Katze tries to ignore the dread that sits inside him like a stone, cold and heavy. It won't go away anymore as he is waiting for Raoul's next call. He is conscious that the cuff around his wrist transmits, precisely and reliable, his movements to the man who is watching him.
Does he really waste his time like this? Katze wonders, then forbids himself to think about it anymore. He shows Kiri what to do to keep the house clean and lets him wash the car. There is no sign of emotion or thought in Kiri's expression. It is empty, like a desert. Katze puts a transmitter on him and starts using him as a courier. Kiri's looks remind him of Riki, and he thinks that it's probably no coincidence that the young man chose a scrambled version Riki's name. When he could still think and feel. When he was trying to replace Riki and got him thrown out of the gang. Without remorse, Katze remembers how easy it had been to rope Kiri in, with promises of money and status... and the option of getting one up on Riki. Wrong, my friend, that's what Iason would say. Revenge is a dish best served cold.
Iason.
Iason...
I forgive you.
Katze tries to say it. The words taste bitter, and his throat feels too tight.
What's there to be forgiven anyway? No, wrong. There's too much of it.
He lights a cigarette instead.
xxx
When he catches Kiri stealing from his stash of pills and powders in the bathroom cabinet, Katze isn't surprised. He puts Kiri into a cage, a box with bars he installs in the far corner of the garage. Withdrawal sets in soon enough. For a while, Katze turns carer. Feeding, watering; sugar and medication to keep the worst symptoms down; and ignoring the pleas and tears, the loss of humanity that reduces Kiri to a heap of pain-wracked misery. He offers himself, the begs, he crawls but Katze isn't touched by any of it. He feels nothing when he pushes Kiri out of the way with his foot so he can mop shit and puke from the floor and change the soiled blankets, to keep the stink at bay that has settled in the garage. Kiri never takes the step Katze is waiting for. There are no angry threats, no spirit to rise and bristle against this treatment. Kiri is empty.
xxx
Raoul keeps his silence.
Watching, thinks Katze, making me a goddamn prisoner in my own place... But I'm watching too. We'll see who's better at this game.
He's used to keeping a low profile, so it doesn't matter that he only leaves the house to get food and booze and cigarettes. The underground networks he's been patiently weaving over the years are tight and reliable, and where their spiderthreads bind them to the world above, to legal trade and clean money, they have faultlines that he has secured with hooks and sinkers, bribes, threats and force where nothing else helps. And if a few should break, the rest will hold tight. The police, officially hunting him for a long time, has nothing on him. For a while, he can be alright, holed up like this. He uses couriers and cutouts for most of his work. He is busy trading, using his computer and the web as his main tools, and avoiding new negotiations where he would need to turn up in person. While business is chugging along, he buys and builds a few pieces of new software and calls in favours to engage some specialist help.
People, systems, he muses while hunched in front of his computer, focusing on the rapidly changing sequences of numbers and symbols that dash past his gaze, everything changes, and all stays the same. You think you know me, but I know you better.
It's Raoul he's thinking of so uncharitably, but as he leans back and stares through the haze of cigarette smoke at the screen, it's Iason's image that pushes into his thoughts, and suddenly there is a wrenching in his chest that makes him double over and drop the fag, press his hand over his chest and rub hard. He covers his eyes with his other hand. He stays like that for a while, in the stale stillness of his room, until the pounding of blood in his head fades and he regains his breath. He pinches the bridge of his nose hard. He blinks and finall he dares to look up. The screen is empty, but Katze doesn't feel relief.
It's your fault. All of this. Why did you lie to me?
xxx
It starts unnerving him that there is no sign from Raoul. Cooped up in front of his computer, Katze can feel the tide of paranoia rise inside his mind. He is raw, his body numb from lack of light and exercise, his eyes grainy from staring at the screen for too long. His nerves are starting to fray the closer he gets to what he's chasing after. Almost as an aside, he finds out where Guy lives. He hasn't seen Guy since dragging him away from the burning ruins of Dana Bahn and dumping him at an unlicenced clinic that caters to the underground.
You still owe me money, you bastard, thinks Katze. But this will have to wait. No point calling it in now, let alone what else you owe. There's nothing you can do to pay that off.
xxx
He lets Kiri out of his cage when he sees the resignation on his face, the empty foodbowl and sober gaze. Kiri isn't wracked by fits and cramps anymore, and he's been sleeping a lot. The black rings around his eyes are gone along with the grey pallor and the sheen of cold sweat on his skin. He looks shaken but refreshed. Katze gives him the key to the cage and lets him turn the cell into his private space.
xxx
Raoul calls at last. Katze stares at his image, Raoul's features serene and dispassionate as always, his eyes cool.
"I want you here now. Get moving," he orders, and before Katze can say anything, the image fades out. A bleep from the computer announces the arrival of a data stream Katze has been waiting for. He's paid and worked relentlessly to get it, this piece of information that he hopes will help him deal with his situation, one way or another. It's something he didn't want to know but now he has no choice.
The past never quite goes away, my friend. It's a part of us.
Yes, Iason. Yes, it is.
The data is scrambled and he has no time to unravel the file. He burns it onto a holo-disk and deletes it from the system before calling Kiri to tell him not to wait up.
xxx
Katze feels quite alone in the large room, with Raoul sitting behind the glass desk. Katze has left his gun in the gloves compartment of his sportster. Outside of these walls, he is someone. Here he is nothing.
