Body, Inc. Page 8

  And always, always, dreaming of that one grand final meld that would ultimately make everything right again.

  Something brushed at her bare shoulder. Irritated, she slapped at it, only to discover that it was strands of her freshly lengthened, newly tinted hair. In light of recent musings she started to see them not as a flattering flow of red but as slender components of a deceptively soft, unbreakable tentacle just waiting for the right moment to strangle her in her sleep.

  She forced the disconcerting image out of her mind. Her newly maniped hair was nothing more than part of a disguise, like dark glasses or a heavy coat. She could dispense with it as soon as all this was over, as soon as she returned home to Savannah.

  Or she could try to fine-tune it. All it would take was one simple and quick meld. One more brief meld that …

  What’s happening to me? she thought a little wildly. She made a conscious effort to slow her breathing.

  Nothing. Nothing was happening to her. She was the same quiet, responsible, cultured physician she had always been. To be sure, one who was presently engaged on a mildly obsessive quest in the name of science and satisfying a personal curiosity, but not one whose personality and self had undergone any kind of elemental shift.

  Whispr was staring at her; doubtless because she had not responded to his last comment.

  “Yes, I’ve seen examples.” Her voice, she was pleased to note, was perfectly normal. “Enough to understand the addiction.” She indicated her just-melded appearance. “As soon as we’re finished with this and I’m back home I’m getting maniped right back to the way I was before. I’ll revert to my Natural self as soon as I can. There’s no reason to maintain any of this … this … falsehood.”

  “Of course there isn’t. I’d argue with you, of course. And not just because I’m a Meld.” He rose. “We need to find a place for the night. Starting tomorrow I’m holding you to our agreement to see some animals. It’ll be relaxing as well as constructive to play tourist for a while. Anybody is watching us, they’ll see that we’re not going anywhere near any of SICK’s facilities. Therefore we can’t possibly be anyone they’d be interested in.” With one long, slender finger he traced a sweeping arc through the air. “Instead of heading straight for the first spot on that sangoma’s list we’ll make a real journey out of it. Work our way around and come at the location from a different direction.”

  She rose to join him. “You’re rationalizing a roundabout approach so we’ll have more time to look at wildlife, aren’t you?”

  His small mouth pursed in a smile. “Both reasons are valid, doc. I want to see wildlife, yes, but I also want to confuse and deter anyone who might be suspicious of us. By the way, and this is a completely impartial opinion, if I haven’t said so already you look fantastic.” He pivoted on a bare heel and headed for the exit.

  From the standpoint of her just-established resolve to change her appearance back to what it was as soon as she returned home, it was the worst thing he could have said.

  The two tardy lods were locals. As supplementary staff they had been forced upon the organization representative who had rushed down from Joburg as soon as the two Namericans had been positively identified. Unfortunately for everyone both the rep and the local hirelings were, as had been their counterparts in Savannah, a day late. Furthermore, the Namericans had checked out of their Simon’s Town hotel without leaving a forwarding address or contact information of any kind. Frustrated and fuming, the restless overseers of the organization could no longer even be certain that their quarry was still on the same continent. There was talk that they might have gone to Tokyo. There were rumors they had returned to Namerica but not to Greater Savannah. There was, as is common in such organizations, a great deal of yelling and disproportionate expenditure of cuss words in a multitude of languages.

  The result was that many fingers and related melded digits were crossed in the hope that the two surprisingly evasive targets were still in South Africa, perhaps even still in Cape Town. Despite lavishing significant subsist on concentric rings of informants, only one lead as to the fugitives’ present whereabouts and activities had come forth—but it was a good one.

  The upshot was that Sela Chelowich found herself sitting on the deck of a perambulating café sipping bad coffee imbued with absinthe as the two local hirelings came rushing breathlessly up to her.

