“We did it,” Rat said when they got back to their hotel room. It was like a finishing point to this adventure, a precious lull in the storm. The three just sank onto the bed, no longer able to stand. All the strength had gone out of them, leaving only exhaustion. Colours pulsed and danced above them — somebody had tuned the giant TV in the ceiling to a 24-7 news network. The same Hong Kong reporter she’d seen the other day was still going on about gang murders, and how the only suspect had escaped from a local police cell. That factoid tugged at Gina’s brain for some reason, but she was too tired to think properly.
Rat blurted again, “I can’t believe we actually did it.”
“All thanks to you,” Gina pointed out, giving her an encouraging nudge. Bomber nodded agreement.
“Takin’ out the AI was a good idea,” he said. “Better than good. I had no idea how dependent they were on that thing until you shut it down. Like a load of arms with the head cut off. Nice job, kid.”
Despite everything Rat couldn’t seem to smile anymore. She spoke out loud, but she was talking to herself as much as to the others. “I didn’t think it would ever work. Practically shit myself when flipping the breakers didn’t do it. Hadn’t really thought ahead past that . . .”
“Don’t matter. We’re here now, and we want to be as far away as possible by the time they get Lazarus online again.”
Gina turned onto her side to frown at him. “Can we at least get a night’s sleep before we start running again?”
“No time,” he said, looking at her with those simple brown eyes, free of trickery or dishonesty. “They’ll have it back up in three hours, tops. We need to be above the Pacific by then.”
Gina was about to ask when Rat interrupted, checking the messages on their room phone. “There’s one here from Jock, says he made it to Laputa and he’s getting a new rig set up. It’ll take a few more hours but he’ll be able to cover our tracks once it’s up and running.”
“Good, we don’t want anyone following us.” He sent Gina a strange smile. “Remember why I went off in the first place? Well, I dug up some things. Enough to put me on Gabriel’s track. Don’t know what we’ll find there, but I found the place where Mr. Lowell first appeared on this old Earth.” He paused as if waiting to deliver a really funny punchline. “We’re goin’ to America,” he said.
“I’m not.” Rat was shaking her head, feeling the silence grow around her. The excitement had gone, there were no more thrills, only the hole in her leg and the burning pain all over her skin grafts. A body that wasn’t quite her own anymore. Not if somebody else could just reach in and take over against her will. She looked up at the others, resolute in her decision. “Since Jock called me in I’ve been beaten, shot at, blown up, and . . .” She stopped herself before she started to list the really bad stuff. “And I’ve had enough. You don’t need me, you can sort it out on your own. I’m going back to Laputa and staying with Jock.”
“But–” began Gina, but Rat silenced her with a gesture.
“Don’t,” Rat ground out, “don’t make this any more difficult than it already is. I’m not coming with you. Here.” She reached into her pocket and handed Gina her prized mobile phone, a finger-sized tube of white plastic. “We’ll keep in touch. But I’m not coming with you.”
No more words. Gina’s heart clenched like she had just lost a friend. It wasn’t nearly so dramatic or final, she knew that, but in the few days she’d hung out with Rat the girl had become one of the fixtures of Gina’s new and crazy life. A little bit of sanity and normality — to some degree, anyway — in something that was spiralling way out of control.
She continued, “I’ll stay here for a few days, y’know, rest up a bit, and then catch a ferry to Laputa. I know people I can call if I need anything. Don’t worry about me.”
“We’ll miss you,” Gina said through the lump in her throat. She would’ve liked a hug at that point, some form of physical contact, but it didn’t really seem appropriate.
“Thanks.” Forcing a smile, Rat tried not to let her conflicting feelings show. She was getting harder to read as the Spice in Gina’s blood started to wear off, Gina’s awareness of Rat’s feelings becoming distant and peripheral. One thing that Rat couldn’t hide, though, was her drive to feel useful despite everything. Disregarding her own light-headedness, she said, “There’s a terminal in the desk, I’ll book your flights for you.”
