Proxy by Gary Gibson

Author:Gary Gibson [Gibson, Gary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Brain in a Jar Books
Published: 2022-07-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

ELIJAH

Davie, Lorenz’s second-in-command, brushed past Elijah in the prison laundry where they were both working and pushed something into his hand.

Elijah palmed it and immediately dropped it into the pocket of his overalls before continuing his work.

Forty-five minutes later he was back in his cell. His cell-mate wasn’t around, so he tucked himself into a corner of his bunk and pulled out whatever it was Davie had slipped him. It proved to be a sheet of e-paper folded into a small, uneven rectangle.

Smoothing the crumpled sheet flat, Elijah tugged at its corners until the shape-memory polymer caused it to turn rigid. A few taps and swipes, and he was linked into the Worldnet via a prepaid secure connection.

A lack of time forced him to work fast. Thanks to the business card he’d discovered in an abandoned office, Elijah now knew that the man who’d supplied him and Rob with the hopscotch recipe was a Doctor Zachary Finch, and that he ran some kind of psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of Southampton. There were only a few other people with the same name in mainland Britain, and a quick glance at their online profiles allowed him to quickly determine that none of them were the man Elijah had encountered years before.

That left another question: was Finch himself responsible for creating hopscotch, or was he, as Elijah suspected, a go-between for someone else?

Elijah ran more searches, desperately hoping to dig up something that might directly connect Finch either to hopscotch or the original proxy, but found nothing.

With a grimace, he tore the sheet into thin strips and flushed them down the cell toilet. He saw a faint glitter of inlaid circuitry as the torn strips swirled down the drain.

He’d hoped—really, really hoped—that he wouldn’t have to go back to Lorenz and rent yet another skin. But it appeared he had no choice if he wanted to find out more.

At least no one else in the prison had tried to kill him again. But that, he greatly suspected, was only a matter of time.

Davie strolled past his open cell, walking deliberately slowly, and Elijah stepped up close to him.

“I need to speak to Lorenz again,” he said.

Davie responded with a grunt of assent. “What about?”

“I need to get outside again,” said Elijah in a half-whisper. “For longer this time.”

Davie snorted a laugh as if this were the funniest thing he had ever heard and kept on walking.

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