The Presence Page 4

  “Way ahead of you, sir,” Cooper said, making his way forward from his desk. He slipped on some latex gloves and began attacking the puddle with a bottle of the bio agent Chaco had used to use when he was a cop. It turned body fluids into dry putty that could be scraped up.

  Tsukahara stepped up as Cooper spayed the stuff across the puddle. Chaco could tell the scene disturbed him.

  “Don’t sweat it, Tsuka. You did good.”

  “Agent Davis could have died.” Tsukahara said, still watching Cooper.

  “He would have definitely died, if you hadn’t acted. You did the right thing, and that’s all that matters.”

  Tsukahara faced Chaco. “I did all right?” he asked.

  Chaco put his hand on Tsukahara’s shoulder. “He would have definitely died, if you hadn’t acted. You did the right thing, and that’s all that matters.”

  7. COOL

  Since her day off had been blown by one of Chaco’s dumbass interns, Deja decided to grab a commuter jump jet back to New York City. The world had never been in danger, and Chaco had apologized profusely, even buying her an expensive dinner at U-Topia before her flight. But Deja wanted to get ahead of the week’s business, and besides, Chaco hadn’t seemed all that insistent on her staying the weekend, anyway. All in all, she at least got a great night of sex and a good meal, which unfortunately summed up their relationship at times. Not that that was bad, but she knew she had felt something the other night that had vaguely presented itself as love – and she just wanted to know if Chaco had felt it, too.

  Deja played with the volume of the vid screen in the seat in front of her. She moved up and down the range, but the sound didn’t change. It was loud enough to irritate, yet not enough that people would turn and stare. Resigned to the fact that she was powerless to control the only real luxury afforded to passengers these days, Deja went back to staring out her window. It was weird, she thought, watching the ground shrink as they ascended into the late Maryland evening, that she was traveling on an airline called Southwest in the Northeast. But after the airline industry collapse earlier in the century, which facilitated Southwest’s purchase of American and United, she figured they were big enough to call themselves whatever they wanted.

  One of the holo attendants cleared its throat, an odd act, considering it had neither esophagus nor anything to clear. Deja figured it was the result of programmers who couldn’t think of a better way to get a passenger’s attention.

  “Would you like anything to drink?” it said too politely.

  Deja peeled herself from the window. “Yes, please. I’ll take a vodka tonic.”

  “Thank you. That will be 20 Ameros.”

  Deja handed over her chip card, which the holo attendant held for a moment to read the encoded information before it returned it and moved on to the next row. A real attendant came up the aisle and passed through the holo image, creating, for a split second, the eerie illusion of two faces merged.

  Suddenly, Deja’s seat started reclining. Its cushion, which had already reshaped into a basic reading position, began contorting to Sleep Mode by firming itself and creating a small pillow. Deja quickly reset the seat’s protocols, and it started to reconfigure. The seat was designed to monitor Deja’s vitals, but she wasn’t that tired.

  A human attendant returned with Deja’s drink and set it on her tray table. Deja took a sip and settled back. She started flipping through the channels on her vid screen and landed on an NNN news segment about advanced language chimps being tested by the telemarketing industry in California. The woman next to her stirred and gave out a small moan.

  “I’m sorry,” Deja said. “The volume on this screen must be stuck.” She fiddled with the buttons in her armrest. The woman, who had been facing the aisle, turned.

  Deja gasped.

  The woman smiled knowingly and blinked. Her catlike eyes dilated in the dim cabin light to reveal bright rings of orange around the pupils.

  Embarrassed, Deja quickly focused her attention back to NNN, which had segued to a news segment concerning the hazards of bioregeneration for correcting cosmetic issues in preteens, now that it had become all the rage in upper middle-class suburbs. There was a moment of awkwardness, then the woman lightly touched Deja’s arm.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  Deja hesitated. “Excuse me?” She tried not to stare.