She pushed herself up onto shaking legs, and Bomber hopped over to help her. He said, “We’ll need new IDs as well. Wigs, make-up, the works.”
“Not a problem,” Rat panted through the haze where painkillers and pure agony met. “If you got the dollar.”
“Dollars I got. Contacts, not so much, not in Hong Kong.”
Fatigue hammered in on Gina. She left the others to their work and snuck into the bathroom, turned on the shower and kicked off her borrowed uniform. That would have to be disposed of. Unpleasant memories clung to it, and the thought of wearing it again brought the phrase ‘bad idea’ to mind. Fortunately the bathroom came with an incinerator chute, in itself slightly disturbing. The chute closed with a slam, and Gina turned her attention elsewhere. She dug into her bag of spare clothes, throwing together something to wear later.
Finally she stepped into the hot stream of relaxation. Water and steam ran deliciously over her skin. Expensive complimentary lotions were sniffed and tested all over her body until everything gleamed healthy and smooth under the lantern light. She probably could get used to being rich; the Clean-O-Mat had nothing on this!
She came out glowing. Shrugging into a robe printed with the hotel logo, she wrapped her hair up in a towel and studied herself in the mirror. There were no bullet holes in that perfect body. Just a few bruises on her face and arms, nothing that couldn’t be hidden with a little effort. But something felt strange about it as she leaned in for a closer look. She didn’t quite recognise the woman in front of her. Something had changed about the eyes. There was more pain in them, but that wasn’t quite the thing. Gina grew uneasy as she struggled to put her finger on it. They just looked vaguely wrong, as if those eyes had looked a little bit too far.
She gasped when that thought rocked through her. Sudden burning tears rolled down her cheeks, and she couldn’t stop them.
Gina turned away and cried.
Bomber stowed the scissors back into his new make-up kit and surveyed his handiwork. Gina, too, stared curiously into the mirror. She’d worn her hair long ever since she was a girl. Now it just tickled the bottoms of her earlobes, and her neck felt weird. Exposed and too light, as if it missed the extra weight.
“That’s interesting,” she said. She gave her head a testing shake and then patted it, but her halo of ginger fire stayed rigidly in place. For a moment she was tempted to ask Rat’s opinion, but Rat was curled up under the covers, sleeping off another injection of painkillers.
“First rule about shakin’ people off your trail,” he told her into the mirror, “cut your hair. Dye is optional, but you gotta cut it or get it lengthened. Lengthening ain’t somethin’ you do at home with a pair of scissors, though.”
“And rule two?”
“Second rule is, change your dress style to go with your new look. If you wore suits, start wearing shorts. If you like black, it’s Hawaiian shirts. You get the idea.”
She turned in her chair to look up at him. “How the hell do you know all this?”
“Military stuff,” he said by way of explanation.
“What, they had an opening for copter pilot-slash-hairdresser?”
A smile cracked his stony face, and he seemed to relax a little bit. She could see his time in the interrogation room had affected him more than he’d like to let on. But here he was, making an attempt to open up to her. He cleared his throat and said, “It was just in case I went down in hostile territory. They didn’t want me getting caught and spilling all of my job’s lovely secrets. So I had to learn how to be invisible.” Leaning in a bit closer, he added, “By the way, remember the thing I did with the copter?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I do.”
“That was really, really stupid. Don’t let me do it again.”
She couldn’t help but giggle. “How long was it since you flew one of those?”
“Christ,” he shrugged, “about twelve, thirteen years . . . It all runs together a little bit. I’m impressed I remembered how to start the thing.”
Remembering, Gina asked with sudden worry, “What about all that radiation? Will you be okay?”
“Yeah, I think they gave me some purge meds, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.” He rolled up his sleeves, showing some artfully-camouflaged radiation burns made to look like bruises. “I . . . lied to you back in the copter. The reactor’s not dangerous, it’s meant to start without hurting a fly. That’s not why I got irradiated. There, um, there was a crack in the rad shielding at the back. We were out of time and I didn’t want to panic you.”
