CLAIRVOYANCE: Part 35
A harsh, insistent beep from the nightstand brought Rat back to the waking world. Groaning, she rolled over and rubbed her eyes before slamming the ‘receive call’ button. A small hologram of Jock’s face popped up in front of her, looking her up and down. She felt like a lump of pickled flesh with red eyes, cracked lips and a very bad migraine.
“Hi babe, sleep well?” he chirped, giving her the smug smile that sober people always reserved for anyone they knew who happened to be suffering a bad hangover.
She cleared her throat painfully to let her speak. “Fuck off and die, Jock.”
“Not today. You already missed all the arrivals, but if you hurry you might just make it to the first council session. Hideo’s given you an invite.”
Sluggishly, Rat’s brain began to assimilate this information, and the facts dropped into place behind her eyes one by one. She nearly choked, sputtering, “The Fifteen are meeting? Now?”
“That’s right. A few people are gathering in the conference hall right now, the session starts in half an hour.” He scratched the back of his head and smiled a little, looking unsure for a moment. “Oh, Hideo asked me to give you this message. I’ll patch it through for you. See you later, Alex.”
She could only nod, and the hologram of Jock disappeared only to be replaced by one of Hideo, as stiff and polite as ever. It offered a tiny bow.
“Alex-han, I trust you remember our conversation yesterday. It’s time to begin. From now on, you don’t know us. Not myself and certainly not Jock. You are not our friend, and if anyone asks, your invite was obtained by hacking the hotel systems. There is no way to trace the invite back to me and the hotel room has been transferred to your name as well. I’ll send you instructions later tonight on how to contact us privately. That is all. Good luck, and good hunting.”
The next moment his image fizzled out, the call cut off, and Rat was left staring at a blank patch of wall. She cursed and rolled out of bed in search of something to wear.
Somehow she’d managed to strip herself naked in her sleep, and her clothes were in a dirty pile on the floor. Not that she’d think of wearing something so . . . gendered to the most important social event of her life. One step at a time, learn to walk before you try to run, all that shit.
The hoodie and jeans almost jumped out of her travel bag. She quickly pulled them on in the mirror, stopping only to run her fingertips over the tiny scar on her thigh. You couldn’t even see it now unless you were looking for it. A small reminder of what bullets felt like from the receiving end.
Lastly, she ordered a hangover cure from the minibar, which the robo-tender squirted into a shotglass as some kind of frothy yellow concoction. She gulped it down and almost made it to the door. Then the overpowering aftertaste of rotten bananas flooded her taste buds, and she doubled back to empty the tray of complimentary biscuits into her mouth.
The hotel seemed more alive than the day before. Little clumps of people gathered around the plush hallways, talking in whispers, sharing the latest gossip. Rat slowed her pace long enough to catch the general gist of the conversations. Rumours were going around about some kind of important meeting in the hotel, but nobody knew the details, or at least they weren’t telling. A blanket of secrecy covered everything.
At least the horrible cure seemed to be working. The fog in her head cleared bit by bit, and she no longer felt like she had treacle running through her veins.
She ducked into the main elevator and rode it to the floor marked ‘Conference Hall’. The little information screen showed it to be about three times the size of the other floors. When Rat got out and looked around the holographically-enhanced room — all majestic arcs, tasteful lighting and sumptuous wood — she realised that three storeys in a Laputan arcology was pretty damned big.
There weren’t as many people in the hall as she’d expected. The gathering seemed to consist mainly of bodyguards, big guys with square jaws and an unhappy disposition. If Rat looked closely, she could see the tiny antennae sticking out from behind their right ears, connected to some kind of comm implant. Security kept their distance from the crowd, though, and there was another barrier zone between the genuinely important people and the members of their entourage. She slipped unnoticed into the ranks of hangers-on and stuck close to the European contingent, all speaking Conglom in various funny accents.
“I wasn’t sure about this location from the start,” someone moaned, a young blond man with a body far too lanky to carry off the designer casuals he wore. A wispy moustache covered his upper lip and failed entirely to make up for the rapidly-receding hairline up top. Rat imagined the hairs fleeing his scalp like rats on a sinking ship. “Why hold any kind of meeting here? If Kensei has such an important thing to discuss he should’ve come to us with his evidence!”
The guy next to him, a big skinhead with scaly tattoos coiling around his neck, almost burst out laughing. “Don’t be an idiot, Jordy. Who else is gonna volunteer to host a meeting like this? Never mind the political implications, think about the money.”