  “I asked what you thought of that news piece.” The woman gestured at the vid screen, which now displayed a commercial for biodiapers with nanotechnology that actually “ate” the baby’s waste. The woman’s pupils narrowed, then dilated back to normal. They were beautiful, although Deja sensed a great deal of sorrow behind them.

  “Well, ah ... I thought that ...” Deja looked to the vid screen and back. “... it’s pretty egotistical of parents to allow their children bioaugmentation at such an early age. It’s, well, just silly!” Being unable to think of anything better than “silly,” she mentally chastised herself.

  The woman considered Deja for a second and burst out with a laugh that seemed to have been trapped for years. “That’s precious,” she said, covering her mouth as if laughing were wrong. “You’re so wonderfully accurate with your assessment. Sir?” She hailed a holo attendant passing up the aisle. “I would love some champagne, and?...” She gestured to Deja.

  “Oh, no I–”

  “Please.” The woman’s eyes flared slightly. “I insist.”

  “All right,” Deja said, not listening to her better self, which she had been doing a lot lately. “Another vodka tonic, please.”

  “Splendid,” the woman said, holding onto the “s” for an effect Deja couldn’t quite understand.

  * * *

  “... so this intern,” Deja explained, “screws up the magnitude level, and instead of a ten, it’s a really a one – a one point zero!” She squeezed a lemon into her fourth drink, and its spray hit the woman in the eyes. “Oh, jeez, Corazon, I’m so sorry. Um, that won’t, ah, you know, damage them, will it?”

  The woman, still laughing, took her napkin and dabbed her eyes. “No. Besides ...” She looked over to Deja, who was restraining her laughter. “... I can always get them replaced.”

  Deja sipped her new drink and wondered about Corazon’s eyes. They had an odd quality about them, almost digital. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

  Corazon’s expression shifted, and Deja sensed she might have stepped over some unspoken boundary. She chastised herself again. “I-I’m sorry, never mind.”

  The woman’s look softened. “That’s all right ... I have nothing to hide.”

  “Okay,” Deja said, pressing the crinkled edges of her napkin flat. “How old are you?”

  Corazon smiled, as if there was some personal joke at work. She pondered the question while she swirled the champagne in her glass. “That’s a hard question to answer, really.”

  Deja, feeling the effects of four vodka tonics, frowned. “Really, why? Everyone knows when they’re born.” But she stopped with the sudden realization that Corazon’s eyes may not be the only manufactured thing about her.

  A smooth and knowing grin spread across Corazon’s face. She raised an eyebrow. “Boo,” she said softly.

  Deja gasped into her drink while Corazon chuckled.

  “Are you, you know, one of those?”

  Corazon leaned over the armrest and into Deja’s face. “Yes,” she said, evenly. “I’m a ‘Silent Human.’” Her irises narrowed until her eyes were almost completely orange.

  A cold chill slammed through Deja’s vodka buzz. She shuddered and almost spilled her drink. “Neat!” she said, dredging this word up from the same suppressed area of her brain that had offered up “silly.”

  Corazon’s look changed to one of puzzlement, but she laughed. “Well,” she said, “I’ve never had a reaction like that before.”

  Deja began chuckling too, though she wasn’t really comfortable with it. “No, seriously,” she whispered before she took a big swig from her
drink. “I’ve always wanted to meet one of your kind.”

  With this, Corazon’s demeanor shifted again, and Deja feared the misplaced harshness of her last statement had caused it. Why did her brain, when it tried to select the right thing to say, and especially when she needed it the most, fail her so consistently? It had gotten her in trouble more times than she could count. To her surprise, however, Corazon seemed unfazed, as if being referenced as a “kind” was perfectly natural. Her expression relaxed, and as Deja studied the clone’s manufactured beauty, she finally realized what had been bugging her since the moment they met.

  Corazon had absolutely no flaws.

  Even though she had probably been made in the image of someone – a dead wife or girlfriend – she was flawless. Her complexion was perfect. Her hair, teeth, lips, even the arc of her neck seemed sculpted to resemble a conglomerate of ideals. She was a perfect product of a DNA regeneration stew that much of the world had banned 20 years earlier.