She nodded slowly. “Yeah. We lie about a lot of things.”
“Hey, it wasn’t the kind of crack that would level Hong Kong Central. Just one that would rough me up pretty bad. And you, if you hadn’t been inside.”
“So what about those Hawaiian shirts?” Bomber blinked at the apparent non-sequitur, unsure how to respond. Gina stood up and whirled away from him. She’d had quite enough of that topic of conversation right now and she felt like trying on some new clothes. A big shopping bag lay across the bed, stuffed to the brim with the cheapest of cheap crap. Gina couldn’t wait to plumb its depths.
She picked at random and pulled out a black mesh tank-top whose neckline plunged straight down towards her bellybutton and didn’t stop until it hit the local indecency laws. She squinted to try and identify the wire-thin straps holding it up, made of a material that was completely invisible to the human eye except at a particular angle. It was possibly the sleaziest garment ever to offend her eyes, including everything she’d seen in three years on the Street. Of course she couldn’t resist trying it on. She disappeared into the bathroom before Bomber could even open his mouth.
When Gina next looked into the mirror, she saw a curvaceous would-be teenager a few years behind the fashion curve; her abdomen exposed to the midriff, the exact shape and colour of her nipples visible through the mesh. It screamed ‘sex object’, and that was kind-of fun in itself, but eventually her better judgement prevailed. She didn’t need to attract anyone’s attention, she wanted the exact opposite. In the end she settled on a baggy t-shirt which promised nothing and delivered exactly that.
“Gina,” called Bomber, knocking on the door, “it’s time to go.”
“Coming,” she said.
Rat had woken up to wish them goodbye, and she exchanged an awkward hug with Gina. Bomber clenched a pair of printed tickets in his hand and carried their baggage. The hotel room looked a bit lived-in by now, with the three of them rampaging through it, and Gina had gotten to like it there. It let her forget, at least for a little while, that there were people hunting for her. Some with suspicious intentions, and now others with certain death on their minds.
They left without really speaking. They just went, grabbed a taxi, walked into the airport, boarded the ship. Nervous sweat ran down Gina’s face all the way to her seat, but luckily the sweltering hot evening gave her a good excuse. A few persuasive words convinced Bomber to give her the window seat. There she stretched out to relax, and never noticed when her exhausted body fell asleep.
“Don’t worry,” said Gabriel, “it’s only me.”
“And you’re telling me not to worry?” Gina replied with a smile, staring up at a fairy-blue sky laced with wisps of cloud. She bobbed up and down on the waves of a crystal-clear ocean. The sun glittered off it like a mirror, and a strong breeze played over the water, but none of the waves ever threatened to wash over her. “You come up with some lovely places.”
“Thank you. I like to make our meetings . . . pleasant.” He drifted into view sitting on a ribbed square of inflated plastic. He wore black suit trousers and a long-sleeved buttoned shirt, rolled up to his knees and elbows respectively, and his feet dangled in the water. His fire-coloured eyes twinkled at her.
She laughed and rolled over, swimming towards him. The water offered little resistance. “I remember,” she murmured as she reached his little inflatable island. Then she grabbed him by the shirt collar and pulled him down to kiss him. The meeting of their lips tingled like electricity all the way down to her toes, but this time it didn’t manage to knock her out.
He smiled down at Gina as she finally disengaged, her hand gripping his collar even tighter, and he didn’t seem to realise anything was wrong until his face hit the water. She wished she could’ve taken a picture of the complete shock in his eyes. He came up laughing and put his arms around her waist, treading water.
“You’re a genuine sneaky one,” he said to her. “Nice escape, by the way. I was fairly impressed. I don’t think anybody’s ever managed to shut down that AI before.”
Gina stifled a gasp. “How do you know about that?”
“I watch, and I listen. There’s a lot of knowledge out there just lying around waiting to be picked up by someone who’s paying attention.”
“I think,” she said playfully, a finger on his lips, “that you watch and listen in places you’re not supposed to.”
