Internal Affairs
“Do you know anyone
who wants you dead, scholar-agent?” The investigator from Internal
Affairs leaned over Pierce, his hands clasped together in a manner
that reminded Pierce of a hungry mantis. His ears (Pierce couldn’t
help but notice) were prominent and pink, little radar dishes
adorning the sides of a thin face. It had to be an ironic comment
if not an outright insult, his adoption of the likeness of Franz
Kafka. Or perhaps the man from Internal Affairs simply didn’t want
to be recognized.
Pierce chuckled
weakly. The results were predictable: when the coughing fit
subsided, and his vision began to clear again, he shook his
head.
“A pity.” Kafka
rocked backward slightly, his shoulders hunched. “It would make
things easier.”
Pierce risked a
question. “Does the Library have anything?”
Kafka sniffed. “Of
course not. Whoever set the trap knew enough to scrub the
palimpsest clean before they embarked on their killing
spree.”
So it was a palimpsest.
Pierce felt vaguely cheated. “They assassinated themselves first?
To remove the evidence from the time sequence?”
“You died three
times, scholar-agent, not counting your present state.” He gestured
at the dressing covering the cardiac assist leech clamped to the
side of Pierce’s chest. It pulsed rhythmically, taking the load
while the new heart grew to full size between his ribs. “Agent
Yarrow died twice and Agent-Major Alizaid’s report states that he
was forced to invoke Control Majeure to contain the palimpsest’s
expansion. Someone”—Kaf ka leaned
toward Pierce again, peering intently at his face with disturbingly
dark eyes—“went to great lengths to kill you
repeatedly.”
“Uh.” Pierce stared
at the ceiling of his hospital room, where plaster cherubs
clutching overflowing cornucopiae cavorted with lecherous satyrs.
“I suppose you want to know why?”
“No. Having read your
Branch Library file, there are any number of whys: what I want to know is why now.” Kafka smiled, his mouth widening until his
alarmingly unhinged head seemed ready to topple from the plinth of
his jaw. “You’re still in training, a green shoot. An interesting
time to pick on you, don’t you think?”
Fear made Pierce
tense up. “If you’ve read my Library record, you must know I’m
loyal . . .”
“Peace.” Kafka made a
placating gesture. “I know nothing of the kind; the Library can’t
tell me what’s inside your head. But you’re not under suspicion of
trying to assassinate yourself. What I do know is that so far your career has been notably
mundane. The Library branches are as prone to overwrites as any
other palimpsest; but we may be able to make deductions about your
attacker by looking for inconsistencies between your memories and
the version of your history documented locally.”
Pierce lay back,
drained. I’m not under suspicion. “What
is to become of me?” he asked.
Kafka’s smile
vanished. “Nothing, for now: you may convalesce at your leisure,
and sooner or later you will learn whatever it is that was so
important to our enemies that they tried to erase you. When you do
so, I would be grateful if you would call me.” He rose to leave.
“You will see me again, eventually. Meanwhile, you should bear in
mind that you have come to the attention of important persons.
Consider yourself lucky—and try to make the best of
it.”
Three days after
Kafka’s departure—summoned back, no doubt, to the vasty abyss of
deep time in which Internal Affairs held their counsel—Pierce had
another visitor.
“I came to thank
you,” she said haltingly. “You didn’t need to do that. To decoy, I
mean. I’m very grateful.”
It had the sound of a
prepared speech, but Pierce didn’t mind. She was young and
eye-wrenchingly desirable, even in the severe uniform of an Agent
Initiate. “You would have died again,” he pointed out. “I was your
backup. It’s bad form to let your primary die. And I owed
you.”
“You owed me? But we
haven’t met! There’s nothing about you in my Library file.” Her
pupils dilated.
“It was an older
you,” he said mildly. While the Stasis held a file on everyone,
agents were only permitted to see—and annotate—those of their own
details that lay in their past. After a pause, he admitted, “I was
hoping we might meet again sometime.”
“But I—” She
hesitated, then stared at him, narrowing her eyes. “I’m not in the
market. I have a partner.”
“Funny, she didn’t
tell me that.” He closed his eyes for a few seconds. “She said we
had a history, though. And to tell her when I first met her that
her first pet—a cat named Chloe—died when a wild dog took her.”
Pierce opened his eyes to stare at the baroque ceiling again. “I’m
sorry I asked, Ya—esteemed colleague. Please forgive me; I didn’t
think you were for sale. My heart is simply in the wrong
place.”
After a second he
heard a shocked, incongruous giggle.
“I gather
armor-piercing rounds usually have that effect,” he
added.
When she was able to
speak again she shook her head. “I am sincere,
Scholar-Agent—Pierce?—Pierced? Oh dear!” She managed to hold her
dignity intact, this time, despite a gleam of amusement. “I’m sorry
if I—I don’t mean to doubt you. But you must know, if you know me,
I have never met you, yes?”
“That thought has
indeed occurred to me.” The leech pulsed warmly against his chest,
squirting blood through the aortic shunt. “As you can see, right
now I am not only heartless but harmless, insofar as I won’t even
be able to get out of bed unaided for another ten days; you need
not fear that I’m going to pursue you. I merely thought to
introduce myself and let you know—as she did to me—that we
could have a history, if you’re so
inclined, someday. But not right now. Obviously.”
“But obviously not—”
She stood up. “This wasn’t what I was expecting.”
“Me neither.” He
smiled bitterly. “It never is, is it?”
She paused in the
doorway. “I’m not saying no, never, scholar-agent. But not now,
obviously. Some other time . . . We’ll worry about that if we meet
again, perhaps. History can wait a little longer. Oh, and thank you
for saving my life some of the times! One out of three is good
going, especially for a student.”