Rat spotted her chance. She interjected, “It can’t be costing him that much. I’ve been around, and Kensei’s got power like you wouldn’t believe.” She gave a humourless smile as the people turned their attention on her. “What I’m wondering is, why hasn’t he gone whole hog and held this thing on Cloud City?”
“That’s a good point,” the skinhead admitted thoughtfully, looking Rat up and down. “It’d be a lot more secure, I’ll give you that. Maybe he suspects some kind of foul play.”
“Could be.” She nodded up at him and held out her hand, which he shook with a friendly squeeze. “The Chrome Rat. Rat to my friends.”
“Call me Snake. The weedy boy next to me is Jordy-Five-Seven. I don’t think I’ve heard of you, what’s your ranking?”
“I only just passed the test, got no sponsor for my entry yet.” She shrugged and glanced around. “Best place in the world to find one, huh?”
He seemed to understand, and his blue eyes glinted with sympathy. He said, “Don’t worry, if you’re good, somebody will sponsor you sooner or later. It took me two years before I met Banshee. Hell, Jordy here only got sponsored because the Dutch president took pity on him.”
Choked noises emanated from Jordy, and he went red in the face with helpless fury, but he didn’t dare to say a bad word in front of Snake.
Meanwhile a hint of genuine surprise flickered across Rat’s face. With a bit of effort she turned it into a starstruck expression, and she mooned, “You know Banshee? That’s awesome!”
“It’s not as glamorous as it sounds,” he chuckled. “Trust me, I– Is something wrong?”
Rat had stopped listening to him. The blood drained from her face, leaving her pale as a sheet as she recognised a familiar pair of trainers from across the floor. She muttered weakly, “I’ll be right back,” and backed away from the group, keeping her eye on the hooded figure skulking around the edges of the meeting. It couldn’t be . . .
She managed to steal a glance inside the figure’s hood, glimpsing the outline of a face, and she knew for certain. It couldn’t be, but it was.
Damn it, thought Rat, and she crossed the floor like a missile towards her newest problem.
Rat grabbed the figure’s shoulder and stepped out in front. She suddenly found herself on the other end of a weapons-grade stare. Eyes like twinkling green emeralds held her, and the lips below curled into a smug little smile. The face showed no hint of surprise or fear, only a certain kind of welcome. Rat almost believed it was pleased to see her.
“Harmony,” she hissed, keeping her voice low. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Sightseeing,” Harmony said casually. “Let go, Alex. You don’t want to act suspicious in this company.”
Biting her lip, Rat made her fingers unclench. Harmony shook her arm free and jerked her head to the side in a ‘walk with me’ gesture. They ambled along the periphery of the crowd while Harmony threw occasional furtive glances into the centre, towards the members of the Fifteen who’d gathered there. There was meaning in those looks but Rat couldn’t tell what kind.
They spent a few moments walking silently before Harmony spoke out of the corner of her mouth. “I see you been mingling. Had a change of clothes, too. Maybe you’re not such a prod after all.”
“Seems we’re both full of surprises, lady,” Rat said darkly.
Harmony laughed, but as the sound left her throat it downshifted to a deeper, more masculine tone. A voice changer, probably inside the cheap silver necklace around her throat. The changer disengaged as she whispered, “We all got secrets, Alex.”
“So why are you here?”
“I told you. Reconnaissance. When the Fifteen call an emergency meeting, you know something big’s up.” She threw Rat a razor-sharp smile. “What about you? Trying to follow in my footsteps?”
The conversation broke as the crowd stirred, brought to action by some invisible signal. Everybody started to file towards the elevators. The session was beginning. Rat and Harmony joined the queue, exchanging whispers in the tight press of bodies.
“Ain’t you worried somebody’s gonna recognise you?”
Harmony shrugged. “Let ’em. They couldn’t keep me out of Laputa. They can’t keep me out of here.” She glanced around as people crowded into the elevators up to the private conference room. Those who weren’t invited stayed behind looking desultory, drowning their sorrows in cocktails and canapés. Then, nudging Rat, she said, “Did you see Hid– I mean, Kensei, in that crowd?”
“No,” admitted Rat. “I don’t think he was there.”
“He wasn’t. It’s weird, he should’ve attended his own reception.” She reached up inside her hood and rubbed her eyes. “Why were you making buddies with that Snake guy, anyway? You know he’s on Banshee’s crew?”
