Part 9 (2/2)

Holloway screamed in frustration and fear and searched desperately for the SKIP INTRO SKIP INTRO option. He found it at the same time the second zararaptor had picked up its own rock and started beating it against the same window as the first raptor. They were taking turns breaking the window. The window shattered as Holloway loaded up what he was looking for. option. He found it at the same time the second zararaptor had picked up its own rock and started beating it against the same window as the first raptor. They were taking turns breaking the window. The window shattered as Holloway loaded up what he was looking for.

Holloway launched himself away from the window and reached over to the one manual control on the dash a.s.sociated with the sound system: the volume k.n.o.b. He gripped the k.n.o.b as the first zararaptor punched the gla.s.s in the window, popping it out in a single sheet, and then drew its head into the skimmer cabin, hissing. It was clearly planning to jam its way into the skimmer. The other zararaptor stayed outside, waiting for Holloway to be flushed out.

Holloway managed not to c.r.a.p himself while he waited for the zararaptor to get about halfway into the skimmer. When it had, he jabbed a b.u.t.ton in the infoscreen. The sound system kicked on as it ran the frequency test for the 22.5- to 28.0-kilohertz range. Holloway cranked the volume k.n.o.b, turning it over hard and fast.

The zararaptor in the window screamed and thrashed and beat its toothy head against the side of the skimmer in a frantic attempt to pull its head out of the vehicle. After several terrifying seconds, the creature managed to reverse out of the skimmer, scrambling away from the broken window. The other raptor was retreating with it. Holloway was so relieved he almost cried.

But the zararaptors, while clearly annoyed, did not flee. After a moment they began to circle the skimmer. Holloway was briefly confused about this. Then he started the frequency test again, cranked up the volume even higher, and opened the skimmer roof and windows.

The zararaptors, confronted with an omnidirectional blast of painful high-frequency sound, screeched angrily and ran into the trees.

Holloway watched them go, disbelieving. Then he fired up the infopanel's sound recorder, made sure it could record inaudibly high frequencies, and recorded the frequency test. He set it to play on a repeating loop.

Five minutes later the jungle was silent, save for the wind through the trees. Apparently it wasn't only the zararaptors who hated high-frequency blasts of noise.

Holloway felt himself developing a headache from it, like Aubrey said he would, a few days ago. But there was nothing for it at the moment: The alternative to a headache was having one's brain gnawed upon. Holloway would stick with the headache for now.

He reached for the infopanel again and did another diagnostic test, this time for his front rotors. The diagnostic found nothing physically wrong with the rotors. They were operating within normal parameters.

Holloway looked around him to make sure his sound barrier was still working and then did a software diagnostic, targeting the subsystems relating to the rotors. They seemed fine, too. A diagnostic for general drive systems also turned up no errors or file corruption.

If there was nothing wrong with the hardware and nothing wrong with the software, could it really have been just a fluke-just a momentary glitch in the system? Holloway had to admit that it could have been, but he didn't like it. It would mean that his missing ammunition was just a fluke, too, as well as his drained fence power plant.

Holloway was willing to accept the combination of any two of those things as just bad luck or bad karma or whatever. But all three things together and at once smacked of intention to him. It sounded bad paranoid, and he wasn't generally the bad paranoid type, but what else could it be? Someone had just tried to kill him.

Who had access to the skimmer? Holloway did, obviously, but unless he was sleepwalking in an overtly suicidal sort of way, he was not a suspect.

Isabel had been at his treetop compound for a week now, so she would've had plenty of opportunity. But while Holloway had certainly given Isabel good reason to be angry with him over the time he had known her, the idea that she would try to kill him was inconceivable. That wasn't how she was built. And even if it were, were, Holloway thought wryly, Isabel wouldn't be sneaky about it. She'd come at him head-on. Holloway thought wryly, Isabel wouldn't be sneaky about it. She'd come at him head-on.

But that didn't leave anyone else. Holloway's life really was without a great deal of physical human contact. The only people he'd seen in the last week were Isabel and Aubrey and his lackey, Landon. But neither of them had been near the skimmer. Well, Landon had, but- Holloway's brain froze for a moment as he finally remembered the other person he'd seen in the last week.

Holloway flicked on his infopanel and did a search diagnostic on his skimmer's operational programs, looking for any programs that had been loaded or modified in the last week. He found two. One was the rotor power management program, which had been modified. The second was a program that had been added four days previous. It had no descriptor, but Holloway could guess what it did, and to which other program, and who had put it there to make sure that Holloway's defenses were compromised.

”Son of a b.i.t.c.h,” Holloway said. He directed the infopanel to begin a system wipe and total reinstallation from factory settings. It would take time Holloway didn't want to spend on the jungle floor, but he had no intention of trying to fly anywhere in his skimmer until he'd reverted its operating system to system defaults and vaporized whatever the h.e.l.l that new program was.

The reinstall took two hours, during which time Holloway's headache became a blinding migraine and his nose developed an incessant bleed. Holloway spent the last half hour on the ground chewing on aspirin, first aid kit gauze shoved into his nostrils.

By the time Holloway was back in the air, the sun was setting. He pinged Isabel. She didn't answer. This didn't entirely surprise Holloway; she was probably busy watching the Fuzzys do calculus or teaching them metaphysics. Holloway waited for the voice mail signal.

