through her brain could be seen on the screen, a probe so tiny that it had to emit a fluorescent flicker in order to be visible. The trail of light moved back and forth in the gray matter like a comet gone mad in an enclosed universe. Gandara frowned.

"It's not possible."

Bruna was panting hoa.r.s.ely. Her fists were clenched and her body was so tense that her toes were curled like claws. That beautiful, suffering body, that battered flesh which the antibacterial light tinged with an unreal, purplish color.

"s.h.i.+t! What's happening? Wasn't it going to be quick?" the inspector exploded.

The luminous worm ran around the screen one last time and then switched itself off. The probe hissed as it retracted. Gandara removed the implement from the rep's nose and turned to Nopal and Lizard.