“Is that a problem?”
“Banshee isn’t what I’d call ‘nice people’,” she chuckled darkly. “He was the New IRA’s lead hacker for six years before we took over Ireland. Funny thing, they don’t advertise that little titbit anymore. Can’t say letting supposedly reformed terrorists onto the rankings ever sat well with me.”
Rat whistled in appreciation. “Damn. Boy’s got credentials.”
“Yeah. He’s definitely got those.”
Their conversation paused as they packed into the elevator, shoulder to shoulder with a dozen other awkwardly silent people. Rat and Harmony went to opposite sides of the carriage and tried to look inconspicuous. One of the hackers had brought his prod up with him, a pretty blond girl in a denim miniskirt and see-through top, and she seemed to take delight in engineering ‘accidents’ where she ended up rubbing against every other body in reach. A momentary flash of surprise crossed her face when she bumped into Harmony. For a moment Harmony leaned close, as if whispering something. The girl went quiet and behaved herself until they arrived at the conference room.
The place had been transformed since Rat last saw it. Completely blacked-out with pigmented windows, thermal sheeting and duct tape, there wasn’t a photon coming in from the outside. More of Hideo’s guys guarded the door. They searched anybody who set off the scanners, and kept out everyone who lacked an invite. Everyone who wasn’t important enough to warrant attending. The prod in the denim skirt stormed back to the elevator without her boyfriend, red rage and humiliation plain on her face.
By the time Rat and Harmony entered the room, the headcount had dwindled to around forty people who could produce legitimate invites. Some of them were new faces to Rat, but she recognised Snake, and Jordy, and even a few of the more intense people gathered in a circle at the centre of the room. The Fifteen.
Some of them wore simple business suits or casual stuff, hoodies and t-shirts, but those in unique costumes were instantly recognisable. Among others, Rat spotted a ninja, two vampires, a wolfman, a golden-crowned king and someone in traditional Japanese samurai armour. She could barely keep herself from staring all around her in bug-eyed awe. Half of these people were like Hideo, rulers of their very own Nations. This group could change the world.
When she studied Banshee, though, she had to wonder. He was easily the tallest man in the room, built like a wrestler, with fierce blue eyes and a short crop of black hair. In a word, intimidating. His image was softened only by his expensive tailored suit — black, of course.
And he didn’t look the slightest bit worried or clued-in that he was about to be accused of treason.
“I count thirteen people in the circle,” Harmony whispered, taking up an empty spot along the curved wall. “Know who isn’t here?”
Rat took a closer look and felt her heart sink straight into her shoes. “No Kensei,” she replied, “no Jock.”
“Exactly, and I trust those two about as far as I can throw ’em. What the hell are they up to?”
Just then the guards outside snapped to attention, and Hideo strode past them, gleaming from top to bottom in medieval plate armour. Metal rustled as he walked to his spot in the circle. He stood there like he owned the place. He did own the place, Rat had to remind herself, and he exuded the stiff confidence of a Japanese politician. After the whispers had settled down a bit, he took out an electronic writing pad and formally cleared his throat.
“The ring is now in session,” he announced. The crowd went quiet to hear him speak.
“Gentlemen. Friends. I’m sorry to keep you waiting, and for the short notice of this gathering,” Hideo began tersely, bowing low in the Japanese fashion. “I also regret to announce that Jock will not be joining us for this session. Something important has come up regarding this case, rendering him unable to attend.”
“We have eyes and ears, Kensei,” someone muttered from the shadows, “just get to the point.”
The temperature in the room plummeted as Hideo’s eyes swivelled in the direction of that voice. “What I’m about to tell you is far too sensitive for public channels. It concerns all of us, and its impact is far-reaching.” A cloud of holographic light sprang to life at a wave of his hand. It formed a large globe in the middle of the room, stuck full of hundreds and hundreds of glowing red pins. Most of them crowded around densely-populated areas around the world, particularly the Nations, as well as developed areas of the Federation. Hideo gave a thin smile. “This is a graphic representation of GlobeNet hotspots and backbone servers. Pretty normal, you might say. However . . .”
Suddenly some of the pins in the globe turned green. More and more of them changed in a strange pattern, radiating outward from a single source, until nearly all had changed colour. “This is a representation of the same machines following some investigation by Jock and myself. The green pins are infection markers. We have evidence that they carry a new kind of zombie program the likes of which hasn’t been seen in over fifty years.”
