Part Seven

Summary: violations of personal space.

Author's Note: I'm pretty sure Manservant Neville was bullied at school. I don't know how you say "jocks versus geeks" in British, but he's got that air about him.

---

They'd barely passed out of Ida's line of sight, from the control room to the underground garage, when Wendy laid a hand on his arm. "Wait." When he waited, she put both arms around his neck and pulled him down into a kiss.

He couldn't help responding. But her touch was distilled agony all the same. Wendy might have fooled anyone else. Her muscles weren't rigid with fear or distaste, only poised. But he'd trained in the same fighting style, and he knew that quality of stillness.

Wendy had always had great courage, always would. But she'd never needed that courage to touch him before. The Middleman recoiled, not from her but from the image she was showing him. "Don't."

"I've made promises," Wendy persisted. "To you, and to myself. I should get the hell past this."

"Someone's dying out there." An excuse, but also the truth. That would be the final failure, if an innocent life was lost because he couldn't keep his corrupted past out of the Middleman's present.

He concentrated on driving, followed Ida's coordinates without wasting a second or a car-length of road room. But too much of his mind was left over to worry, and grieve. There was no law that a Middleman and apprentice had to bond deeply, or even like each other. Some of his predecessors had been pretty cold customers outside their profession. He'd let Wendy become his entire world. Probably couldn't have helped it, even without the romance. She was the only person he could be remotely honest with. He'd managed before, even achieved an austere peace of mind. Ten years on a thin diet of duty and job satisfaction, before she started setting off fireworks in his orderly world. But to have her, and lose her again...

Wendy had a point about hating Manservant Neville. The Middleman wouldn't kill him without cause, he hoped. But it would be gratifying if there was no other choice.

---

Tyler woke up in a strange bed. Comfortable, but strange. The room was dark, but judging by the light at the edges of the heavy curtains it was still daylight. He felt ... not hurt but drained, as if he was about to get the flu. Body and mind both. He could probably get up, or think, if he tried but there wasn't any reason right now.

He was lying on top of the covers, shoes off but otherwise dressed for work. The Bluetooth headset he used for his phone and U-Master alike was in his ear; he was wearing his new wristwatch. He'd probably creased his suit badly, lying down. He sat up and felt dizzy.

He'd gotten up this morning, he knew that. Had gone to Wendy and Lacey's apartment, trying to convince Lacey that Wendy was in danger. Wendy had been there too. They'd argued. He had an impression she'd hit him at one point. Maybe that was why he felt light-headed.

A token knock or two, and the door opened. It was Neville. "Hello, Tyler. I hope you're feeling better."

He rubbed his eyes. "Did I faint or something?"

"Or something. You've been under a lot of stress lately; I blame myself. You're in my penthouse. I suggest you stay the night; you still seem a bit shaky." He held up a hand, palm out, when Tyler moved. "Stay there. Rest as much as you like; the paperwork isn't going anywhere."

"Okay, Chief." Tyler stayed on the edge of the bed. "I guess I'm getting sick. The whole day is kind of fuzzy."

"I've been familiarizing you with the next software upgrade," Neville said. "I don't know that you got much out of the program code itself, but I'll have one of the developers talk you through it. I expect great things from the new programs, you know. We've seen a man turn back from mass murder at the last second while he was wearing a U-Master. Maybe we can create that effect on purpose, at least to some degree. The U-Master lets us put our moods under conscious control in an entirely new way. Imagine if that power was turned to reducing the violence in the world. Even the slightest effect would help."

"Maybe so. It would be a lot cheaper for people than Prozac." Tyler felt a little better now; he tried standing. His own U-Master was sitting on the bedside table. It didn't seem to be on, but he picked it up anyway. "But people who'd want that are probably mellow anyway. They aren't the ones who need cooling down."

"As you say." Neville had a faint, tolerant smile. "If only more people did have such good judgment. If you feel like getting up, I won't stop you. There's a bathroom through that door, food and drink in the kitchen. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a test or two to run." He disappeared.

