Part 26 (1/2)

”It may be none of my business,” he said, ”but why the f.u.c.k not? Jesus, Julius, what're you afraid of?”

”You don't want to know,” I said.

”I'll be the judge of that.”

”Let's have a drink, first,” I said.

Dan rolled his eyes back for a second, then said, ”All right, two Coronas, coming up.”

After the room-service bot had left, we cracked the beers and pulled chairs out onto the porch.

”You sure you want to know this?” I asked.

He tipped his bottle at me. ”Sure as shootin',” he said.

”I don't want refresh because it would mean losing the last year,” I said.

He nodded. ”By which you mean 'my last year,'” he said. ”Right?”

I nodded and drank.

”I thought it might be like that. Julius, you are many things, but hard to figure out you are not. I have something to say that might help you make the decision. If you want to hear it, that is.”

What could he have to say? ”Sure,” I said. ”Sure.” In my mind, I was on a shuttle headed for orbit, away from all of this.

”I had you killed,” he said. ”Debra asked me to, and I set it up. You were right all along.”

The shuttle exploded in silent, slow moving s.p.a.ce, and I spun away from it. I opened and shut my mouth.

It was Dan's turn to look away. ”Debra proposed it. We were talking about the people I'd met when I was doing my missionary work, the stone crazies who I'd have to chase away after they'd rejoined the b.i.t.c.hun Society. One of them, a girl from Cheyenne Mountain, she followed me down here, kept leaving me messages. I told Debra, and that's when she got the idea.

”I'd get the girl to shoot you and disappear. Debra would give me Whuffie -- piles of it, and her team would follow suit. I'd be months closer to my goal. That was all I could think about back then, you remember.”

”I remember.” The smell of rejuve and desperation in our little cottage, and Dan plotting my death.

”We planned it, then Debra had herself refreshed from a backup -- no memory of the event, just the Whuffie for me.”

”Yes,” I said. That would work. Plan a murder, kill yourself, have yourself refreshed from a backup made before the plan. How many times had Debra done terrible things and erased their memories that way?

”Yes,” he agreed. ”We did it, I'm ashamed to say. I can prove it, too -- I have my backup, and I can get Jeanine to tell it, too.” He drained his beer. ”That's my plan. Tomorrow. I'll tell Lil and her folks, Kim and her people, the whole ad-hoc. A going-away present from a s.h.i.+tty friend.”

My throat was dry and tight. I drank more beer. ”You knew all along,” I said. ”You could have proved it at any time.”

He nodded. ”That's right.”

”You let me. . .” I groped for the words. ”You let me turn into. . .”

They wouldn't come.

”I did,” he said.