“Like where?” he asked with a smile.
“Like my head.” It was so hard to remember things from the real world in this place, but she remembered the flicker, the little gestalt that made itself felt almost at random. The words came in halts and stutters, but she carried the whole sentence through. “Ever since we spoke, it’s like I’ve been carrying around a bit of you inside my mind. It doesn’t talk, but sometimes it . . . it feels at me, about things.”
“Oh. That.” He couldn’t help but grin. “I thought you wouldn’t like it, but I needed to forge a link with you, to keep in contact. It was hard enough to find you without it that first time. The link’s the only reason I can talk to you now. I can tell you’re far away, and moving farther. Where are you going?”
The subtle tones of that question nearly escaped Gina, but this time around she was more confident in the dreamworld, more stable in herself. She sensed the undercurrents of command rather than request. He was genuinely curious, but perhaps not for benign reasons.
But even recognising the threat didn’t give her the power to avoid it. Her mouth opened before she even thought, and she had to fight down her own voice by force of will. The effort left her drained, but she just managed to stop herself from betraying everything.
“That’s my business,” she said firmly. She tried to read his eyes for any sign of expression, but they just held her in their steady gaze. The intense sunlight didn’t seem to bother them. And — Gina suddenly realised — neither did it bother her. She could look straight at the sun without discomfort.
Below her, the ocean had vanished, and they were floating in a column of white light. No more need to tread water — she hovered in Gabriel’s arms, nothing above her and nothing below. A sudden attack of vertigo whirled into her head. She pushed her legs down, and her feet touched some kind of invisible floor. That seemed like the easiest orientation to cope with. It felt alright as long as she didn’t look down.
The silence went on for what seemed like forever until, finally, Gabriel nodded. “Alright,” he said. No grudge, no resentment, only love and acceptance in his voice. “No harm in playing your cards close. How’s your friend, what’s his name, Simon? He wasn’t in good shape when you slipped out. I hope everything’s alright.”
“He’s fine,” Gina replied truthfully, wondering where that question came from. Gabriel beamed her a warm, pleased smile.
“I’m glad. Nice guy, isn’t he? I can see why you like him.” His twinkling eyes waited for Gina to protest, but she just lowered her eyes and blushed. He’d know it if she lied. “Tough, too, to be up and walking about not five hours after being dragged from a burning copter wreck. And I’m not counting the chest wound.” Gabriel nodded to himself. “I wonder where a guy gets that tough.”
“He used to be in the army,” she admitted before even thinking about it. She’d all but forgotten why she was supposed to keep her guard up. The image of Gabriel standing in front of her, glowing softly with inner light, could convince whole armies to lay down their weapons. “He was a test pilot on top-secret helicopters.”
Gabriel laughed. “No. No, he wasn’t.” The certainty in his voice almost convinced her on the spot.
“How do you know?”
“I’ve already answered that question, Gina. I can find out anything I want to know about anyone. Except for your boy Simon, apparently, where a couple billion dollars haven’t gotten me so much as a real name. Just a list of alias after alias after alias. Someone has been very, very good at destroying his identity.” He shook his head. “If he told you he’s just a chopper pilot, he’s lying. Watch out for him.” Taking her hands, he moved in closer until their lips almost touched. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
She rocked back on her heels, shaking her head. Too much to accept at once. She pushed Gabriel away from her and turned as if to run. She fell straight through the floor. Screaming, falling, air rushing past her ears, she woke up.
She walked off the airship in a daze. Bright sunlight drilled into her eyes, poking through holes in the cloud cover, and Gina had to blink away spots even through her sunglasses. The City never saw blue sky or sunlight that wasn’t filtered through thick layers of cloud. Its pale children weren’t used to this. Even Bomber took a little while to adjust.
“Ain’t that a sight,” he said, squinting at the sky.