  While the other women settled themselves into the remaining empty chairs at the circular table, fastened their seat belts, and ordered Rooibos tea from the pickup protruding from its center, Chelowich regarded her newly acquired backup. Boo Terror didn’t need her wince-inducing moniker to intimidate. Big as a football player, bulging with maniped muscles, the Meld still affected girly-girl accessories like long dangling earrings, lipstick, and color-shifting eye shadow. The hair that reached to the back of her broad shoulders was tied in a thick black braid whose diameter approached that of some of the old-fashioned hawsers coiled on the decks of cargo ships in the harbor.

  Though no bigger than Chelowich the other lod had to coil her upper limbs to keep them from sprawling on the floor. Lindiwe was a partial tentacular Meld, one who had traded in her arms for far more flexible grasping appendages. The flex meld was a common one that involved removing the entire arm including the bone all the way up to the shoulder and replacing it with gengineered sucker-lined cephalopod limbs. The resultant manip had proven its worth in numerous businesses where strength and flexibility were prized above precision control, from shelf stocking to long-distance driving to the sex industry. The skin of Lindiwe’s upper limbs shone a striking glossy black that alternated with wide bands of equally brilliant carmine. Among other things, tentacles were very useful for holding on to anxious individuals in a hurry to be elsewhere.

  “We found someone who has saw them for sure.” Though a deep rumble that originated somewhere in the lower registers of the human voice, Terror’s words still had a surprisingly feminine lilt.

  Seated next to her Lindiwe gestured with the tip of one tentacle while the other dexterously accepted a large tea mug from a Natural waitress. A complimentary plate of cookies and petits fours was placed between the three women, its underside adhering to the occasionally shifting tabletop to prevent it from sliding off and down the steep slope on Chelowich’s right. Each cookie and cake, be it chocolate or vanilla, emitted an individual ringtone that identified its contents. Picking one up, the hunter munched on the music.

  “Well then why are we sitting here babbling over the bubbling?” Swallowing the last of the melody, Chelowich started to rise. Lindiwe put up a restraining hand and the bald blond hunter paused.

  “Boo said ‘saw’ them. The same person also saw them leave the place where they were seen. Saw them go back toward the city.”

  Chelowich’s gaze automatically turned toward the metropolis spread out below. Cape Town was not a small place. It would not be easy to find the Namerican pair—especially if they’d had enough sense to change their appearance again as well as their local address. At least she could report back to her superiors that as of this morning the two visitors were still in South Africa. She knew full well that by this evening they could be pretty much anywhere else on the planet. If that was the case no one in the organization would blame her. As had been proven in Savannah these two Namericans knew enough to keep on the move and not to linger too long in any one place. But neither would their flight bring any credit her way.

  “We’re wasting time with tea and cookies. Where is this place where they were seen?”

  The local Melds exchanged a glance. “Very close to here,” Lindiwe replied. “They were visiting a local business.”

  At last something promising, Chelowich thought. “They might have left word at this business of where they’re staying. Or if they’re not staying, some mention of where they’re going next.” She quickly downed the last of the sweet brew in her cup and, in petulant protest, let it drop over the side of the café railing instead of putting it back on the ta
ble. “Let’s move.”

  For a second time Lindiwe raised a cautionary appendage. “Maybe we should not go so quick to this establishment. Maybe we should look for another way to learn where the two visitors have gone.”

  Compared to the two locals seated across from her the melds Chelowich had undergone were minor. Since one involved a complete and permanent depilation, she had no brows to draw together when she frowned.

  “Are you screwing with me? When you smell shit you don’t run away from it—you buckle down and clean it up. That’s my job. As of today, it’s also your job. Why should we look elsewhere?”

  A plainly uncomfortable Lindiwe turned to her larger colleague for support. The hulking Terror looked away. Incredibly to the impatient Chelowich, the massive woman looked more than a little intimidated. The tentacle Meld was forced to continue by herself.

  “This establishment, this business the Namericans visited: it is the shop of a sangoma.”

  “A very well-known sangoma,” Terror added quickly.

