The Android's Dream by John Scalzi

Author:John Scalzi
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3, pdf
Published: 2011-05-02T23:00:00+00:00

"Good to hear," Brain said. "Second: Your Agent Reginald Dwight is actually Edward Baer, who appears to be your average low-grade flunky type. Served a couple years for extortion and racketeering about a decade ago and got an extra six months tacked on to his sentence for assaulting another prisoner while in the pen. His official job is as a security specialist, which is some irony for you. Quite obviously an associate of Mr. Acuna, who has been signing checks to this guy for a couple of years now."

"Is he dead?" Creek asked.

"No, he's not," Brian said. "He's not exactly skipping through the daisies, either. He was admitted to Mount Vernon Hospital with multiple internal and external injuries, including a broken back and severed spinal cord. He's in surgery now. There are two confirmed dead, one from massive head trauma and another from a gunshot wound, and two others wounded. One of those is unconscious, but one is conscious and being grilled by the police as we speak."

"That's five," Creek said. "Where's Acuna?"

"He's not at the scene," Brian said. "At the very least, there's no word of his arrest or his being sent to the hospital."

"That's no good," Creek said.

"Third," Brian continued, "I figured out who it was who's been trying to dig into your system for the last day or so: A guy named Archie McClellan. He's a contractor for the Department of Defense. Have you heard of him?"

"No," Creek said.

"Well, he's definitely heard of you," Brian said, "and since his attempts to hack into your system correspond almost exactly with your attempts to find your lost sheep, I don't think his visits are coincidental."

"Does this McClellan guy have any connection to Jean Schroeder or the AIC?" Creek asked.

"There's nothing in his banking history that would say so. He mostly works for the US and UNE

governments. His contract information says he primarily works with legacy systems. He's got no axe to grind. Apparently, he's just a geek. I'm crawling up his computer's tailpipe as we speak. I expect to learn more any second now. But in the meantime I'd like to suggest to you that, yeah, we should assume whatever Jean Schroeder and his merry band of xenophobic freaks are up to, our friend Archie and the Defense Department are along for the ride."

Creek open his mouth to answer when the door to the basement opened and Fixer stepped a few steps down the stairs. "I've got a ride for you two," he said. "The Neverland cruise ship. The entire boat has been rented out to a group of Veterans of Foreign and Extraterrestrial Wars. It's hitting some of the usual stops but then it's going to some battle sites. So you're going to have to pretend to be a veteran."

"I am a veteran," Creek said.

"Well, good. Then things just got easier for a change," Fixer said. "The last shuttle up to the Neverland leaves from BWI in about two hours, so let's get you two moving. Tell your

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