“Yeah,” agreed Gina. Too bad about the UVs, though. From the transparent boarding tube she could see the airship’s ground crew, tying down mooring lines and bringing in fuel hoses. They wore clear plastic suits that covered them head to toe, with gill-like white air filters at the mouth. Underneath they wore their simple blue uniforms as if nothing was wrong. The suits kept them safe from the nasty ultraviolet radiation you picked up in direct sunlight. The East Coast nuke event had knocked a big gap in the already weak ozone layer, a gap which now stretched from New York all the way down the Appalachian mountains. There it fed into the region now known as ‘Radiation Alley’, a massive no-entry zone extending from Bermuda to the Texan border.
The catwalk trembled under the footfalls of some three hundred people. They filed into the terminal and held open their bags for the search. Dozens of black-uniformed men and women stood at the examination counters, plastic gloves over their hands, a fresh pair for each bag. Every last item was taken out, inspected, scanned and — if judged to be harmless — put back. Gina saw one or two people being taken aside and felt a little bit sorry for them. The news occasionally carried stories about what happened with airport security around here, and it wasn’t pretty.
“All clear, ma’am,” the security man told her, placing the box with the hidden taser on top of her pile. “Please proceed to the next line.” If discovered, that little thing spelled a charge of trafficking and ownership of illegal weaponry, but Bomber knew how to get stuff past customs unnoticed.
Gina yawned, shouldered her bag and scratched her shoulders. They felt bare and exposed without her hair tumbling over them. Bomber still waited in line to get his bag checked. The gentleman in front of him had a seemingly endless supply of stuff packed into his suitcase. The pile of random junk on the counter already looked to be several times larger than the case, but it only kept growing.
She yawned again. Although she’d spent nearly the whole flight out cold, it hadn’t been restful. It seemed like every time she closed her eyes someone would start knocking on her door. It’d be nice to have some actual sleep again.
“Thank you, sir,” the inspector told Bomber. “Please proceed to the next line.” Bomber, ever the good citizen, bagged all his things up again and did as he was told.
“Like I said,” he whispered to Gina with a grin, “keep ’em chatting, bow and scrape enough to make ’em feel big, and they’ll barely look at your stuff. Like putty in your hands.”
They breezed through the next desk with their fine fake IDs, and then all of North America was open to them.
“You ever been here before?” Bomber asked her as they strolled along the long line of duty-free shops.
“Never. Hong Kong born and bred.” She shrugged. “My parents used to tell me stories, but that was before everything. Before the Federation.”
“There were a lot of things before the Federation. People just don’t care about them anymore.”
“You’re older than me. Has it really changed that much?”
He thought about that for a moment. Then, “Not that much. They try not to make waves, work with the local powers whenever they need to get anything done. Which keeps them in charge. Most of the crap they pull now, the old States government used to pull just as often and they got away with it just as quietly. Never mind Hong Kong StateSec. Somebody up there’s read The Prince.”
“What?” asked Gina.
“Machiavelli. A book. Think of it as the complete guide to dictatorship for dummies.”
“Christ,” she said, “how do you know all that stuff?”
“Some training. Some just readin’. Used to love books, had a little collection going. Before.” Before the bombs, Gina added mentally as he fell quiet. Here she recognised a pivotal moment for Bomber and everything he meant to her. Maybe if she was subtle enough, she could get him to open up a little.
Neon storefronts scrolled past them in pairs. Shreds of old, worn-out music drifted out of them, mournful reminders of a more dignified past. America had had its fight knocked out of it when New York and three other cities simply vanished off the map.
Gina and Bomber drifted through the main lobby and down the steps to the tube station, passing under a massive sunny billboard proclaiming, ‘Welcome to Austin, Texas.’
The tube was the main way of getting around town now. Personal vehicles were banned in all the ozone-deficient areas. A few taxi companies still operated, driving into the special underground docking bays and providing protection suits to customers along with the service. Pricey, though. Only the rich had money like that to waste on convenience.
Nobody else stood at their platform. A few lonely souls milled about on the other side of the tracks in the great underground cavern, but nobody who could overhear. No sound except the wind and the occasional echo of train wheels thumping along their rails.
