Lacey straightened. His face was a mask. “Robert Sawney Wilhoit,” he said, “by virtue of the authority vested in me by the State of North America, I hereby direct you to accompany me in order to be formally charged in connection with the murder of Terrence Oscar Silvers.”
Wilhoit slammed the desk with his fist. “You’re going to play this farce to the end? I’ll be released as soon as your Receiving Unit processes the charges. Do you think that people of the level who could override the computer’s decisions are going to want to, to destroy me just so that you could win your game?”
“It’s not a game, Citizen,” said the agent with a smile as stark as a naked skull’s. “It’s my life. Winning, beating people like you, is about the only thing I’ve got left since they put me under the Psycomp. I can’t lose. I can’t afford to lose.” He took a breath that shuddered like the wind in a loose-braced sail. “Come up to the air car.”
“No!” Wilhoit shouted. He looked around, saw the open mouths of his staff gaping at him. “No,” he repeated in a lower voice, “I’ll meet you at the State Building if you must, but I won’t ride in an air car. You’ll have to shoot me to get me in one.”
“Suit yourself,” the agent shrugged as if it did not matter. “I’m not worried that you’ll try to run. Go on down to your own vehicle, then.”
Feet clattered on the stairs from the roof pad—Ruby Sutter, wearing a high-necked sheath of red and orange and a death mask in place of a normal expression. Lacey moved to her swiftly while Wilhoit, still standing, began to poke buttons recessed into his desk and speak soft commands to the microphones they activated.
“I was watching you,” Sutter said. They were in the middle of hundreds of clerks, all straining to hear but afraid to look up at the two intruders. “You know that Receiving can’t hold him. Jed, for god’s sake don’t throw yourself away! There’s still time—”
“There’s no time.” Lacey looked back at Wilhoit who, his conversation with attorney or politician finished, had shrugged on an outer jacket and stepped to his elevator. Lacey took from his side pocket an empty plastic bag with a sealable edge and the glitter of a few drops of water within. His fingers toyed with it as he concentrated on something else.
Sutter bore his silence briefly, then demanded, “What’ve you got there?”
“Oh, I washed my hands this morning and saved the water to pour in that geranium,” Lacey said, pointing to the recorder-linked plant by the elevator shaft. Wilhoit’s head had just sunk below floor level. “It struck me that wash water might be a faster way of getting in tune with a plant than what Wilhoit’s gardener was mentioning.”
His unit chief blinked in puzzlement. “I don’t understand,” she said.
“Wilhoit would,” said Lacey.
A scream burst from the elevator shaft, cutting through even the roar of a high-voltage arc. It hung over the blank faces of the clerks as smoke and the stench of burned meat began to bubble out of the shaft.
“I can’t afford to lose,” repeated Lacey.
Sutter looked at his face and shuddered. After a time, the screaming stopped.
UNDERGROUND
Two sections of floor collapsed and armed figures began to leap upward into the electronics emporium above. Two of the three Commissioners scowled as they watched the projection sphere, though they knew that the scene had actually occurred more than a year before. Lemba, the Chief Commissioner, was fat and black and too experienced to show emotion except as a ploy. He gestured toward the sudden chaos in the sphere. “At the start, no one was killed. Knocked around, threatened if they got in the way of the looters, but—”
A red-capped policeman burst through the outside door, carrying his heavy-duty stunner at high port. The projection brightened as a dazzling crossfire cut the patrolman in half.
Arcadio, the other male Commissioner, swore under his breath. “Powerguns, when we can’t get them ourselves.”
Lemba nodded.
Except for the Commissioners themselves, the sixty-meter room was empty of its usual crowd. Further, though scanning cameras recorded the events of the room as they did the events of all other rooms in the State, the data of this meeting were restricted to the Security Police alone. Newshawks could appeal the Interdict to the courts, but even if they were successful, the delay of several months would kill news value in a society that lived from day to day.