The restaurant was narrow. New York narrow. Smeared mirrors and a six-inch-wide counter on one side, five stools with cracked plastic seats on the other, a low counter decorated with chrome napkin dispensers and stained plastic menus. Behind the counter a mess of mismatched refrigeration units, a grill, a drinks cooler, and to top it all off a cash register covered with age-curled clippings of cartoons from newspapers and magazines.
A very old man with white whiskers sat hunched in a too-large jacket eating a grilled cheese sandwich. The only employee was a guy who might be in his late twenties, with a Middle Eastern complexion, sleepy eyes, and an apron. He was scraping the grill.
He did not look up though the four of them appeared as if by magic from the direction of the restrooms.
“This is the only time we’ll ever travel together like this,” Vincent said when they stepped out onto the cold, windy street.
They walked two blocks in silence to a hotel with a cab stand. The taxi ride took ten minutes—there was a lot of road repair on Sixth Avenue.
Vincent had the cab drop them two blocks from where Sadie suspected they were going. The McLure Industries downtown building. The headquarters, in theory at least, though the main campus was over in Jersey.
“They’ll recognize me,” she said tersely to Vincent. “And there are cameras.”
Vincent nodded approvingly. “Good thinking. But you don’t need to worry.” They stopped on the street across from McLure Industries. The lobby was dimmed, but Sadie could clearly see two security men at the desk, even at this hour.
They crossed, passed by the lobby door, and went around the corner to the loading-dock gate. Vincent pulled out his phone and thumbed in a code. Peeking over his shoulder Sadie saw grainy security-camera footage of the loading dock. The view shifted. And again. He had access to McLure security.
Then Vincent sent a second message. The steel door began clanking up. As soon as it was head high, Vincent led them inside and the door lowered again.
The loading-dock area was clear and as cold as the outside.
Sadie spotted a security camera overhead. The red light was off. Vincent sent a significant look to Renfield, who nodded tersely. For a heart-stopping moment Sadie thought Renfield was carrying a gun. But then he smirked and held up a Taser for her to see.
“Don’t worry, it shouldn’t be necessary,” Vincent said. “I’ve been here many times. But there is no video of me, and no one but …” He hesitated. “No one but one man has seen me here. Just the one man whom I dealt with. Unfortunately that man is no longer with us. But I still need to get to a certain facility.”
“Yes.” She said it, and somehow it knocked the wind out of her. Her father. He was the man Vincent had seen. He was the man “no longer with us.”
A freight elevator carried them up two dozen floors.
As it rose Vincent said, “We’re going to meet a woman named Anya. She’s a scientist. A friend of mine. She will most likely do what we ask of her. But there is a chance she won’t. I haven’t had time to prepare her as thoroughly as I would like.”
Prepare her.
Sadie found the words chilling. She would be meeting a woman who had been prepared. She noticed Keats’s reaction, a brief look of disgust that came and was quickly suppressed.
Yes. Interesting. Maybe there was more going on with blue eyes than she’d thought at first. And he looked like he had a nice body underneath the layers. And he was very definitely interested in her; she’d noticed that right away. He wasn’t subtle.
Why on earth was she thinking about any of that? It disgusted her. She disgusted herself. But a part of her brain knew the answer: Because of all the things you have to think about, Sadie, my dear, Keats is the only one that isn’t terribly sad or terribly frightening. So think about what his bare arms and shoulders would look like, because the alternatives … oh, Sadie, you don’t want to think about any of those things.
Vincent had a swipe card that let them walk through various locked doors. There were cameras everywhere. And everywhere the little red indicator lights went dark.
A final door.
Vincent hesitated, seemed to gather himself, and knocked.
A very attractive woman, at least a decade older than Vincent, opened the door. She and Vincent did the kiss-kiss, but with a bit more than “just friends” emphasis.
Sadie was instantly certain she and Vincent were sleeping together. And it occurred to her that during that brief contact Vincent had quite possibly transferred biots to her.
Down the rabbit hole into paranoia.
“Thank you, Anya, for helping us,” Vincent said. He held her two hands while he said this. “These are John, Sylvia, and R.M.”
Hands were shaken. Sylvia, Sadie thought. Okay. And John must be the poet Keats’s first name. As for Renfield, she was going to have to Google that. Was it R. M. Renfield?
“The tragedy has disrupted things,” Vincent said. “Your help is vital, Anya. John and Sylvia both have very serious medical problems, and you’ll be helping them, and me, tremendously.”
Anya’s eyes had stayed on Sadie a bit too long. She recognized her, or thought she did. And a line had appeared just above the bridge of her nose, a frown, a doubt.
“Get the goddamned signal repeater back up!” Bug Man shouted. “Goddamnit! Goddamnit!”
Signal was in and out. One second he had a clear, almost HD-quality view of the people in the room, and the next second he was looking at static.