Accelerated Page 12

  That injection, the blue solution, was it the same substance put into Rita and Kay? If so, it would imply that Polarity Magnetics had sent the men. Neither Stone nor Rita had sported tattoos, however. But I didn’t know if that was significant or not.

  “I’m going to lie down,” I said.

  “It’s pretty early still,” Blake said.

  “My head is hurting, a byproduct of the neural whip, I think.”

  “Do you want me to speak to the laundry truck driver tomorrow?”

  “I’ll do that,” I said. “You keep poking around the airport, or wherever you have to in order to find out where the body went.”

  “Okay,” Blake said glumly.

  I left him staring at the ocean as I headed for my tiny shower stall near my cabin. I let the shower’s needle spray cleanse me of sweat and then heat my head. After a time, it made the dull throb go away.

  I munched on a bag of Doritos in bed and despite the early hour found myself yawning. I stretched out, fell asleep and woke around eleven at night. The red numbers of my clock said 11:12.

  Something had disturbed my sleep. I rubbed my face and realized I’d thought someone had called my name. That had been happening more often in my sleep. It was a strange feeling. I’d wake up and feel I knew what someone had been saying about me, that somewhere nearby people were talking about me.

  I got up, turned on the faucet, scrubbed my face with cold water and shuffled up the stairs into the galley. I opened the refrigerator, disturbed by the lack of choices. I nuked a big Polish dog, heaped on relish and squeezed a thick line of mustard. I washed it down with a Budweiser.

  I found Blake sitting in the dark before the glow of the computer. He had headphones on. He’d cock his head and then clack keys. Then he’d rewind his pocket recorder, cock his head again and type some more.

  I flicked on the lights. He swiveled around fast, with a look of fright on his face.

  I didn’t laugh. I’d done it this way so I wouldn’t scare him.

  He ripped off the earphones. “Thanks,” he said. “Now my concentration is shot.”

  “You’re just listening to your recorder,” I said.

  “I edit as I go along.” He must have been working on one of his articles. Blake stretched, yawned and stood unsteadily. “I’m going to bed.”

  “Think of anything new?”

  He turned thoughtful. “This Doctor Harris might have murdered Kay, but we know nothing about him. The Chief could have ordered Kay killed. Stone could have done it or Cheng might have given the order.”

  “Cheng might have done it herself,” I said.

  “Doubtful from what you told me about her. She sounds like someone who would keep her hands clean. Let one of the underlings do it.”

  “Rita?”

  Blake shrugged. “You told me Rita warned Stone to keep quiet about whatever was going on with injections. If she and Kay were both undergoing a similar treatment, wouldn’t that build camaraderie?”

  “With most people it would,” I said. “But…” There it was again, a whisper in my mind. Somebody was talking about me, somebody nearby. I—

  The feeling vanished. I blinked several times and noticed Blake giving me a funny look.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Your expression just changed. It was like you were trying to listen to someone who is not here.”

  That decided it for me. “I’m going into town,” I said.

  “Lock up if you would,” Blake said. “I don’t trust the neighborhood.”

  I nodded absently, leaving Blake at the computer. Soon, I hooked on my gun harness and chose some clean clothes, dark ones. Then I went outside, feeling like I’d meet someone waiting for me.

  I jumped onto the pier and felt the sensation again. It wasn’t quite like crosshairs on my back, but it was close enough so I scanned everywhere, trying to pinpoint the feeling. It didn’t come from the nearby boats. It came from inland, from the concrete jungle of Long Beach, the land of dirty sodium lamps shining in the night.

  I put my hands in my pockets and began walking. I didn’t need sunglasses now. I didn’t need streetlights. My vision shared the spectrum range with housecats. Blake had told me before how my pupils widened to fill almost my entire eye. How the exposure could have caused that, I hadn’t the slightest idea.