“You know, I’ve been thinking,” she murmured. “That story you told me about when you were a test pilot. Which one are you?” He gave her a blank look, and she seized on the opportunity. She had his full attention now — that would be enough. “You said a couple of guys in your squadron ran off with their choppers ’cause of the Fed takeover. One, Two, Three and Four. Which one are you?”
“Heh. I thought you’d forgotten. Hoped, maybe. You’re pretty sharp, lady.” He almost smiled. “Number Two.”
She stopped suddenly, blinking in surprise. The next moment Bomber was tearing tickets from a ticket machine, pressed one into her hand. “Two? But . . . I thought you were the one who flew to Hong Kong.”
“No. If I was, I’d be dead now. They are.” He grimaced and looked down. She could feel old pain twisting in his heart. “Sorry, that’s why I don’t talk about it.”
“Someone close to you?”
“Yeah.” He straightened himself and made a dismissive gesture. A hot, muggy breeze blew out of the tunnels and stuck his hair to his forehead. “It’s a real sob story, I don’t wanna bore you with it.”
“I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t interested.”
“I guess I owe you, comin’ back for me after I landed us all in the dungeon.” He hung his head and let out a deep breath.
“I was a Wing Captain in my squadron. Second in command. Still young, still had a fight left in me. Off the books, I was . . . fraternising with the squadron commander. She looked a bit like you, a little shorter and a little darker. We were gonna muster out in a few years, buy a cabin on Lake Erie, settle down. I loved her.
“There was another pilot in our squadron, Jamie, her brother. She got him his commission. Wasn’t a bad stick, though. He and I got along, and the two of them were pretty close. Then we heard the Federation was movin’ in. We all got pretty drunk that night, along with another guy from our squadron, and we hatched that scheme of stealin’ our copters and blowin’ the base behind us.”
The train arrived just then. They stepped into the airlock and held on to the railings as a whirlwind of air whipped around them. By the time the door opened to allow them inside, thousands of invisible nanobots were swarming over their skin, disinfecting and clearing away irradiated tissue.
They found seats, and after a long silence, Bomber continued. He said, “Cold feet didn’t hit me ’til the morning. The more sober I got, the more I wanted to just walk away. Forget about all this rebellion and damnfool heroism. Just grab Sarah, head north and find us that cabin. She . . . wasn’t impressed with that idea. Told me we’d be turnin’ our backs on our country. Sarah was a patriot, and I was a good soldier, so when she gave the order I got in that copter and followed my Major all the way out to the Congo.
“We shot down three Federation MiGs and a flight of attack helicopters before we made it to international waters. The Feds hadn’t moved into Africa yet, the place was still in anarchy, so we figured we could use it as a base of operations without fear of anyone stopping us. Every week we launched a few raids on Fed territory. We didn’t need fuel or power or anything. Just food, ammo and a couple of mechanics to keep the copters serviced.
“We paid for that by hirin’ ourselves out as mercs to African warlords. Jamie didn’t like that one bit, but he went along with it ’cause I told him it was the only way. Then, one day, he refused to fire on a supposed medical compound that — we were told — was bein’ used as a torture camp for POWs. Sarah wasn’t with us that day, so I had to give him the order to fire. He did, and he didn’t stop until we saw women and children runnin’ out of the tents, burning.
“The argument was bad, back at our little base. Sarah backed me up. Said that it wasn’t our fault if we got faulty intel, and whatever happened on these merc missions wasn’t on our heads. Jamie didn’t want to hear it. Too sick to his stomach to listen. Next morning he got into his copter and flew away without a word.
“Of course, the stupid bastard didn’t have much choice about where to go. The Federation covered about half the planet at this point and they wanted him hanged. The Recommunista would welcome him with a smile, and the next morning he’d wake up in a Siberian gulag without his bird. He’d had enough of Africa as well, so where could he go?”
Gina answered, “Hong Kong.” Bomber nodded.