Acid resentment knotted in Rat’s stomach as Hideo failed to even mention her involvement. She bit her tongue to keep herself quiet, only to spit a thousand curses at him in her mind.
She listened as Hideo laid it all out for them. The holographic emitter provided individual displays to each of the Fifteen, which Rat could just catch over the shoulder of the guy nearest to her, showing a full code analysis of the zombies and tentatively linking them to the blackouts across Europe. There was no mention of Gabriel, or Banshee, or the Chrome Rat. Not even in passing.
Somebody stepped forward from the circle. “How was this evidence obtained?” he asked, and Rat saw it was the man in the grey ninja suit. Blue eyes peeked out through his mask and a few stray blond hairs stuck out from underneath. “With respect, Kensei, it’s difficult to take such a big claim seriously without more information.”
“And who’s responsible?” shouted someone else.
“The evidence was appropriated from a local data vault in Laputa. We accessed a backup of a high-security file from another vault.” Hideo looked around for any further questions, but no one spoke up. They believed him. “As for responsibility, I have reason to believe that someone in the Fifteen is either in control of these zombies, or working in tandem with the man who does.”
He let the silence fall like an atom bomb. Everybody held their breath. The drop of a pin would’ve been deafening, and for a fleeting moment Rat thought she saw a smile on Hideo’s lips, aimed at Banshee. Banshee smiled back.
There was a soft thump from outside, audible even through the thermal padding. Half a heartbeat later the windows erupted inwards in a cloud of broken glass. The people who stood there were ripped apart in an instant, or sucked out through the jagged, gaping hole. Light poured in while air rushed out of it, and Rat heard the chopping of helicopter rotors even as the muted rattle of machine gun fire tore through the room.
More than half the Fifteen crumpled to the ground in pools of their own blood.
She felt a hand on her shoulder, pulling her out of the path of the bullets, and she stumbled away at a clumsy run. She was faintly aware of Harmony’s voice shouting, “You’re with me! Come on!”
People didn’t so much run as stampede for the elevators, a mass of panicked bodies with Rat and Harmony caught in the middle. The first carriage filled up and went, then the second. More and more of them tried to crowd inside, but there was no room. Rat recognised Jordy’s wide-eyed, blood-stained face as somebody kicked him out of the elevator and shut the doors in his face. He let out a wordless scream of despair, but it didn’t last long. A machine gun bullet blew his lungs out through his ribcage.
“Stairs,” Rat panted and dove down the thin metal staircase next to the elevator shafts, holding on tight to Harmony’s hand. The steps were rickety, exposed, barely fit for purpose, but also the only chance Rat and Harmony were going to get.
Tumbling down the steps, Rat gasped over the pounding of her heart, “Did you see . . . where Kensei and . . . Banshee went?”
Harmony gulped down air and fell the last few feet to the conference hall floor, now clear except for a few confused stragglers. She hissed, “Don’t ask me! I fucking ran away!”
“Where the hell are Kensei’s troops?!”
“First you save your own skin, then you start asking questions!”
They barrelled through the big doors into the main corridor for this floor, mostly devoid of traffic at this time of day, but full of kitschy shop fronts and flashy holograms to confound the eye. A few worried-looking souls had come out to wonder loudly about the explosions. Rat and Harmony ignored them, rounding the first corner, and then slowed down by some unspoken agreement. They wound down to a casual stroll as if nothing was wrong.
Rat shook her head in a daze. The adrenaline rush faded away in a hurry, and the come-down hit her like a sandbag. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. She just wanted to break down and collapse, but she forced her legs to keep going though they felt heavy as old lead.
“What the fuck just happened, Harm? What was that?” she babbled. Her tongue just rattled off words without any kind of thought. “I don’t understand. It don’t make any sense. One second Kensei was there talking and I blinked and everything just– Everything just . . .”
“I don’t know. I’m guessing Hideo’s traitor saw it coming and came loaded.” Harmony stopped a moment, staring off into the distance, and put a hand on Rat’s shoulder. “This is bad, Alex. Nobody planned for this, nobody’s prepared. Not for a civil fucking war. Things are gonna get ugly real soon if we don’t do something.” She shuddered and shook her head as if to clear it. “I’ve gotta try and sort stuff out. Contact a few old friends if they’re still alive. You get to the hideout, you’ll be safe, and I’ll meet you there when I’ve got something.”