"I have an offer for you," Raoul says without preamble. "Listen carefully." He runs an appraising gaze over Katze who does his best to appear unbothered. "I know your little game. I saw you ferreting around in the computer systems. I think you wanted to be seen, so I widened my search for any other disturbances. It wasn't easy, but I know where you've been."
Katze feels very cold although he is sure the room is climatised and just fine.
"It doesn't matter," Raoul carries on, rising to his feet. He nods at a glass box that resembles a shower cubicle, installed against the plain white wall at the back of the room, like an aquarium in front of a plain canvas. "Do you know what that is?"
"A scanner," Katze says hoarsely
"A programmable body scanner," Raoul corrects him. "Which combines with a regeneration unit, or pod."
Katze stares, unable to tear his gaze away. "Iason said..."
"That the technology was not ready," Raoul completes his sentence. "He was right. Undress."
Katze flushes deeply. Panic assaults him, and he scrambles frantically after his composure. "What?"
Raoul stares at him. "I'm not used to repeating myself. Do you need help? I can call someone."
Katze gives in. Realisation and helpless anger follow in quick succession, but he has learned to deal with this at least. The humiliation of being stared at, judged and found lacking. He can't get used to it, but he knows how to handle himself. Without a word, he lowers his head and takes off his clothes.
"Step in." Raoul moves to the controls of the scanner.
Katze hesitates for a heartbeat or two, but there is nothing he can do. He walks into the glassbox and closes his eyes. His life doesn't flash past his mind, he doesn't say any farewells. His mind is silent, a dark, empty plane. He can sense the barely-there hum as the scanner powers up, and for a moment he believes he can feel the beams fingering his body from head to toe. It makes him ill and he has to fight the urge to throw up.
"Now, look," Raoul's cool voice drifts into Katze's mind.
He wills himself to open his eyes. His skin glows pale silver in the light that fills the scanner's chamber. And when Katze looks down at himself, his body is whole. His breath catches in his chest. By instinct, he touches his face. The scar is gone, his skin smooth like silk. His hair falls softly over his shoulders.
"That's... not possible," he rasps.
"It is. This is you, ten years younger."
When Katze looks up, Raoul stands before him, a strange expression on his face. "I always wondered what Iason saw in you."
A beautiful mind, it whispers in Katze's thoughts, but the burning in his chest wipes out Iason's voice.
Raoul raises his hand, pulls off the white glove and touches Katze's face, firmly tracing the line where the scar has been. His fingers are dry and warm, like Iason's. "But it gets better," he says quietly. "I can make it true. You can become whole again. Beautiful. Almost... perfect."
Katze breaks away, unable to resist the urge to touch his groin. "I can... feel it," he breathes, close to sinking into white oblivion.
"Try. It works," comes Raoul's dry invitation.
It's too much. Katze doesn't care that Raoul is observing him like a test animal. He ignores the nagging voice at the bottom of his mind that tells him it's all an illusion, a perfect, cruel image designed to deceive his senses. His touch is shaky, clumsy but the sensations are blindingly sweet, alien and familiar all the same. He doesn't last long, and when release rips through him, a wave of elation surges through him and blasts away everything else. When he gathers himself, the scanner is off, the glass splattered with whitish splotches. The smears fade away as the glass walls grow cold to the touch. Katze shivers as he covers his mutilated privates with his sticky hand. He wants to howl, or bury himself somewhere nobody can find him.
Raoul pushes his clothes towards him with his foot. He looks faintly disgusted. "Wipe yourself down and cover up." He turns to sit down behind his desk. "Consider it. I am being generous."
"And the catch?" Katze murmurs, turning his back in a hopeless attempt to recover some of his dignity while he is getting dressed.
"The technology isn't tested. There's no guarantee, and you don't trust me."
"Sure. And why me?"
"You have no value. You are available. And you have the right physical characteristics."
Katze, still deeply shaken, closes his belt and puts on his coat, then turns to look at Raoul. "Why are you doing this?"
"Because," Raoul says calmly, "I can. Call it scientific curiosity."
"That's it?"
"Why are you never satisfied?"
"Nothing's for free. I learned the hard way, remember?"
"Ah, yes. There's a price, of course, but you might consider it a bonus. In the process of repairing you I will extinguish your memory."
Katze stays still, unable to find words for the turmoil in his mind. Raoul seems to read him like a book. He lets the silence grow between them, until it is thick and cold, before carrying on.
"Pain, passion, anger, grief, all gone. I will give you new memories, a new mind." Raoul touches the computer before him. A holographic image appears as if the air was condensing into translucent, coloured mist in the centre of the room. A woman and a small boy. They are talking and laughing, but there is no sound. She brushes a caress over the boy's short red hair and smiles. A man, holding the child's hand. The man has long blond hair. A youth, bent over a stack of books next to a computer. He wears the clothing of an elite and his copper hair flows richly over his shoulders...
"Stop it," Katze grinds out.
The images fade.
"I can arrange citizenship for you. You would be free to receive a share of Iason's estate. A new life." Raoul rises to his feet and steps close to Katze. "A whole new man," he says, his voice low, worming its way into Katze's mind. "I expect your answer tomorrow."
xxx