Tyler felt steadier on his feet now. He'd lost that tension headache he'd had so often lately. The bathroom was as sleek and immaculate as he would have expected. He splashed cold water on his face. Going by beard stubble, he couldn't have been asleep more than a couple of hours.

His eyes looked wrong, in the mirror. A light, arresting blue. Weren't they supposed to be dark brown? Was he suddenly an inch or three too tall?

Coffee. Coffee would help. Tyler picked up his U-Master and left the bathroom.

----

"There haven't been any 911 calls or police dispatches at this address," the Middleman said when he and Wendy pulled up in front of a multi-story apartment building a few blocks from downtown. "The mind-control signal has been transmitted constantly since Ida picked it up; maybe it takes considerable time to have an effect. I hope so." He was all business, hurt feelings packed away. Wendy knew he was doing it for her sake as much as his own, but the whole situation made her want to scream.

She stepped out of the Middlemobile, looked up. "Crap."

Eight stories of apartments. And a roof, which by its slope wasn't a place people normally went. A man was climbing around up there now; he spotted their car and waved cheerfully. A few other people at ground level were starting to notice him.

"Talk to him," the Middleman said. "Anything you can think of. I'll try to get to the roof." He went into the apartment foyer at a near-run.

They had slightly alien binoculars in the glove compartment. Wendy focused them on the apartment roof. The guy was wearing a U-Master, all right. Casual clothes, jeans and t-shirt. Youngish, shaggy-haired, slightly Asian. Once he would have been just her type.

She thumbed a switch on the side. It projected her voice to the point where the glasses were focused, more efficient and less blaring than a bullhorn. "Hey. Mister! Listen, I'm with ... the police Crisis Prevention Division, can we talk about this? My name's Wendy. Uh, what's yours?"

He waved again. "Hi!" Equally efficient audio pickups brought his voice back to Wendy. "It's gorgeous, I can see for miles up here!"

"Yeah, I bet." He didn't sound suicidal to Wendy. She tried to sound calm. "Listen, could you move back further from the edge? I'm scared you're going to fall."

"No problem." He moved closer to the edge.

"Listen, are you ... unhappy?" This was a problem in tact Wendy hadn't expected. "Because I have to say, you really look like you're about to jump off the building and kill yourself."

"No way. That would be crazy." Wendy relaxed a bit, before "I can fly, you know. Just haven't decided where to go yet."

"You don't want to do that," she said quickly. It was just possible, in her mad new comic-book life, that he could fly. She doubted it. "I think that may be against the law. Would you like to, um, turn off that U-Master? Just so we can talk better."

"Sorry, but I'm kind of busy."

Wendy caught a glimpse of olive-drab moving closer along the roof. She talked louder. "Let me just ask, then -- how did you get able to fly? Because I, uh, also do articles for an alternative weekly newspaper. Freelance. I think you'd make a great cover story. I, I could really use the money if I sell an article."

"Okay. My name's Dave, by the way. I'll be right down."

"No!"

The Middleman broke out of cover and charged forward, on a line parallel to the edge of the roof. He was fast, but he was yards away. Dave only had to take two running steps.

It was a perfect swan dive, most of the way.

The Middleman pulled back out of an off-balance, last-second grab that came a couple of feet short. He'd probably have fallen too if he'd made the catch, Wendy thought with a stab of panic. But he steadied on the edge, looked down at her. "He wasn't suicidal. He wasn't even scared," she said miserably. "He thought he could fly."

One thing about the Middleman's anti-swearing policy. He didn't try to find words when none were adequate. A short, stiff nod. We failed. We go on. "We need to leave before the police arrive, or we'll be detained as witnesses for hours. We can't do any good here." He moved back toward the stairs.

Wendy holed up in their car and waited. When he reappeared on the ground floor, walking toward her, she assessed him as if they were strangers. An edge of danger wouldn't have done his physical appeal any harm back then. There were always giggly idiots lining up for the bad boys. Wendy had made plenty of mistakes in her life, but not that one. Even her worst relationships had at least started with the belief that she could trust the flavor-of-the-month guy without reservation.

