Part 20 (1/2)
Serra smiled contemptuously.
”As Hericio says, there's nothing more legal than disobeying the laws of an illegitimate system. Okay, Annie Heart, I want to talk to you. In one hour's time, at Saturn.”
And he cut off.
An hour! The rep grabbed her travel bag and raced off to the Majestic. She went upstairs as Bruna Husky, transformed herself quickly into Annie Heart, and headed back downstairs praying to the memory of the great Gabriel Morlay that she hadn't forgotten any detail of her disguise. When she got to the ground floor, she breathed deeply to reduce her agitation. She stepped calmly out of the elevator with a relaxed air, as if there were no need for haste, although it was almost the time the HSP deputy had set. And yes, she hadn't been wrong in her a.s.sumption. Her tail was back, the young man from yesterday, or maybe another one-all those supremacist pups looked the same. That was precisely what they valued: h.o.m.ogeneity, sameness. She allowed herself to be followed as she walked with studied calmness toward Saturn. Although it was quite close to the hotel, her lazy pace meant it was twenty minutes before she was within sight of the bar, but she didn't actually manage to enter. A car stopped beside her and raised its door with a pneumatic hiss. Serra was sitting inside.
”You're late,” he grumbled.
Bruna settled into her seat and arranged her lips into a coquettish but contemptuous pout-the sneer of a disdainful blonde, which she did well.
”I'm not accustomed to being treated with such rudeness. I'm not one of your little foot soldiers to be ordered urgently hither and yon.”
Serra chuckled. Today, instead of a vest, he was wearing a sleeveless T-s.h.i.+rt made of a thin, s.h.i.+ny material that stuck to his artificially inflated muscles. No doubt he wants to impress Annie, thought Bruna. The car was on autopilot, without a driver. He didn't want any witnesses.
”Don't be offended, sweetheart, it's just work. And an element of basic caution.”
”Why are we here?”
”Here?”
”In the car. Are we going somewhere?”
”We thought it would be best if we were seen together as little as possible. We're doing it for your sake. That's what you want, isn't it? All the trouble you've taken so your mobile isn't traceable.”
Bruna cautiously agreed. She didn't like the slightly sarcastic tone she thought she detected in the man's words.
”Yes, indeed.”
”Speaking of which, how did you do it? Can I have a look at your computer?”
Bruna could feel her shoulders tensing. Did they suspect something? Worse still, did they know something?
”Of course,” she replied matter-of-factly.
And she immediately removed the thin, flexible, semitransparent device from her wrist and pa.s.sed it to Serra.
The deputy took the machine, turned it over in his fingers a few times, and switched it off and turned it on again. The mobile restarted and the screen welcomed Annie Heart, and Bruna mentally thanked Mirari for her impeccable work. At that moment she realized with horror that she was carrying her own mobile in the pocket of her elegant trousers. In all the rush, she had forgotten to leave it in her hotel room when she was getting changed. And on top of that, she now couldn't remember whether or not she'd switched the mobile off. And if a call came in? A sudden wave of anxiety left her in a cold sweat. Luckily, Serra was too busy inspecting the computer, because the rep was convinced that her expression had changed. Vaguely, on the other side of her anxiety, she sensed that the man was saying something to her that she hadn't managed to pick up. She breathed deeply and felt the powerful c.o.c.ktail of antistress hormones that strengthened her combat rep body kick in. An invisible line of lucid calmness descended through her body like a curtain of water extinguis.h.i.+ng a fire. She put a smile on her face to distract him. Just in time. The deputy turned his face toward her and looked at her.
”Aren't you going to tell me?” he asked.
”What?”
”I was asking you how you did it. If you try to cancel the GPS and you don't have an authorization code issued by a judge, the machine self-destructs.”
Bruna reflected coldly for a fraction of a second and decided what she was going to say.
”Well, you see, it's quite complicated. You can only do it in parallel sync with a central computer. You connect the mobile peripherally and then you type a virtual port link into your mobile's IDD; you manipulate the values until you access the residual profile of the HTC and the apex code. You can do this with a cryptorobot, but it's slow and difficult. Even though I used some special algorithms, I still needed to search through millions of numbers before I found the code...Are you with me?”
Serra nodded yes, even though his expression clearly showed that he'd become lost in the tangle of words. Bruna had no idea what she was saying, but she had a.s.sumed that the supremacist wouldn't be able to work that out.
”So, what you do is trick the mobile into thinking it's part of the mainframe.”
”You seem to know a lot about all that.”
”Well, I am a professor of applied robotics.”
The man scowled and gave her back her mobile. The rep adjusted it on her wrist while she thought about the other mobile she was carrying in her pocket; she had to get out of the car as quickly as possible.
