The psychiatrist's voice, brisk, officious: Let's try again, Alana. Go back to the beginning and maybe we can push through some of your…
Denial? The word was muddy and Daniel thought that, yeah, she'd been medicated up the yin-yang. Understandable, though. The emergency evac records indicated that Alana Kamakua had been distraught, disoriented: her hands pulpy, drysuit in tatters after her mad scramble over knife-edged lava. She hadn't wanted to leave the beach, insisting the evac unit rescue her lover… As if the bits of drysuit washed ashore in a swirl of purple water belonged to someone else.
Given that, who wouldn't be, well, a little upset?
I've told you: I remember going into the caves. Alana's voice seethed with frustration. Then our lights went out-and then I don't remember. The next thing I know, I'm on a stretcher…
The doctor paused the recording. 'Her thoughts get pretty derailed after that. She goes on about some old Hawaiian myth, or family story, I don't know, something she says her umptity-ump great-grandmother passed down. Even if I believed in psychoanalysis, I'm not sure you'd find much symbolism in an old Hawaiian legend of a fair maiden and a shark.'
'Don't make the mistake of accepting his presumptions.' The Rebbe's rich baritone was a faint faraway hiss, like the fizzle of a commlink tuned to a dead channel. 'Besides, he's a tachat.'
No argument there: The doctor was an ass. Daniel said, 'But didn't the police think Harriman was attacked by a shark?'
'Who the hell knows? Maybe she did him in.'
'You believe that?'
'Hey, call me a cynical bastard, but I'm always suspicious.'
No, you're just a bastard. His thought, not the Rebbe's. 'Yet many stories have personal valence. Maybe the myth means something.'
'Uh-huh.' A pause. 'Look, Mr… uh…'
'Fehrmacht.' The alias, the well-doctored background information, and the vague implication that he worked for Saeder-Krupp, with the hint that Lofwyr might be, well, interested, opened a lot of doors. That, and plenty of nuyen. An Israeli Mossad agent, even one in semi-retirement and with more than a little bit of a death wish, had a lot of tricks up his proverbial sleeve. It was one of the reasons why the Rebbe had chosen Daniel in the first place.
'Yeah. Well, look: I don't do stories. I'm not into magic. I'm a shrink, and I practice without the voodoo, thanks.'
Okay, so the doctor was also a self-righteous little prick. Daniel was jet-lagged, nearly dead on his feet from the long flight, first from Tel Aviv to Sydney and from there to Honolulu International and then, finally, a hop to the Big Island. He'd been stewing in the same clothes for the last two days. The last thing he was interested in was playing footsie with a tin-pot dictator. 'You're not prejudiced, are you, Doc?'
The Rebbe: 'Lo, Daniel, don't provoke him. We need his cooperation.'
'No, I'm pragmatic,' said the doctor. 'Now, I'm willing to entertain the theory that there were earlier metahuman ages-'
'Theory?'
'Daniel…'
The doctor ignored the gibe. 'And I'm happy to consider that our mythologies, and that includes those of the various religions, reflect those earlier epochs. Every culture and religion has its little people and boogeymen, its magical amulets and taboos.'
Okay, Daniel considered, that was true. He was suddenly conscious of the weight of Rachel's silver and amethyst mezuzah that hung from his neck beneath his shirt. A ward against evil, yes; a focus, perhaps. So why had she left it behind…?
He said, 'So you're sticking with traumatic amnesia.' When the doctor nodded, Daniel went on: 'Will her memory return?'
'Maybe si, maybe no.' The doctor steepled his fingers the way a professor does when lecturing to the dumbest kid in class. 'The head injury's legit, but not that bad. But you tell me: Just how likely is it that six lights malfunctioned? That their directional guidance beacons failed? That Lee Harriman's cyber-eyes chose that moment to go completely black? If we believe her story, every single artificially-powered system-from communications to propulsion to dive computers-went on the fritz. So tell me this: How did she get from depth to the surface without a dive computer calculating her decompression stops? Hell, how did she get up without air? All she had was a drysuit. No gear at all.'
'Maybe it was magic.' He meant it as a dig, but the doctor frowned.
'Trust me, she's a mundane. No bioware implants even. The CSI team had an adept check her over, and he found nothing: no astral signature, nothing in her history to suggest a latent ability. As for the whole systems' failure stuff, land-based monitoring systems didn't pick up a single communications hiccup or Matrix glitch that entire day. So, all we've got is her story and pieces of a dead guy's suit.'
'Eifo?'
'Where did it happen?' asked Daniel.
'She either doesn't remember or isn't saying. The evac team touched down about a half mile west of Waipi'o Valley. There are, maybe, fifty people in the place and about half are named Dave. Anyway, the Menehune have claimed the whole place. Nasty little buggers.'
Privately, Daniel doubted that anything could be worse than a shedu and although the beings that oozed into this world bore little resemblance to the 'no-gods' of Jewish lore and mysticism, their malevolence was identical. (Well, all except stories about the ones who studied Torah and followed the commandments… but those must be exceptionally good shedim. He'd never met-or bound-any of those.) 'Anything on her boyfriend, Harriman?'
'Nope. Did a lot of tech diving, sometimes hired himself out to places like the Atlantean.'
'A relic hunter.'
'Not by choice. I got the impression that it was mainly contract work, but Harriman wasn't working for anyone that we know of, and he wasn't a shadowrunner.'
Daniel didn't bother pointing out that if you knew a shadowrunner when you saw him, the guy either wasn't very good or you were three seconds away from a morgue slab. 'So, back to either a lie, or an accident.'
'Or a little of both. He could've gotten into trouble, and she might've panicked. But the police have closed it, and I've got enough work to do. So.' The doctor yawned and stretched. 'We're pretty much done here. She can leave whenever.'
'Tov, tov, good. Get her away from this godforsaken place. We don't have that much time, Daniel. You must find it before-'
'So you have no objection if I speak with her,' said Daniel.
'Hell no, knock yourself out.' The psychiatrist eyed him curiously. 'But what's S-K's interest in all this? I mean, she's an archaeologist, for Christ's sake.'
Daniel scraped back his chair and stood. 'You've been very helpful, Doctor. A pleasure.' A lie, on all counts. 'I'd like to see her now.'
The doctor might be a jerk, but he wasn't an idiot. His face smoothed into a mask of professional neutrality. 'Sure. I'll have someone bring her to an interview room.'
'Lo, get her out of there.'
'Actually, if you don't mind, I had something a little more comfortable in mind. Something outside the hospital,' said Daniel.
'What makes you think she'll go with you?'
Daniel said nothing.
The doctor thought another moment then said, 'Well, there's the little problem of her expenses…'
Daniel was already punching up numbers on his commlink. 'How much?'
III
