Piers Anthony - Total Recall

Richter put on an ingratiating smile he knew fooled no one; it wasn’t meant to. “Trying to neutralize a traitor, sir.” And that’s the correct term! Chew on that, sir!

Cohaagen’s scowl expanded into open anger. “If I wanted him dead, I wouldn’t have dumped him on Earth!”

Richter smoothed out his own features, playing the obsequious underling, again without any concern for belief. “We can’t let him run around, Mr. Cohaagen. He knows too much.”

“Lori says he can’t remember jack shit.”

“That’s now,” said Richter. “In an hour, he could have total recall.”

“Listen to me, Richter.” There was static on the line, but not enough to blot out Cohaagen’s words. “I want Quaid delivered alive for re-implantation. Have you got that? I want him back in place with Lori.”

Over my dead body, Richter thought. It was all he could do to keep himself from tearing the video monitor out of the dashboard and hurling it from the car.

“Did you hear me?” Cohaagen demanded. Richter reached over and twisted a dial, causing the reception to break up. It would be impossible to tell from the other end what had caused the disruption.

“What was that, sir? I couldn’t hear you.”

Cohaagen glared. “I said xtr + b… lsw… rojwf…”

Richter intensified the interference, deliberately preventing himself from hearing Cohaagen’s orders.

Helm gazed impassively out the windshield into the rain, affecting not to be aware of anything. He didn’t like having the quarry slip the noose any better than Richter did.

“Hello?” Richter said. “We’ve got sunspots. I’m switching to a different frequency.” How glad he was that such transmissions were unreliable when anything happened on the solar scale!

A blinking red dot appeared on the console tracking device. Helm nudged Richter, and Richter nodded. They had locked in on their man.

“Mr. Cohaagen, are you there?” Richter continued. “Hello? Hello?” So polite, with a touch of perplexity: the recording would show that he had no idea that his orders had changed.

With a contemptuous twist of the dial, Richter ended the transmission. Cohaagen wouldn’t be able to prove anything; interplanetary signals were notorious for interference. A price was paid for violating light-speed. There had been just enough genuine interference to cover his tracks.

Richter allowed himself a small, grim smile. He turned to Helm. “Fuckin’ asshole. He shoulda killed Quaid when he had the chance,” he said. Now he, Richter, would do it instead, with pleasure. They had locked on to the quarry, and no sunspots, real or fake, would interfere.

Helm gunned the car into traffic, splashing water on commuters walking out of the subway station. Their protests carried faintly, music to Richter’s ears. He put a hand up over his shoulder and hoisted one finger, signaling them, though he knew they couldn’t see inside the car. The gesture gave him satisfaction anyway. Too bad he couldn’t show the same signal of respect to Cohaagen.

Quaid had decided not to go too far. They would be expecting him to flee the city, so would be racing to cut off the exit points. Therefore he remained close—but not too close. His alternate self had deserted him; it manifested only when immediate, effective action was required, such as killing several men in several seconds. He was on his own, and that satisfied him for now.

He got off the train a few stops down and went into a lavatory. He looked a mess, all right! He slopped water across his face and hands and dabbed at the worst of the stains on his shirt, though not much could be done about that. He had a bright idea, squatted, scraped his fingers along the floor near the wall, and got a good load of dirt on them. He rubbed this into the shut, covering the remaining bloodstains. Now he looked mostly filthy, like a tramp, not like a refugee from a slaughterhouse. It would have to do. He combed his hair back and assumed an expression of dullness, as if he were just a tired laborer returning from a hard day in the sewer.

He boarded another train, trying to make it difficult for die goons to trace his route. But he couldn’t do this forever; he needed to get into some other region. For that he needed money.

He paused at a money vendor near the end of the subway line and got as much cash as he dared: enough to pay for a plane to another continent. The transaction would be traced, and in minutes the goons would be on his tail again; that was why they hadn’t cut off his ID card already. But though he lacked the deadly expertise of his hidden self, he did have some native cunning. Instead of going to the airport, he caught the next train back toward the center of town, and rode almost to where he had started. That should catch them by surprise. He hoped. They might figure that he wasn’t counting on the ID tracer, and was innocently going his way, and wouldn’t do anything unpredictable. He hoped again.

He got off and took an escalator up. He emerged from an archway marked subway onto the ground floor of an ancient 1980s shopping mall which had degenerated into a barrio street scene, complete with bars, flophouses, pool halls, pawnshops, and massage parlors. The mall was crowded with kids on skateboards and bikes, and there were even bums sleeping in doorways. It was like stepping into the past, and he almost felt nostalgia. Life must have been simpler before the planets were colonized!

This was the ideal place to hide. He spied a fleabag hotel across the mall. Cash would be accepted there without question, and he wouldn’t have to show his ID. He’d be able to rest, and wash out his shirt, or maybe pick up other clothing at a secondhand outlet. He was catching on to survival as an anonymous fugitive.

The coast was clear, as it were. He resumed progress and entered the hotel.

Helm drove the car rapidly through the rainy streets.

“Hey, man,” he said. “I bet you’re glad Lori’s off that case.” Richter’s jaw tensed, but he kept his eyes on the tracking device.

“It’s just a job,” he said shortly.

“Well, I sure wouldn’t want Quaid porking my girl.”

Richter snarled. His hand shot out and he grabbed Helm’s ear, twisting it painfully. The car swerved.

“You’re saying she liked it? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

Helm struggled to control the car and to avoid having his ear ripped from his head. “No, no, of course not!” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m sure she hated every minute!”

Richter gave Helm’s ear another cruel twist and then released it. Flushed, he turned his attention back to the tracking device, which zoomed to a more detailed map section. “Circle twenty-eight. Top level,” he said without expression. And then he smiled. The old Galleria… Of course. Quaid thought he could hide by dodging back into the slum.

“Know something?” he asked Helm. “I think he hasn’t caught on that he’s bugged.” But he was, all right. Indeed, it had been that bug that first alerted them to Quaid’s visit to Rekall. The alarm had sounded when the man had gone off his normal route, and they had made a quick trip there to question the Rekall staff and dispatch them.

Helm skidded the car around a corner, keeping his eyes on the road and rubbing his ear.

Quaid went to his hotel room. It was about what he had expected, which wasn’t much. It was separated from other chambers mainly by plasterboard. If he cared to listen, he could hear what was going on in nearby compartments: the clinking of glasses, a shrill argument, an all-night poker game, the thudding of heavy sex, and plenty of video noise. That made this the perfect place to hide in.

But he had no sooner closed the dirty curtains at the window than the phone rang. He didn’t answer. But it bothered him: why should anyone be calling here? Was it for last night’s tenant? In which case maybe he’d better answer it, and try to pretend to be that man, in that way concealing his own presence. Still—