  I left the marina and soon reached cityscape, eating up the distance with my long stride. I spotted cats slinking in the dark. The rats they stalked twitched their narrow noses as they eased toward abandoned McDonald’s wrappers. Bats winged overhead, no doubt eying or using bat-sonar to watch both the cats and the rats. I saw them as gray creatures, but very distinct. Occasionally, I had to squint as I strode down a street, as car headlights were blinding.

  The sensation of someone calling my name grew. I wondered if I’d entered a waking dream, as there was a sense of unreality to this. I mentally warned myself that bullets could kill here and no matter how hard I flapped my arms, I couldn’t fly.

  Did Polarity Magnetics own futuristic ray devices or short wave beams? Could they be beaming me and giving my mind these fantasies? The idea sounded paranoid. But my thoughts bothered me. I’d read how near the end of the Cold War the Russians had fired low frequency beams at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. The Soviets had learned such invisible beams could cause irritation. Probably, it had just heightened the incidence of cancer among the Marine guards. The idea that someone was beaming me shook me enough to make me stop and consider carefully what I was doing.

  When had this feeling begun that I could hear people in my dreams—no, in my sleep? It was hard to pinpoint, maybe a week ago. Maybe—

  Around the time Kay came to see me.

  I bared my teeth. I hoped Stone was out here, trying one of his new devices. Or maybe I’d find Jagiello trying to be cute. Just because Cheng said the Shop was on a leash didn’t make me believe it.

  The buildings were older where I walked. There was a rundown coffee shop, a Cindy’s restaurant with a few cars in the parking lot, and some other places, too, among them a surfer’s rental and a bar called Neil’s Grill. It had too many big Harley motorcycles with chopper handlebars parked in front. There was a bright neon Budweiser sign in a barred window. I didn’t know if it was inviting me or warning me to say away.

  I nodded. The sensation came from the bar.

  Gavin Kiel, I seemed to hear in my mind. I was certain someone in there had just said my name.

  Could this be a side effect from the neural whip? It seemed more than possible, except I’d been having these sensations for about a week. Would Jagiello shoot me in there? Would Stone? I decided to find out.

  There was heavy metal music, bikers and the clack of billiard balls ricocheting off each other. The two waitresses were young, busty and swayed their lovely butts as they brought bottled Budweiser and whiskey shots to drunken OUTLAWS bikers. The logo was stenciled on their leathers, with skull and crossbones similar to the Raider’s football logo.

  A loud caw of a woman’s laughter caused several hairy, Viking-like bruisers to glance at me.

  I ignored them and headed for the bar. Then I noticed a guy in back at a stall and I knew I’d found my man. He wore an old-style gray, Savile Row suit, complete with a gray waistcoat, white shirt and tie. He was badly out of place here. He had a gray bowler hat on the table, with a long umbrella lying beside it.

  In San Francisco, I’d seen a man with a cane—which could have been a closed umbrella—on the day I’d followed Kay. Could this be the same man?

  I headed for his table. Before I reached it, a huge biker with a red beard, a sleeveless denim jacket and prison tattoos on his exposed skin stood up and barred my path.

  “No one bothers him, brother,” the biker said, spewing alcoholic breath into my face.

  “Let him pass, Red,” the suited man said. He spoke with an English accent and never bothered turning around.

  Red glowered at me and slunk back to his chair like an angry junkyard dog.
>
  Over a dozen bikers gave me hostile stares. More than ever this was feeling like a bad dream.

  It was Doctor Harris. I remembered him from CERN. He nursed a shot glass of Scotch. He was tall, lanky and obviously guarded by these bikers. Some of them had similar tattoos as the men I’d killed on my boat. Why Harris wore his strange attire and how he’d found himself biker bodyguards was only a little less disturbing than that I’d felt him calling me in my mind.

  “Mind if I sit down?” I asked.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said with a smile. He poured Scotch from a bottle into an unused glass. “Be a good fellow, join me, eh?”

  I glanced around. The bikers had returned to their cards, fondling their tattooed girls and downing shots and beers.