  “So–” Deja began.

  “I’m three years old,” Corazon said.

  “Whoa!” Deja exclaimed, referencing from the Moriarty phrase file. “That’s amazing.”

  Corazon grinned and took a sip of champagne. “And my full name is really Kita Corazon, but I still think of myself by my tank name: Corazon 13.”

  “Why 13?”

  “Because there were 12 before me that never made it through maturation. I’m the 13th one. Voilà!” she said with a gesture at herself.

  “So, who are you? I, I mean, who were you? No, wait, I’m sorry, that didn’t come out right either.”

  Corazon patted Deja’s arm. “It’s okay, I know what you’re driving at. Really, I’m fine with it all.” She paused for what Deja took as the clone struggling with her own definition of life. She delicately sipped from her champagne, handling her glass in a way that could have only been cultivated by intense schooling. “What people don’t realize is that most of my kind have been brought into fairly wealthy situations. It’s just too expensive a proposition for anyone except the super rich to take on. And I’m really very grateful to be Mrs. Alberto Goya. I’m taken care of, and I have most everything anyone would ever want, and - why Deja, you look like you’re going to be ill.”

  Deja felt the blood drain from her face with the realization that Alberto Goya – the same Alberto Goya she had been ratting out to Chaco – was this woman’s husband, or owner, or whatever.

  “Is your, ah, husband the president of TVid Azteca?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  The guilt punched Deja in the stomach with all the nausea of extremely rancid sushi. The cabin started to spin.

  Corazon cupped Deja’s face. “My dear, you’re turning white! Let me call an attendant.”

  “No! It’s just the vodka. Oh, God ...” Deja began climbing over Corazon. “Excuse me!” She scrambled down the aisle and slammed into a flight attendant she had mistaken for a holo.

  “Easy there, young lady. Do you have to go that bad?” He pushed one of the lavatory doors open. “There you are, all to yourself.”

  Deja nodded “thank you,” fell into the tiny room, and proceeded to puke out her guilt, which had been welling up ever since she had started passing the damn info to Chaco over half a year ago.

  Deja took a drink of water and tried to gargle away the burning in her throat. The pounding in her head she attributed to the vodka. There was a knock at the lavatory door.

  “Are you all right in there?”

  “Yes,” Deja managed. There was an acidic taste burning her throat.

  “May I come in? We have others who need to use this lavatory.”

  Deja unlocked the door and the attendant poked his head in.

  “Have we been over-served?” he asked through a professional smile.

  “Possibly,” Deja replied in a voice way too husky for her own good.

  “Oh, love the voice, dear. I have friends who would kill for that.”

  Deja gingerly edged up the aisle and settled into the bio comfort of her seat. Sensing her blood alcohol level, its living foam began to cradle her. She looked over to Corazon, who was doing a fairly poor job of restraining her laughter.

  “Don’t say a damn thing,” Deja said.

  “Oh, dear, I feel so bad for you.”

  “You think you feel bad.” Deja accepted the blanket Corazon offered and curled into as tight a ball as she could. Its fabric cycled through various shapes, trying to accommodate her.

  Corazon reached over and stroked Deja’s forehead. “Thank you,” Corazon said tenderly.

  Deja was startled at Corazon’s show of affection. Even though she was bioengineered young, she now appeared older. Not as old as a mother might be – more like a big sister, which was kind of comforting since Deja had grown up an only child of workaholic parents. Besides, she felt like shit, and Corazon’s touch was soothing. “For what?” she asked.

  “For listening. I don’t tell many people the truth. I sensed you’re the type who wouldn’t pass judgment, and those are rare to find.”

  Deja smiled as the dehydration and trauma of puking began to take its toll. Her seat started to recline. “Corazon?”

  “Yes?” She was still stroking Deja’s head.

  Deja struggled to keep her eyes open. “Is it weird, you know?...”

  “What? To live in the shadow of someone else?”

  “Yeah.”