  Chelowich made no effort to conceal her frustration. “I’m from Brno and I’ve only been working for the organization’s local branch for a few months. What’s a sangoma?”

  Lindiwe’s tentacle tips curled in on themselves. “In the old days, a witch doctor.”

  “Nowadays,” Terror muttered, “still a witch doctor.”

  Chelowich was flabbergasted. These two brutes, one capable of suffocating even a strong man by strangling him with her maniped upper limbs and the other able to do so simply by sitting on him, were frightened of some primitive childish institution from their ancient past! If she was not hearing it for herself she would have laughed at the scenario.

  “You’re scared. Both of you are scared.” Her hard gaze flicked from one local woman to the other. “Of a ‘witch doctor’? I can’t believe what I’m hearing.”

  Lindiwe spoke up defensively. “As you say, Sela, you have only been in this country for a little while. Sangomas have great power here. Make no mistake—Boo and I are not afraid of old tales in which such people laid curses on and threw bat blood at those who offended them. Sangomas have come into the modern world with much of their mystique and many of their talents intact. That is why they are still respected by the general population. That is why they are still in business.”

  Chelowich rose and pushed back her seat. Raising her right leg and putting her foot on the chair she tapped her right thigh. The trendy balloon pants she wore were useful for concealing the multi-barreled splat that was strapped against her skin.

  “I’ve got something here that will blow apart any mystique. Besides, if this sangoma is all about business, then there’ll be no need to get rough. I’m authorized to pay whatever is requested in order to acquire any necessary information associated with our hunt.”

  “That’s right.” Terror was clearly relieved. “We’ll just be customers, like the two Namericans.”

  “This sangoma, though,” a more cautious Lindiwe pointed out, “has a big reputation. She may not agree to give up information she considers confidential.”

  The spiderweb pattern hennaed on her bald pate gleaming in the sun, the hunter Chelowich cracked the knuckles of her right hand. “Then we will persuade her. As three women to another.” She stepped away from the table. “Where is this house of archaic cultural tradition? You said it was not far.”

  Terror stood, looming over the sunbrella, and turned to point out a location partway up the mountainside. “Walking distance from this café. Of course the house may also be walking. But we will intercept it.”

  “Yes we will,” declared Chelowich. “A destination in motion is better than none at all.”

  THE HUNTERS WERE FORTUNATE. No matter where it went as it ambled among the other oft-shifting hillside houses, the dwelling-shop of the electric sangoma was well known to all who passed by it—or to all it passed by. The shifting (and shifty) neighborhood was blessedly quiet as the trio of women worked their way upslope from the café. Most of the residents were off at work down in the city, over the hills in the Wets, or preoccupied with the press of everyday domestic concerns. The demanding echoes of squawling babies rose above the continual creak of buildings moving and grinding against one another. Moans, yelps, shouts, imprecations, and implorings resounded from overcranked vit connections as stay-at-home mothers and somnolent grandparents sought to distance themselves from their lives by numbing their neurosystems with the narcotic of popular entertainment.

  Lindiwe led the way with Chelowich in the middle and Terror bringing up the rear. The one crinkle-haired old man they encountered as they approached the house of the sangoma Thembekile nodded at Lindiwe, smiled at Chelowich, and widened his eyes and increased the speed of his servo-assisted old legs as he gave Terror a wide berth.

  Standing on the building’s small porch among its simple rattan furniture, Chelowich studied the structure’s entrance with professional detachment. When no one responded to her repeated caressing of the pressure-sensitive material or to her shouts of inquiry, she tried to force the door manually. Despite her best efforts the old-fashioned, almost ancient handle did not respond to pushing or pulling that would have overcome most such barriers.

  Off to the left of the trio’s leader Lindiwe was trying to see inside through a window that was almost completely blocked by a cascade of colorful streamers and cloths. “I can’t see anything moving inside. It’s dark.”

  Chelowich replied while conducting a detailed examination of the doorway. “Afraid of the dark?”