“Negotiated a deal with their foreign minister. Contract all signed and dated. Then he flew over there. The foreign minister was there to greet him as he landed at the StateSec building. And so were a platoon of Feds, waitin’ for him as he walked in the door.”
He bit his lip, remembering. “When they were done with the questioning they planned to ship him to a max-security place in Australia. Sarah and I planned and plotted for weeks, but when we attacked the convoy, they were ready for us. They knew we were coming and wanted to take us out of the picture forever. Don’t know how we stayed alive for as long as we did. Shot down six of the bastards, but then Sarah took a missile to her rotor assembly and went down over a small island chain. My bird was already damaged, without her I didn’t stand a chance. I had no choice but to run.”
“So what happened?” asked Gina, enraptured and torn with heartache. Bomber never spoke to anyone this much. At least not for as long as she’d known him.
“Don’t know for sure what happened next, but it ain’t hard to guess. I turned away and piled on the power, but then there was a bright light behind me, all my instruments goin’ crazy, and this shockwave slapped me right out of the sky. Nuke. Had to be Sarah’s bird losin’ containment. Next thing I know, I wake up on a Chinese beach in what’s left of my copter. Nothing but a skeleton. Later on I hear the news that Jamie’s prison transport crashed just after the explosion, all passengers dead.” He shrugged. “They kept lookin’ for me after that, but not very hard. Never sure if I was alive or dead. I kept ’em guessing. Made some connections, destroyed some records, removed some people. Anytime one of my aliases comes up in a Fed database, I get the file and all related info trashed. Gotta pay people through the nose to do it, though.”
Gina couldn’t think of anything to say into the silence. He might be lying through his teeth, just playing on her emotions, but she believed every word of the story.
“It’s alright, though,” he said at last. “Everything passes. She understood that. She used to say to me, ‘I think life’s like a street, y’know? It’s one-way only, and you can’t stop running for long enough to appreciate anything properly before you’ve passed it by.'” He almost smiled. “She was smart, my Sarah.”
“Do you . . .” Gina started, but couldn’t quite say it. More than anything she wanted to ask for his name, but the moment was gone. She knew he wouldn’t give it to her. Not yet. Instead she put an arm round his shoulder and sat silently until the train pulled up at their station.
Each part of the city had its own subway terminal, and from there a network of tunnels snaked up to the surface to link individual structures together. Mostly old apartment buildings with a coat of mirror paint slapped on. You could see them through the transparent tunnel walls, glittering like alien spacecraft in the midday sun.
They marched onwards and upwards, only to stop at the ancient wooden door with some hesitation. The Vernon building was quite old indeed, built long before the bombs, updated only with a slap-dash paint job and now slowly crumbling to dust. The concrete grounds around it were bleached white by UV radiation. On the inside, the lights browned out every few seconds and the anti-UV paint peeled right off the walls wherever you touched them. Gina had to wonder if anyone could live here for long without dropping dead of something.
“This is the place?” she said.
“Yeah.” He coughed up some dust and looked around without expression. The stairwell was all but blocked with fallen plaster, wood and chunks of concrete. Only a tiny path through the devastation suggested that the building was still inhabited, faint tracks in the plaster dust. “Nice neighbourhood. Reminds me of where I grew up. Let’s piss on somethin’, we’ll fit right in.” He placed his ear to the door to listen for a long minute. Finally he pulled away. “Well, I can’t hear anyone. And I’m sure the upstandin’ locals here wouldn’t hesitate a moment in running to the cops if anyone happened to break in . . .”
She chuckled, “They say sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. Besides, shouldn’t we knock first? There might still be someone living there.”
“Fuck ’em,” he replied and kicked in the door. He had a gun at the ready, and Gina wrapped her hand around the Mk5, just in case.
The inside was much like the outside. Heaps of rubbish thrown about at random, furniture broken down into its component pieces. Sound of dripping water. An old kitchen sink still clung to the wall in bitter defiance of its situation. A worn-out mattress lay in one corner, surrounded by scattered beer bottles and food wrappers, but even that looked like it hadn’t been touched in some time.