”Isabel, it's Jack,” he said. ”Listen, I need to go to Aubreytown to handle a thing. It shouldn't take too long, but I need you to do me a favor. If I don't call you back by about midnight, I want you to call your new friend and have him come looking for me. Because if you don't hear from me by midnight, I think that one way or another, there's a real good chance I'm going to need a lawyer.”

Chapter Twelve.

Holloway walked into Warren's Warren and found Joe DeLise right where he expected him to be: at the bar, third stool from the right. It was the Joe DeLise Memorial Drinking Stool; DeLise sat there enough that the stool padding conformed to the contours of his a.s.s. If someone else was sitting on it when DeLise came in, they weren't sitting there for long. DeLise would just stand next to them, glaring, until they got the hint. One time a contract surveyor didn't get the hint. DeLise sat elsewhere and waited for the surveyor to head out of the bar. The surveyor was found the next morning in the alley, not dead, but with an impressive crease in his forehead. DeLise didn't have to do too much glaring after that.

Holloway walked up to DeLise, waited to see the man's stunned look, and then slugged him right in his big fat face. DeLise tumbled off the stool, beer bottle clattering to the floor. The bar, moderately crowded, went silent.

”Hi, Joe,” Holloway said. ”I know you're surprised to see me.”

From the floor, DeLise gawked at Holloway, disbelieving. ”You just hit a cop, you dips.h.i.+t,” he said.

”Yes I did,” Holloway said. ”I hit a cop, in front of witnesses, in a bar that's got a security camera whose feed is piped directly into the Security offices. So that way, if you have a mind to make me disappear this this time, everyone's going to know it was you, you fat gelatinous t.u.r.d. You're not going to get a chance to try to kill me twice.” time, everyone's going to know it was you, you fat gelatinous t.u.r.d. You're not going to get a chance to try to kill me twice.”

”I don't know what the h.e.l.l you're talking about,” DeLise said.

”Of course not,” Holloway said. ”But I am curious about why you tried to kill me, Joe. We've never liked each other, but I didn't think you had that much of a problem with me. So how about it? Was this just because I p.i.s.sed you off out there at the camp? You couldn't take a few mean words? Or was this something you've been planning for a while? You can tell me.”

DeLise pulled himself off the floor. ”You're under arrest, Holloway. For a.s.saulting a security officer.”

”Excellent,” Holloway said, and held out his hands, close together. ”Arrest me, you glutinous tub of lard. Then when you and I go to the Security offices, I'm going to call a lawyer, and then I'm going to tell him a story about you and my skimmer, and all the things that happened to it when it was left alone with you a few days ago. It's a really good story, and it's going to end with your flabby a.s.s doing time. So go ahead and arrest me. I really want you to, Joe. Let's do this.” Holloway pushed out his hands in the direction of DeLise.

DeLise stood there, furious, but didn't move.

”That's what I thought,” Holloway said. ”It looks like you're just going to have to take that punch and like it. But look at it this way: I nearly got eaten by a pair of zararaptors today, and all you had to pay for that was my fist in your stupid face. I think you're getting off pretty easy, don't you? But a word of warning, Joe. Try it again, and you better hope you succeed. Because there's not going to be much left after I'm done with you. It's a promise.”

Holloway turned and started toward the door, trying not to let a grin ruin the completely artificial bada.s.s act he'd been trying to pull off since he'd entered the bar. a.s.saulting a security officer was not something one could usually get away with. Holloway had weighed the odds and figured as long as he had witnesses watching and a secure video feed recording, he could make it stick. DeLise had too much to lose by retaliating now. Even if he saved it up for later, the video of Holloway accusing him of attempted murder would always be in the ZaraCorp security files, unerasable.

It was actually better than officially accusing DeLise of trying to kill him. This way Holloway didn't have to prove anything. This was as close as Holloway was going to come to having an insurance policy against future murder attempts. It was smartly done. Very smartly done. Holloway glanced up in the direction of the security camera with the intention of saluting jauntily as he left the bar.

The socket for the camera was empty.

Holloway stopped and turned to the bartender.

”d.a.m.n thing broke a week ago,” the bartender said. ”Haven't had time to replace it.”

Any other thoughts Holloway might have had on the matter were disrupted by the pool cue DeLise applied to the back of his head. Holloway dropped and was out before he hit the floor.

”I don't see why you didn't cave in his head in the alley,” Holloway heard a voice say.

”Too many witnesses,” said another voice, this one belonging to Joe DeLise. ”The a.s.shole got that part right. So I had to drag him here.”

”You're still going to cave in his head,” said the other voice.

”Yes, but now it'll be for resisting,” DeLise said. ”You'll back me up on that, right?”

The other voice laughed.

Holloway risked opening his eyes and immediately regretted it. The light stabbed at his retinas. He forced himself to keep them open and to focus on his surroundings. Eventually they came clear: He was in the ZaraCorp security holding cell. He'd been there before, on a drunk and disorderly, a couple nights after Isabel left him.

”Your friend is up,” a form said, in the distance. Another form walked over to the holding cell and resolved itself into DeLise. DeLise, still in his civilian clothes, smiled at Holloway.

”h.e.l.lo, Jack,” DeLise said. ”How are you feeling?”

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