It was four-fifteen, local time.
The doctor was waiting for me, seated behind a long curve of reception counter and filling out forms on a monitor. A thin, severe-looking man suited in black stood at her shoulder. There was no one else in the room.
I glanced around, then back at the suit.
“You the police?”
“Outside.” He gestured at the door. “This isn’t their jurisdiction. They need a special brief to get in here. We have our own security. ”
“And you are?”
He looked at me with the same mixture of emotions the doctor had hit me with downstairs. “Warden Sullivan, chief executive for Bay City Central, the facility you are now leaving.”
“You don’t sound delighted to be losing me.”
Sullivan pinned me with a stare. “You’re a recidivist, Kovacs. I never saw the case for wasting good flesh and blood on people like you.”
I touched the letter in my breast pocket. “Lucky for me Mr. Bancroft disagrees with you. He’s supposed to be sending a limousine for me. Is that outside as well?”
“I haven’t looked.”
Somewhere on the counter, a protocol chime sounded. The doctor had finished her inputting. She tore the curling edge of the hardcopy free, initialled it in a couple of places and passed it to Sullivan. The warden bent over the paper, scanning it with narrowed eyes before he scribbled his own signature and handed the copy to me.
“Takeshi Lev Kovacs,” he said, mispronouncing my name with the same skill as his minion in the tank room. “By the powers vested in me by the UN Justice Accord, I discharge you on lease to Laurens J. Bancroft, for a period not to exceed six weeks, at the end of which time your parole status will be reconsidered. Please sign here.”
I took the pen and wrote my name in someone else’s handwriting next to the warden’s finger. Sullivan separated the top and bottom copies, and handed me the pink one. The doctor held up a second sheet and Sullivan took it.
“This is a doctor’s statement certifying that Takeshi Kovacs (d.h.) was received intact from the Harlan’s World Justice Administration, and subsequently sleeved in this body. Witnessed by myself, and closed circuit monitor. A disc copy of the transmission details and tank data are enclosed. Please sign the declaration.”
I glanced up and searched in vain for any sign of the cameras. Not worth fighting about. I scribbled my new signature a second time.
“This is a copy of the leasing agreement by which you are bound. Please read it carefully. Failure to comply with any of its articles may result in you being returned to storage immediately to complete the full term of your sentence either here, or at another facility of the Administration’s choice. Do you understand these terms and agree to be bound by them?”
I took the paperwork and scanned rapidly through it. It was standard stuff. A modified version of the parole agreement I’d signed half a dozen times before on Harlan’s World. The language was a bit stiffer, but the content was the same. Bullshit by any other name. I signed it without a blink.
“Well then.” Sullivan seemed to have lost a bit of his iron. “You’re a lucky man, Kovacs. Don’t waste the opportunity.”
Don’t they ever get tired of saying it?
I folded up my bits of paper without speaking and stuffed them into my pocket next to the letter. I was turning to leave when the doctor stood up and held out a small white card to me.
“Mr. Kovacs.”
I paused.
“There shouldn’t be any major problems with adjusting,” she said. “This is a healthy body, and you are used to this. If there is anything major. Call this number.”
I put out an arm and lifted the little rectangle of card with a machined precision that I hadn’t noticed before. The neurachem was kicking in. My hand delivered the card to the same pocket as the rest of the paperwork and I was gone, crossing the reception and pushing open the door without a word. Ungracious maybe, but I didn’t think anyone in that building had earnt my gratitude yet.
You’re a lucky man, Kovacs. Sure. A hundred and eighty light years from home, wearing another man’s body on a six-week rental agreement. Freighted in to do a job that the local police wouldn’t touch with a riot prod. Fail and go back into storage. I felt so lucky I could have burst into song as I walked out the door.
CHAPTER TWO
The hall outside was huge, and all but deserted. It looked like nothing so much as the Millsport rail terminal back home. Beneath a tilted roof of long transparent panels, the fused glass paving of the floor shone amber in the afternoon sun. A couple of children were playing with the automatic doors at the exit, and there was a solitary cleaning robot sniffing along in the shade at one wall. Nothing else moved. Marooned in the glow on benches of old wood, a scattering of humanity waited in silence for friends or family to ride in from their altered carbon exiles.