Lock In (Lock In, #1)(79)

“I would make time for them,” I said, answering anyway. “Will you meet him here?”

“Yes, and also he will be with my body,” Bell said. “He still likes to sing to me, to my ears.”

“Will anyone else be there?”

“He is family.”

“So, no.”

“Agent Shane, now is an excellent time to stop making small talk,” Bell said.

“We believe your brother has had his body taken over by a client,” I said. “This client has considerable technical skill and has been able to change the programming of your brother’s neural network in order to trap him and use the body for his own purposes. We believe he means to use your brother’s body to kill you and then kill your brother as well. It will look like a murder-suicide.”

“And you believe this why?”

“Because he’s taken over other bodies,” I said. “In the same way. He and an associate have both done it. The end result has been three dead Integrators.”

Cassandra Bell looked very solemn, the light from the candle suddenly guttering and flickering before resuming a steady glow. “You believe he is possessed already, then.”

“Possessed,” I said, and I realized that it simply hadn’t occurred to me to think of what happened to Johnny Sani or Bruce Skow or Brenda Kees in that way. “Yes. He is already possessed.”

“For how long?”

“We believe since last Tuesday morning at least.”

“Why has it taken you this long to tell me of it?”

“We didn’t know it was possible until yesterday,” I said. “We didn’t think it affected your brother until today. It shouldn’t have been possible. And because it shouldn’t be possible we didn’t pick up on it until now.”

“Is he dead?”

“Your brother? No.”

“I know his body isn’t dead,” Bell said. “I mean him. My brother’s soul.”

“We don’t think so,” I said. “We believe strongly that he is alive, but locked in. Unable to speak or communicate to the outside world. Like … well, like us. But without a threep or liminal space or an Agora. And with his body at the whim of another, doing things he would not choose to himself.”

“He would not choose to murder me,” Bell agreed. “You say you strongly believe that he is alive.”

“Yes.”

“Describe the strength of that belief.”

“Strong as iron,” I said. “Strong as oak.”

“Iron rusts. Oak burns.”

“We can’t be certain,” I said. “But from what we know, the person possessed still exists. The person I saw possessed like this still existed after her client left.”

“You said they all died.”

“She died,” I said. “Her client pulled the pin on a grenade before he left.”

“Who are these people?” Bell asked.

“We’d rather not say,” I said. “For your own protection.”

Cassandra Bell’s candle brightened immensely even as the darkness sucked in more tightly around me. “Agent Shane,” she said. “Do not confuse me for a child. I am not damaged, nor am I incapable. I am bringing hundreds of thousands of us to announce ourselves to the world. I could not do this if I were a coddled thing. I do not need protection. I need information.”

“It’s Lucas Hubbard,” I said.

“Oh,” Bell said. The candle returned to its original state. “Him.”

“You know him.”

“With the exception of you, Agent Shane, I know almost everyone of importance.” Not a brag, just a fact.

“What is your opinion of him?”

“Now, or before I learned that he’s enslaving my brother in his own body?”

I smiled at this. “Before.”

“Intelligent. Ambitious. Able to speak passionately about Hadens when it is convenient and advantageous for him to do so, and when not, not.”

“Standard-issue billionaire,” I said.

Bell fixed me with a stare. “I would imagine you of all people would know not all billionaires are poor humans,” she said.

“In my experience, there are few much like my father,” I said.

“A pity,” Bell said. “When will you rescue my brother?”

“Soon,” I said.

“There are whole paragraphs lurking behind that single syllable,” Bell said. “Or perhaps you merely meant to say ‘soon, but not yet.’”

“There are complications,” I said.

“I won’t ask you to imagine the terror of being locked in, Agent Shane,” Bell said. “I know you know it all too well. What I would ask you is why you would willingly inflict it on anyone else for a second longer than you had to.”

“To save others from that same fate,” I said. “And to punish Hubbard in a way more complete than mere capture. And to keep your brother safe.”

Bell looked at me, stony. “If we move on him this second, we have enough to charge him for and punish him for,” I said. “But he’s not stupid. He’s almost certainly planned for the contingency of being caught. He’s rich and he’s got more lawyers than some countries have people. He’ll tie things up for years, cut deals, and introduce doubt. And the very first thing he’ll do is cover his tracks however possible. That includes getting rid of the single person who can account for every moment of Hubbard’s movements over the last week.”