The Credulity Nexus Read Online Free PDF Page B

said,
looking away. “He was a good bloke. I didn't mean nothing.”
    Rik grunted in
contempt. He turned and walked back to the house, and Skiver
hurried along behind.
    Between them,
it took two hours of painstaking searching to find what Rik was
looking for – a small metal cash-box containing documents, credit
strips and a chip wrangler. Rik pocketed the paper and plastic, and
held the wrangler where he could see its little display. He flicked
through a couple of menus until he found the program he wanted,
then held the device to his temple and hit the go button. It
beeped, then beeped again. He queried his cogplus and nodded to
himself. It confirmed his new identity.
    He tossed the
wrangler on the floor and stamped on it, grinding the pieces into
the floorboards. He headed for the door.
    “Hey!” Skiver
almost fell over himself in his haste to catch up. “What about
me?”
    “What about
you?”
    “Take me with
you.”
    Rik couldn't
help laughing.
    “No,
seriously, mate,” the boy insisted. “I can help. I can...” He
hesitated, seeking inspiration. “I can, like, run errands, and get
stuff. I can – I don't know – do stuff. Just take me with you, all
right?”
    Rik stepped
out into the street and Skiver hurried after him.
    “I don't want
to hang around here no more,” the boy whined. “Just look at it.
It's a fucking dump. I'd rather go with you, Rik. You look like a
handy kind of bloke. I'll make myself useful, you see if I
don't.”
    Rik walked
straight past his hire car. It was useless now. Since he'd
reprogrammed his identity the car would no longer recognise him as
its driver. Once its hire period was up, it would drive itself back
to the nearest company depot, if it lasted that long, parked on a
street like this.
    “Come on,
mate. Just give it a go. Look, I'll get you a cab. Where do you
want to go?”
    Rik stopped
and rounded on the boy. “Get lost. If you're still around in thirty
seconds, I'm going to throw you through the nearest window. Got
it?” He turned back and carried on walking. This time Skiver stayed
where he was.
    “It was all
right with Ocky,” the boy called after him. “He got me off the
shit. Kept me off the streets. I don't want to go back to that.
Please, just–“
    But Rik had
turned the corner and was gone.

Chapter 6
     
    Blake Bonomi
was brewing coffee when the door bell rang. He took a quick look at
the toast to see how long he had and hurried to the door.
    There was a
young woman in shorts standing on his doorstep, carrying a small
package in a bright plastic envelope. "Blake Bonomi?" she
asked.
    Blake looked
past her to where her courier truck was parked at the bottom of his
drive. Beyond that, the cool morning light and clear skies promised
another sunny day in suburban Los Angeles.
    He took the
package from her and she held out a contact strip. "Sign here," she
said. He held the strip between his thumb and index finger while
she held the other end, and his cogplus negotiated his proof of
identity with the courier's systems.
    The strip
glowed green. “Thank you, sir. Have a nice day.”
    “Who's that?”
His wife, Brie, came into the hallway in her dressing gown as he
closed the door.
    “It's a
package,” Blake said, turning it to see the sender's address. “From
Rik.”
    “Rik? Why's he
sending us packages?”
    “Dunno. He
sent it from Berlin.”
    “What, Berlin,
Germany?”
    Blake pulled
the silver box out of the envelope and turned it over in his hands.
He walked back through to the kitchen and set it on the worktop. He
tossed the envelope into the recycler and it – and the scribbled
note inside – was whisked away to be converted into reusable gasses
in the household plasma incinerator.
    “Is there a
note?” Brie asked.
    “Shit! I
probably just recycled it.”
    His wife shook
her head and went over to rescue the breakfast. “So what is
it?”
    “Holy mother
of God!”
    Blake had the
box open and was staring at the six small phials of liquid