  Lindiwe straightened to look over at the European. “Boo and I do our best work in the dark. It is our friend, and we are not afraid of friends.”

  “Well said.” Terror corroborated her colleague in her subdued but deep voice.

  Chelowich had removed a small device from a pocket and was using it to slowly trace the door’s outer limits. Each time it passed over a contact point it beeped softly and words appeared on the integrated readout.

  “What’s that?” An interested Terror looked over the smaller woman’s shoulder.

  The blonde continued her work. “Think of it as a sedative for alarm systems. There are a couple built right into this door. The device also silences as it unlocks.” Having completed a complete circuit of the barrier she pocketed the device, reached out to grab the handle once more, smiled thinly at her cohorts, and pushed. There was a click as the door swung inward.

  Once inside, Chelowich’s expression turned from satisfaction to disgust. The hand she waved back and forth in front of her face did little to dissipate the swirl of repellent odors that assailed her nostrils.

  “What a dump!” Her pupils widened to adapt to the dim light. There was just enough interior illumination to let her eyes make sense of the disagreeable surroundings. More light would have been welcome but she didn’t want to waste time checking the building’s internal lighting system for another possible integrated alarm system. Also, the sudden flare of lights from inside the house might spark unwanted curiosity on the part of neighbors or passersby. Though weak, there was enough illumination to work by.

  “Spread out, look for any kind of record-keeping gear. Vit or audio pickups, main drive, box links—anything that’s likely to keep records of recent visitors.”

  “If we do find anything it’s probably encrypted.” As a muttering Terror shut the door behind them and took up a defensive stance next to it, Lindiwe roughly pushed a pile of small clay sculptures off a cabinet that was in her way. Several crashed to the floor and broke. She stepped over them without looking down.

  Having already located the box console and its flanking accoutrements Chelowich was plowing through a pile of hard copies she’d found in a drawer. She was pleased to see that the majority of printouts were in English. If there was a recording showing that a pair of Namericans had paid a recent visit it would be easy to read. With any luck there would be at least a note. If nothing could be found then the three of them would have to settle down to wait for the
sangoma’s return and request the necessary information in person. She had no doubt that this would be forthcoming. Lindiwe and Terror were professional persuaders, an area of expertise in which Chelowich herself had ample experience.

  Deeper back in the overcrowded dwelling, something snarled.

  The portable recorder Lindiwe had just found slipped from her fingers. At the doorway Terror turned to face the room so that she could press her back against the wall. The snarl sounded again. It was too thick, too primal, to arise from a dog or a housecat. At least, not from a typical housecat.

  Chelowich didn’t bother to look up from where she was sorting through the materials that covered the top of the sangoma’s console. “Sounds like a lion.”

  “Yes, lion.” Seeing her boss’s calm demeanor encouraged Lindiwe to relax. Positioned by the door, Terror straightened up out of the fighting stance she had assumed.

  The snarl came a third time. It was much louder now. Toward the rear of the reception room a shape began to materialize out of the darkness. Though increasingly uneasy, both local contract workers held their ground. Observing Lindiwe gazing at her for guidance, an exasperated Chelowich finally looked up from her searching.

  “It’s a sound and vit projection. That’s all. Typical traditional anti-intruder contrivance, same as you’d encounter anywhere in the world. In Brno it would be a big dog, or maybe a wolf.” She nodded curtly in the direction of the growling shape. “Here you get a lion. Look.”

  Stepping away from the console she moved toward the back of the room. At the doorway Terror tensed. The outline of the lion was very coherent now. Dense, fully three-dimensional, and active, it looked real as real could be. Until Chelowich stuck a hand into its mouth—and out the back of its neck. The image of the big cat reacted with another snarl and a snap at the offending hand, causing Lindiwe to jump slightly. But the unperturbed Chelowich was unharmed. The lion was a superb simulacrum, even a responsive one, but nothing more.