The Middleman's body hadn't been a surprise as such, when they started spending nights together. Between Silkwood showers and wet suits and alternate-universe guys who didn't believe in shirts, she'd had a good idea. The morning-after surprise had been his hair. When the styling gel wore off it not only lost its millimeter-precise part, it stood up in all directions. Out of love, respect, and friendship, Wendy had tried not to make jokes about electrocuted cats or bottle brushes. Not more than once a day, anyway.

Wendy rubbed her face. What a stupid thing to cry about.

He hadn't quite reached the car when her Middle-watch beeped the emergency signal. Wendy tilted the watch face away from herself. "What."

"FATBOY's sending out another brain whammy. It just started. Oh, and the one aimed at your location shut off."

He'd heard, too; the Middleman slid behind the wheel and spoke to his own watch. "Where is it?"

Ida read off coordinates. "About ten miles north of you. Remember I said that the U-Masters send data back to the home base? There was a return signal when your guy died. The gizmo must have notified them. Then there was about a five-minute gap before they targeted the next one."

Wendy and her boss made eye contact. Five million U-Masters sold passed between them as clearly as telepathy. "Oh, God."

His expression was grim. "We're on our way, Ida."

----

Tyler Ford had gotten his coffee, but it hadn't helped much. He wound up in Neville's penthouse living room, still dazed. One end of the room held a conversation group of a couch and two comfortable chairs. The rest was more Billionaire Computer Magnate display space than a place to kick off your shoes and be comfortable. A fifteen-foot tall fireplace, a big video screen. A mahogany desk with a throne-like leather chair behind it, an up-to-the-second computer on the desk with a flat monitor nearly as large. A little office clutter showing it was a working desk, including some small pliers and chip pullers. Neville wasn't above, or past, upgrading his own RAM when he felt like it.

Tyler sank into one of the high-backed chairs. As he tried to pull himself together, a dream or a memory floated to the surface.

He'd been in the guest suite. A shadow in the dim room, and Manservant Neville was sitting on the side of the bed. "I need it all, Tyler," he said. "Everything you know about your Wendy, about the Middleman -- that's her Neanderthal friend -- about how they operate. That's the very best help you can give me."

Neville's tone was clinical, not the friendly-mentor warmth Tyler was used to. Maybe he didn't need to seem friendly any more; that thought hurt. "That's why you hired me," Tyler said. "Because I was close to her. Not for me, for anything I do."

"Oh, you're useful," Neville assured him. "I expect you to become more so. But as an indirect hold on the Middleman, you're irreplaceable. Now. Can he be ruthless? Does he have the detachment to sacrifice some pawns on the way to winning the overall game?"

"How would I ... I've barely met him." But Tyler wanted to help. He tried to line up a coherent thought. "It's not just Wendy who fell for that guy; Lacey is into him too. And you know her, she's all 'French cuisine kills bunnies.' I don't see how she could like anyone like that."

"Very good, Tyler. That context is useful." Neville patted his shoulder. "Anything else you know. Can he bluff, play a double game?"

"Wendy was always complaining he had no sense of irony. Or humor, or anything. Really ticked her off."

That's very helpful," Neville soothed. "Go back to sleep now, Tyler. You don't have to remember this conversation."

And he'd obeyed. Tyler wasn't sure if the memory was real or a dream; it had a flavor of unreality. If it were a dream, it didn't feel like his own.

Neville was doing something to him. Tyler Ford felt unclean at the thought; as if his body instead of his mind had been interfered with. He wanted to throw up.

He could run, or he could try. He could run to Wendy for protection; Neville clearly saw her and that guy as a threat. But there were things in his mind that he didn't understand, couldn't control. He might be bringing her more danger.

He touched the U-Master headset on one ear. Tyler's head felt clear right now, but as long as he wore it that freedom could be taken from him at any time. And if he stopped wearing it, Neville would know he was resisting control.