  I slid across from Doctor Harris and into the booth. “Nice umbrella,” I said.

  He had long-fingered hands with big knuckles and joints. He picked up the umbrella, holding the black wooden handle. He twisted, and I heard a click. Then he showed me a few inches of steel blade. I could tell there were more inches in there. If the whole umbrella hid a blade, he was carrying a sword.

  “Is it sharp?” I asked.

  “Do you load your gun?”

  I grunted.

  He grinned. “Did I ever tell you my dying wish, Gavin?”

  I shook my head.

  His grin intensified. “When I’m an old man, tottering down a rubbish-strewn street, I want my umbrella-sword with me. Ruffians such as this trash around us will slink to me. They have noses for weakness, just as they sense physical superiority. They’ll jostle among themselves and finally the herd bull will plant his bulk before me, demanding every pound and pence I own.

  “I plan to snivel and scrape: all in order to whet his appetite and to make him laugh about the easy pickings. Many predators enjoy playing with their food. Then I shall unsheathe my sword and run the swine through his belly. I image old age shall have dulled my abilities. One of them will pull out a dagger or perhaps a pistol. He’ll shoot. But I shall have taken at least one of them with me. That, my dear Gavin, will be a simply glorious way to leave dreary old age, don’t you agree?”

  I nodded, wondering if the exposure could have warped his mind as well as his body.

  What caught my attention was his use of the word “abilities.” Kay had used that word. I wondered if that was a coincidence or not.

  “You’re somber this evening,” Harris said, snapping the blade back into concealment.

  “I’d like to know how you called me here.”

  Harris smiled even wider, showing off his whitened molars in the back of his mouth. “Gavin, my dear Gavin, you’re always such a delight. How I’ve missed you.”

  “Likewise,” I said.

  “Others would know it’s impossible for a man to ‘call’ another with his mind. You, however, lack formal training in the sciences and are therefore unencumbered with preconceived notions of what can and can’t be done. You’re a simple man of action and trust your senses. If you smell it, it’s there. No thought of having hallucinations for such a direct fellow like you.”

  “You’re making me blush.”

  Harris laughed loudly. I’d never liked him. I doubt I ever would. He looked down his large nose at just about everyone, but he saved his smuggest superiority for ‘physical fellows’ like me. ‘Boys of action’ must have mercilessly teased and bullied him in his youth and he’d never been able to get over it. How Harris must love his acceleration.

  “Yes, you have the advantages of the jungle beast,” Harris said. “It gives you strengths. My strength lies elsewhere, and in the end, proves boundlessly superior to yours.”

  “Are you drunk?”

  He laughed harder, and it made the nearest bikers uncomfortable. I found that interesting. I didn’t think Harris mentally dominated them in some science fiction, ESP manner. I studied the bikers and found that more than a few had black eyes, swollen lips and bandages. I suspected now they were afraid of Harris. He was the moray eel in its hole, and they had evidently learned the hard way not to stick their hands in the hole.

  “I’m not insulting you,” Harris said.

  I tasted my Scotch.

  Harris poured me more. “I’m merely pointing out the advantage of the scientific method when practiced by a trained observer such as myself. I am the professional in the truest sense of the word.”

  “And that’s why you’re wearing an old-fashioned suit and tie?”

  “My dear fellow, it is affectation, a lark, in ancient British slang.”

  “You sure it isn’t Freudian?”

  “Ah, touché, touché,” he said.

  “So, how did you call me?”

  He waved his long-fingered hand as if that was of little importance. “I’ve studied us more thoroughly than the Shop or Cheng at Polarity Magnetics have done.”

  “How do you know I went there?”

  “My dear fellow—”

  I picked up the shot glass, ready to toss the Scotch in his face. I was tired of his smugness. Instead, controlling my temper, I set the glass onto the table so the fiery brown liquid sloshed over the rim and splashed onto my fingers. I ran my wet fingers across my lips as I watched him.