“Squatters,” said Bomber, kneeling by the remains. “Looks like they cleared out a while ago. Couple months, maybe more.”
“So if Gabriel really was here, then there’s not likely to be anything left, huh?” Gina sighed. She felt a little bit deflated. Whatever she’d expected out of the place, this wasn’t it.
Bomber shrugged. “People leave behind a surprisin’ amount of junk in their old hideouts. You never know.” He looked up a moment in thought, checking his mental references. “Most of the conclusions right now are guesswork, but it’s good guesswork. We have a male aged between 25 and 40. My source says he was here until about ten years ago, and this is the earliest record I could find of him. Hidden away in an obscure civilian database. Weird shipments logged to this address under the name of Mr. Turner, one of his old aliases.”
“What kind of shipments?” asked Gina.
“I don’t know. I mean, I know what he ordered, but I don’t know what it is. Nanostuff. That’s what convinced me it was Gabriel. Some pretty far-out materials at the time, really skirtin’ the law.” He stood up again to examine another corner, then the sink. “Anyway, my point is, that’s only ten years accounted for. There’s at least fifteen that I can’t find any record of.” At length he paused his search to add, “See anything?”
“Lots,” she answered, “but nothing I’d care to remember.”
Bomber kicked over a pile of rubbish and made a face. An old refrigerator festered at the bottom of the pile, its front door and power cord long gone. Flies and maggots crawled around in what must have once been food. He put on a plastic glove and pulled a syringe out of the refuse, sniffed it. “Just drugs,” he said as he threw it away.
Between them they tore the place apart down to the floorboards, and found nothing. No trace of Gabriel ever having been there. Gina sat down heavily, tired and nauseous from the smell. Bomber picked a spot next to her. Sweat dripped down his face.
“Maybe . . .” He shrugged. “Maybe my source was wrong. If he was here, he should’ve left some trace, and I’m not seein’ any.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” she countered. “Could be we’re just being too simple about it. You said this place had squatters in it, and we don’t know how many people before that. They’d have found anything obvious and sold it.”
“Yeah, but can you imagine tryin’ to search this place for a hidden button? I didn’t exactly bring high-tech scanning gear.”
“We might not have to.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. If she had a link to Gabriel in her head, and he could use it to spy on her, there wasn’t any reason why she couldn’t use it on him. She pretended the Spice trance was on her, and reached inside where the little flicker of him would be.
The burnt city flashed in front of her eyes, ash people dancing in the wind, but she shook it off and swallowed her distress. Pushing further. The link gave way as if it were only a rusty door. The last bit of resistance disappeared. She stumbled inside, felt him looking up in surprise from a book of numbers. Sent him a little mental wave. Quickly, she thought and dove into his memory.
Years of sounds and images passed by her, too fast and jumbled to make out. She only slowed down when she recognised the little flat in Austin, if only by the painted-over windows. It was clean now. Chemically clean, with electronic equipment strewn about the place, and a small chemical set on a table in the corner. She delved further with lightning speed. Gabriel was overcoming his surprise, resisting her probe. Not much time left.
She watched him pop loose one of the floorboards, watched him hide a small plastic bag underneath making sure nobody else saw him. Then he quietly nailed the board back into place. Slight edge of nervousness in his jerky movements. Gina seized on the image, committed it to memory — and the next moment found herself ungraciously booted back to the real world with a splitting headache pounding between her ears.
Still, the headache didn’t diminish her sense of victory. She’d done it. Not quite sure what she’d done or how, but whatever it was, it had been done. The only thing she could make out from Gabriel now was a reproachful feeling of, Don’t try that again.
Getting up, she found the rotted floorboard, pulled it loose of its nails and grabbed the still-decaying bag. “Let’s go,” she told Bomber hurriedly. “He knows where we are now.”
“What? What the hell just happened?” he asked, following behind.
She smiled over her shoulder, hitting the stairs at a run, and gasped, “When I find out, I’ll let you know!”
