"Burning Bright" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dowd Tom)

2

A suite had been arranged for him at the Marriott SkyTower down near where 1-57 crossed 103rd Street at the edge of the financial Core, and Kyle had ended up there earlier than he'd expected. Both Natalie and Beth had tired early, and he could see Beth wrestling with her own desires about where she wanted him to stay that night. He'd solved the problem by saying he had an early-morning meeting and some research still to prepare. He'd also wanted to ask if she needed more money, hating the idea of her jacked in a desk at Fuchi America. But she hadn't mentioned money problems, so he resisted the urge to offer. There would be time enough later.

Kyle knew Chicago fairly well, but let the autopilot on the Ford Americar he'd been provided do the driving. Moving through the night, the car took him south from Irving Park Road on the Northside, down a short distance along Lake Shore Drive, past me rows of ritzy lakeside developments mat barely hid the blight of the sprawl stretching to the west. Traffic was light, and except for the fly-over of a police helicopter, its lights blazing and clearly illuminating the Eagle Security logo on the side, uneventful.

At North Avenue, the view changed as the Drive wove itself along the eastern edge of what had come to be known as the Noose. Victim to the migration of Chicago's economic heart to the south side after the fall of the IBM Building in 2039, the area was a mecca for the city's criminals and underclass. Kyle turned away to watch the faintly rippling waters of Lake Michigan, not looking west again until the Drive crossed the Chicago River.

There, in the now black and dead former heart of the city, he could just barely make out the Shattergraves area among the rubble of the hundreds of buildings destroyed or burned when terrorists had demolished the IBM Building following the anti-metahuman Night of Rage. Even more than the Noose, the Shattergraves was ungoverned and left to rot. Few lived there, for not many could retain their sanity against the thousands of ghosts and lost souls that haunted those broken, deserted streets. Still, small fires and other lights were visible in the area flanking the river. Despite the horror of the place, some apparently called it home.

The Noose continued past the Shattergraves, but now the near horizon was dominated by the new corporate towers of the transplanted Downtown area. The car continued on to the end of the Drive at 67th Street-and then continued down Stony Island Avenue to 103rd. There it turned right and approached me northern edge of the corporate Core.

The sleek corporate vehicle in which he rode traveled unrestricted into the area of chrome, steel, and glass. Here and there, Kyle saw a local vehicle being checked out by Eagle Security, but everyone knew better than to delay a car bearing the ID tags this one had. Truman Technologies was the Chicago corporation, and even the police were smart enough not to play games with them. Perhaps the biggest non-multinational corporation in the United Canadian and American States, Truman Technologies all but dominated segments of the mega-nuyen entertainment industry. It produced, marketed, distributed, and sold the technology for the truer-than-life sensory-encoded simsense chips that had replaced CD-video decades earlier. In Chicago, there were few more powerful than Daniel Truman and his corporation.

Kyle's room on the ninety-second floor of the Marriott was high enough to give him a view of the lakeside campus of the University of Chicago near where Lake Shore Drive ended. He could also see the mist-shrouded lights of Elemental Hall, the corporate-sponsored metaphysical research park half a kilometer offshore from the University. Though Kyle had a standing invitation from a former classmate at Columbia to visit the Hall anytime, he wasn't sure whether he'd take him up on the offer. The idea of visiting Elemental Hall was more man intriguing, and he would certainly profit from a grand tour of the U of C's metamagical and conjuring facilities, but Kyle wasn't that anxious to renew his former classmate's acquaintance. He'd decide later. There'd be plenty of time.

It was long after midnight as he scanned the on-screen catalog of the programs offered by the hotel's in-house trideo system, and Kyle wondered if he really did need to do any research for the morning. The meeting was set for ten o'clock, which left him more than enough time after breakfast to refresh his memory on information pertinent to Truman Technologies and the situation the powerful Truman family had hired him to remedy. Despite the gravity of the situation, Daniel Truman didn't seem to be in any hurry. Kyle decided to set his notepad computer to browsing several pertinent online services and databases while he slept.

The hold-image for the United Canadian and American States Federal Bureau of Investigation's Department of Paranormal Affairs faded from the screen to be replaced by the image of Dave Strevich as he approved the telecom connection; "Sorry about that," the burly man said as he dropped heavily into the chair behind his desk. "I was taking a crap."

Kyle chuckled and leaned back in his own chair as the image of his friend, cybernetically superimposed over his normal vision, rose ghost-like through the air to sit among the vines that hung down from the ceiling over the cafe in the Marriott's courtyard atrium. The system took a moment to compensate and darken Strevich's image against the brighter background.

"I hope I didn't rush anything," Kyle said.

Strevich shrugged. "Nothing the next guy can't clean up."

"Pleasant image."

Strevich waved the compliment away. "For you, only the best."

"Thanks, Dave. That's why I'm calling to ask a favor." "You mean you aren't calling to find out how my love life is going?"

Kyle smiled. "I know it's touchy, but I need you to cross-reference a name in the FBI's files on the Universal Brotherhood mess."

Strevich raised his eyebrows. 'Touchy?" he said after a minute. "You have no idea."

"Care to tell me why?"

"Can't."

Kyle sighed. "Look, I understand it's sensitive. I wouldn't ask, not even for my best client, except that it's personal."

Strevich's eyes softened. "Your sister-in-law?"

"Ellen Shaw."

"Okay, hang on." Strevich leaned forward and Kyle could just barely see his hands tapping at the flat keyboard built into his desk. He was done quickly and then leaned back. "I've only got a membership listing for her… address, personal data, financial contributions, that sort of thing. Nothing deeper."

Kyle felt himself tense slightly. "You pulled that data up fraggin' fast, Dave. Have the computers gotten a lot wizzer since I was there?"

But for the slightest narrowing of the eyes, Strevich's face would have been unreadable.

"Why's the file in your direct access pool, Dave? You should have had to request-"

Strevich held up one hand. "Don't," he said. "Look down."

Kyle fought the impulse to do just that, but he'd known his friend long enough to recognize one of his figures of speech. He glanced down.

"See that?" Strevich continued. "It's a land mine. Please don't set if off. I'd be grateful."

"Okay, okay. But I'm going to be doing my own checking. Please let me know next time one drops in front of me."

"If I can. You know the scan, Kyle-sometimes you swat…" Uncharacteristically, his friend let the metaphor trail off. "If I can," Strevich finished instead. "If I can."

Kyle nodded. The message was clear enough, and he knew not to push. "Understood." he said. "Look, I gotta go-meeting to take, money to be had."

Strevich nodded and punched what Kyle knew was the command key that took him out of whatever file he'd been scanning. "I see you're calling from Chicago."

Kyle nodded.

"The Truman boy?"

"Hey, hey, hey," Kyle said, holding up his hand. "Look down." Strevich just grinned.

"See that?" Kyle told him. "It's your shoe. That's all you need to know."

"Got it."

Kyle reached toward the portable telecom unit sitting on the table. "Feed me anything you can," he said.

Strevich was just saying "Don't hold your breath" when Kyle cut the connection. He pulled the self-coiling cable connecting the datajack in his temple to the pocket phone, then sat for a while, staring at the Marriott's waterfall and pouring the last of the kaf from the self-warming carafe. It was, of course, real coffee.

So, his old teammates in the FBI's Department of Paranormal Affairs were handling the Universal Brotherhood investigation. And since that fact wasn't public knowledge, it had to mean the case involved some metaphysical matter the government didn't want anyone to find out about. And that fact Kyle Teller found very interesting indeed.