  Harris had stiffened, and a hint of worry had entered his eyes. I think he realized he’d come that close to having a fight he wouldn’t win, and in front of the bikers. They would turn on him like hyenas, and he must have known that. Sure, he knew about being the wounded wildebeest and he knew how that attracted the hyenas of the world.

  Anger smoldered in his eyes, but he hooded it. At least his smile was gone.

  “I am here for the mutual benefit of each of us,” he said.

  “Sure.”

  “I would like to barter information. I’ve thought about this carefully. You are a—I beg your pardon. You’re what they call a ‘show me’ fellow. I have discovered nuances of our acceleration. Not all the changes were physical. Our minds are different now, too.”

  I thought about Doctor Cheng, and knew Harris was right. I was also certain he had sent the needle man after me and the thugs onto my boat.

  “It was such a strange phenomenon that at first I couldn’t conceive of it,” Harris was telling me. “I would have dismissed it out of hand. The change—it helped clarify many things for me. I have come to see that many of my former ideas were quite wrong. I realize now, for instance, that the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids through mental levitation. Given the evidence of their feat, and the weight of the stones, it is the only reasonable explanation. I realize also that a great cataclysm destroyed a mid-Atlantic Atlantis. The survivors started the Egyptian and Sumerian civilizations, the reason each society began at such a high level of technology.

  “My point is there is more to this world than the accepted explanations,” Harris said. “Before the accident, I wore the accepted blinders given to me in the schools. Even after the first year of the change, I thought along my old lines. As various oddities kept occurring to me, however, I finally decided to truly experiment and observe. I refused to hold to any preconceived notions of what I would find. Despite what I’m sure is your high regard for the scientific community—”

  I grunted.

  “Most scientists are hidebound by what they think should exist and what cannot. Because of their bigotry, science only crawls ahead. Freed from the old restraint and with an entirely new field of study, I’ve advanced an eon in understanding us accelerated. We are a superior life-form, my friend.”

  “Because we can punch out a roomful of bikers?” I asked.

  “That is part of it, yes. But there are mental faculties you or I might call upon during an emergency or perhaps we will unwittingly use once or twice by happenstance. I, however, have learned to tap into those faculties at will. I’ve trained myself in their use and therefore have become doubly dangerous.”

  Something had disturbed my sleep this evening. In some arcane fashion, Harris had drawn me to this bar. I assumed
it was this new mental faculty he spoke about.

  “You believe me,” he said, showing a trace of surprise.

  “I’m here. That proves you did something.”

  “Excellent,” he said. “I knew I could reason with you. Now I wish to barter information for information.”

  I picked up the Scotch bottle, swirling the liquid inside. “What sort of information?”

  “Ah, that is the question, isn’t it?”

  “You’re fishing,” I said.

  “Rather say: I am careful not to reveal bartering points.”

  “Who killed Kay?” I asked, as I set down the bottle.

  “I wish I knew.”

  “You’ve spoke to her then?”

  “What do you mean?” he asked guardedly.

  “Have you spoken to her this past year?”

  “I have,” he admitted.

  “She said you found out where I was living.”

  “Did she now?”

  “How did you find out?” I asked.

  “It was elementary, really. I used my mind.”

  “Meaning you located me through observation and logic or through your new mental powers?”

  “Ah,” he said, grinning. “That is the question, isn’t it?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “That you found me is the point.”

  He frowned, realizing perhaps that he’d given away information, or confirmed something for me, at least.

  “I want to know what’s going on at Polarity Magnetics,” I said. “What were they doing to Kay?”

  “They are very busy, to be sure. Someone in authority understands that accelerated people are superior and it frightens them. They wish to develop counters to us.”

  “Are they trying to duplicate the accident?” I asked.

  Harris laughed. It was the loudest laugh of all. Several bikers got up from the nearest table and hurried outside. The bartender scowled at Harris, but quickly looked away when he caught me studying him.