  Corazon smiled. “My kind have a saying,” she whispered. “It’s better to have been made for someone than never to have been made at all.”

  Deja tried to think of something to say, but her seat had become comfortable, and her mind was too tired to do anything but dip back into her file of sophomoric phrases. “Cool,” she finally whispered.

  “Sleep well,” Corazon said.

  8. THE HAIRY EYEBALL

  The office of Chaco’s director was a study in excruciating efficiency. Every file and Netpad was in its place. The photos of Presidents Garcia and Alberts hung on the wall with what Chaco took as the politically correct distance between the two other North American Union leaders. Even the Slowinski family holophotos were arranged on the credenza in alphabetical order.

  Slowinski burst into his office, barely grazing the trim of the glass door as it automatically read his retinal signature and slid to one side. He moved his wiry frame through the room’s austerity with all the grace his lifetime of military service had taught. Chaco thought he heard his heels actually click as he stopped behind his desk.

  Slowinski gestured. “Please, sit down.”

  Chaco sat, keeping his body forward and his back straight. In his first meeting with Slowinski, he had made the mistake of displaying a more relaxed attitude. He often wondered if that’s why he had spent his first 18 months in the Decoding Unit.

  “How’s your situation, agent?” Slowinski asked, settling into his chair.

  Chaco had learned never to flinch. Ever. “Under control, sir.”

  “And your man?” Slowinski asked with a cold stare. Chaco’s dad had called this “giving you the hairy eyeball.”

  “Initial scans show him stable, with no neurological damage. They took him to George Washington. We should know something later today.”

  “Davis is one tough son-of-a-bitch. You’ve got nothing to worry about with him, son.”

  Slowinski was a classic throwback. A lifer. And when he used the word “son,” it meant the old man was edging ever so slightly toward his emotional side. He went back to staring at the holoprints of the NAU leaders. “Unbelievable,” he said finally.

  “Sir?” Chaco asked.

  Slowinski pointed. “I still can’t get over it.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Hell, I can barely tolerate one female president, but three?”

  “The people have spoken.”

  Slowinski, still eyeing the holoprints, twitched slightly, like he was confirming to himself that his value structure was firmly in place. “How do you feel about your progres
s with the Goya case?”

  “Good, sir.”

  “And that girl?” Slowinski looked back. “Is she ... tight?”

  Had Slowinski asked this over a few drinks, Chaco might have mistaken the question, but in this context it meant: was she secure? More specifically – could he trust her?

  “Yes, sir,” Chaco said, trying not to disclose his new feeling. He and Deja had always gotten on like porn stars, but the other night something had changed in him. It wasn’t like an epiphany or revelation, which is how he thought it might feel. Just a shift. And it took him completely by surprise, because Deja was supposed to have been nothing more than a vehicle for information. He never thought that this ditzy girl with a model’s body and electric hair would give his heart a wake-up call. The plan had been to engage her, use her, and discard her. Now, however, Chaco found his emotions fighting with his agency training, which was basically wet-wired into his being and would probably require an act of God to change. Maybe that was it, he figured; maybe God was finally talking to him – and how weird was that?

  “Here.” Slowinski casually picked up a Netpad and flung it into Chaco’s lap.

  Chaco spun the pad around and broke its seal.

  “We’re adding a little bonus material to the Goya case.”

  Chaco quickly sampled the pad’s folders until he came to one that contained conventional black and whites, along with some vids. All the files centered on a man captured in various environments. There were several images from Reagan International, a Lower End convenience store, and Union Station Mall. The man appeared normal, yet seemed to be wearing the same clothes in every image. While Chaco studied them, he noticed a slight shift in the coat’s pattern and color.

  “What’s the bottom line here?” he asked, still reviewing a particularly clear image of a tall woman in the convenience store folder.

  “The bottom line is in the meds. Check out file F.”

  Chaco clicked to the folder and scanned through it. He was pretty adept at reading medical charts, but these didn’t seem to make sense. “Are these real?”