”I see we're going round the block. Are we waiting for someone? Why did you make me come?” she asked.
To sniff around in my hotel room in the meantime, she answered herself. Which wasn't a problem. Having antic.i.p.ated that possibility, she had scattered the likely contents of a basic suitcase around the room. In reality, the fact that Serra had made the appointment in order to be able to search her belongings was a rea.s.suring supposition; it meant her plan was working.
”It's just a security procedure. You have to understand our caution. The party finds itself in a very difficult position thanks to this puppet government,” said Serra.
”That's precisely why I want to see Hericio. I'm beginning to think that you talk a lot but don't actually do anything. Like all the others,” said the android.
The man stiffened.
”You don't know what you're saying. You know nothing.”
”Oh no? What don't I know? What are you good for, apart from appearing on the news spouting big words?”
It was such crude bait that Bruna didn't expect the man to bite, but sometimes you get information in the most ridiculous way. Not this time. Serra frowned, annoyed, and touched the panel in front of him. The vehicle stopped next to the sidewalk and opened the door.
”We'll give you a call,” the man grunted.
”It had better be soon. Tomorrow or the next day. I leave town on Sunday,” Bruna answered imperiously; the cover Mirari had provided wouldn't last much longer.
Serra didn't answer. The car shut its door and sped off again. The detective watched it disappear and repressed the urge to take her mobile out of her pocket; it was possible that her tail was still nearby. Above her head, the public screen was showing dreadful images of combat androids slaughtering humans. They were old tapes from the Rep War. ”Are you going to allow this to happen again?” the soundtrack kept repeating on a continuous loop over the ma.s.sacre.
Back in the hotel, the detective took off Annie with a sigh of relief. This dual-personality work was eating at her nerves like acid. She checked and found that her own mobile had not only been switched off but deactivated. Then she put the power source back in its place and switched on, and instantly there was a call from Lizard. The policeman must have left his automatic reconnect activated.
”What are you up to, Husky? You've been switched off and untraceable for hours,” he grumbled.
”Why are you so irritated? Because I get away from your bloodhound surveillance, or because you're concerned about my well-being?”
Bruna had fallen back on a very old trick: when you are asked a question you don't want to answer, reply with another question-an annoying one if possible. So she had behaved according to the manual, but she felt that she was gliding unstably over the words like someone slipping on ice. She felt she really wanted Lizard to answer. To rea.s.sure her that, yes, he was worried about what could happen to her in this world, which was ever more dangerous for her. But he didn't say anything like that.
”I was looking for you because I got an appointment with the chancellor-priest at the Emba.s.sy of Labari. In case you wanted to come. It was you who suggested I give him a call.”
Yes, of course she wanted to. The legation was quite far from the Majestic, so she decided to catch a cab again despite her renewed intention to economize. But after wasting ten minutes standing at the edge of the sidewalk failing to get anyone to stop, she had to catch the subway. It was clear that the human cabdrivers didn't want to pick up a combat techno, and in Madrid the cabdrivers' union had prevented the adoption of automatic cabs like those that existed in other cities. As far as techno cabdrivers were concerned-they seemed to have disappeared. In reality, reps were hard to find anywhere.
She arrived at the appointment feeling exhausted; it had turned into a wretched day of nonstop rus.h.i.+ng around. The headquarters of the representatives of Labari was an enormous, very old building located on Estados Unidos de la Tierra Avenue, next to the Prado Museum. It had been a Catholic church-San Jeronim.o.-.f.or centuries, until it was burned down and half-demolished during the Robot Wars. The impoverished Catholic Church, driven to the wall by its internal crises, the progressive secularization of the world, and the fact that individuals eager for certainty preferred more radical doctrines, found itself obliged to sell the ruins to a consortium that was actually a front for their most vitriolic rivals, the Ones of the Kingdom of Labari, who constructed a heavy, cheerless version of the chapel. Now, gazing at that ma.s.s painted in ritualistic Labaric dark purple, the detective s.h.i.+vered. That archaic, overwhelming, and severe building represented a declaration of principles, a definition in stone of intransigence.
”Come on, Bruna, what are you doing? Don't lag behind. We're late,” muttered Lizard.
And the rep forced herself to walk behind the policeman and into the emba.s.sy of a world on which her species was forbidden.
The interior must have been a soaring nave in its time, as the inside of Catholic churches used to be, but it was now compartmentalized like any other building, with various floors and normal living s.p.a.ces. Or almost normal. As they pa.s.sed from room to room, from the entrance to the security precinct and then to the waiting room, the detective felt a vague tightness growing in her chest. The height of the rooms was much greater than their width. They were, in fact, unpleasantly narrow and their never-ending walls were covered with thick, bruise-colored curtains that fell heavily from above.