----

The second location was townhouses, a large monetary step up from Dave's apartment complex. Ida's coordinates left them in a featureless driveway, row on row of three-story condos with closed garage doors at ground level. They stood outside the Middle-mobile and tried to get their bearings. "I hear a car running," Wendy said.

They followed the sound to one of the closed garage doors. The Middleman's expression changed to horror. "Carbon monoxide."

The door had no visible lock or latch, but it wouldn't open. A hard kick from the Middleman didn't dislodge anything. We could hit it with the car, Wendy thought, and mentally slapped herself.

He drew his pulse pistol and fired two shots at the top edge of the door, where a garage door opener motor would be. The metal tore and slagged. The door opened after that. A classic car -- something huge and boat-like from the Sixties, Wendy thought -- was inside, its engine chugging industriously. Someone was slumped behind the wheel.

The Middleman hauled her out into the open air. A slightly dumpy woman in her fifties, in a designer skirt suit. She looked like a doctor or a lawyer or a lawyer's wife. Her face was cherry red. The Middleman held her up in a sitting position and slapped her on the back. She choked. A long intake of clear air made her cough and gag, but she was alive. Her color changed back toward normal. "Ida, get an ambulance here right now. Tell them you're a neighbor, you saw her go into her garage."

Wendy turned off the car. There was a U-Master on the front passenger seat; she handled it like a bomb. "I think I know how to shut one of these off." She pushed a combination of buttons on the front. When she took the wireless headphones off the coughing, breathless woman it didn't make things worse. "Ida, did this thing get off a signal?"

"It did," the robot responded. "Different from the other one; I guess that's the 'nobody died' signal. Give me a second, I'm still monitoring the frequencies."

"Can you tell us what happened, ma'am?" the Middleman said. "Have you had any blackouts, missing time, dissociative episodes?" The woman waved a hand in acknowledgement, but was still too breathless to speak. He touched the side of her neck. "Your pulse is going back to normal. You should feel better in a few minutes."

"FATBOY's sending out another signal," Ida reported via their watches. "Fifteen miles southwest of you. Five miles east. Eight miles northeast."

"Make up your mind," Wendy said.

"It's three different signals. No, four. Five ..."

The Middleman propped their rescuee against the wall of her garage. He looked worse than she did.

Part of Wendy's mind was trying to map a path all over the city, even though the timing was impossible. The Middleman was going to have to pick one victim to save and let the others go. Past or no past, she knew what that would cost him.

Her cell phone rang. Wendy answered it by pure habit. "Hello?" More color drained from her face. "Boss, it's for you. It's him."

No room for misunderstanding. He took the phone from her, turned the volume to maximum. "Mr. Neville."

"I thought I might find you standing next to Miss Watson." Wendy had good ears; the voice on the other end of the line was distant but easy to understand. "Apparently you've saved one; my congratulations. That was quick work."

"You've already killed a man today for no reason. Leave the others alone."

"Of course I had a reason. I wanted your attention. And I wanted to pose the question, how many places can you be at one time?"

"What do you want," the Middleman said flatly.

"I told you; I want you out of my business. I'm prepared to minimize casualties because it's in my own best interests," Neville said. "But if it comes down to the wire... I can stand to lose a few customers much more easily than you can stand letting them die. Can we take that as proven, or do we have to go through the whole tiresome process again?"

The Middleman stood frozen. In the last several months Wendy had seen him captured, wounded, immobilized, poisoned; every variation on close-to-death without dying itself. She'd never seen him beaten. "Do we?" Neville prompted.

His chin lowered. "No.

"Sensible fellow." The good cheer in Neville's voice was hideous. "Very well then, the problem goes away. Presto, nobody wants to kill themselves."

Ida, on their Middle-watches, was monitoring the conversation too. "He's telling the truth, boss," she said quietly. "All the suicide signals went away."

"I knew you could be reasonable," Neville said. The call cut off.