She ran off before Rat could even begin to think of a protest. Rat’s fingers found the little key card in her pocket, still reeling. Then she took her hand away and headed for the nearest elevator going up to her floor.
I don’t know where you’ve gone, Jock, she thought angrily, but I’m not sitting this one out. I’m gonna do something. Anything.
The big red-painted bulk of a firefighting robot rolled past her in the street, powering along at breakneck speeds. She turned to watch it teeter round the corner to the conference hall. Little bit late, she added, and spat on the floor after it.
Then the doors closed behind her, giving her a few precious minutes of privacy, and her armour cracked. She’d held her emotions in check, but now the cork came off the bottle, and everything came tumbling down on top of her. She sank to her knees and buried her face in her hands.
Two dozen people had been torn apart in front of her, and all she felt was relief. Relief that it wasn’t her.
The Chrome Rat began to sob quietly in the corner.
The familiar sounds and smells of Shanghai rushed in on Bomber as he emerged from the train station. The air stank of stale sweat, oppressive and unmoved by wind. He tried to divide the soup of human experiences into individual stimuli, and identified them one by one. The angry beeping of ground cars stuck in traffic. Footsteps of grubby children running after each other. Cheap tofu frying on street corners. Pigeon droppings and dog piss. They were all there, and he hadn’t missed them.
Behind him, the wedge-shaped maglev train swooshed away down its steel track, climbing up into the sky on big pylons of concrete. The only sound of its passing was a faint rush of air sliding over its top.
“You used to live round this way, didn’t you?” Hawthorn remarked.
Bomber’s lips drew back in what could charitably have been called a smile. “Yeah. I did.”
He’d picked his old flat because it stood dead in the middle between the maglev station and the Emperor’s fortress. Covert, convenient, plenty of escape routes. Plenty of places to hide stuff.
The walk didn’t take long. The apartment building’s big pink sign rose out of the smoky fog like a noisy grave marker from ancient times. Much to Bomber’s surprise, his old accessway had been blocked; the local government had boarded up the building next to the hotel and covered it in ‘condemned’ warning tape. Bomber stared at it. For the second time since he got the apartment, he was going to have to use the front door.
It was a mess when they got to Bomber’s floor. The door lay in pieces in the middle of the living room. The Russian goons had kicked it down and left it after a quick ransacking. This being the City, the place had been promptly robbed of everything that was or wasn’t bolted down. Blank walls stared back at them. No more kitchen, no more bathroom; they’d stripped it down to the plumbing.
Hawthorn looked around and whistled. “When these guys burgle you, they don’t mess around.”
“Yep,” said Bomber. He knelt by the utility meter in the kitchen, just about the only thing still attached. It was a square grey box with a small flashing screen that informed him his water bill was overdue. He dug his fingernails under the loose screws in the casing and pulled them out one by one.
“What have you got in there? Credit chips? Fake IDs?”
Allowing himself a thin smile, Bomber ripped the case off the meter and threw it over his shoulder. “Not exactly.”
His fingers reached under the pile of fragile electronics, strained a little against the tangle of wires, and finally closed on a soft plastic handle. With as much care and delicacy as he could manage, he wrenched it free of the meter’s guts and pulled it out, then held it up to admire it.
“Oh, shit,” breathed Hawthorn. “You kept it.”
Bomber nodded, drinking in the sleek black shape of the pistol. It was almost shark-like in appearance, with heat exchangers as fins and air intakes that formed long black gills along its muzzle. “It was the only useful thing out of my emergency kit that still worked. The Feds weren’t gonna come lookin’. As far as they know, I crashed straight to the bottom of the ocean.”
“If I remember right, and I do, the Feds don’t look too kindly on unlicenced laser fire in their territory. Especially in the City.”
He rubbed the tiny scar on his scalp, a memento of his brief stay in Federal care. “Fed law is the least of my worries, Hawk. I got a lot to pay ’em back for. So do you.”
That affected Hawthorn somehow; he broke eye contact, clenching his jaw. Bomber couldn’t tell if it was simple grief for the family he’d lost, or something else entirely. Something didn’t feel right.
“Don’t you, Hawk?” he pressed, watching him closely.
Hawthorn snapped out of it in an instant, took control of himself and looked at Bomber with a level expression. “Yeah,” he said. “I do.”
“Something wrong?”
“Not at all. Have we got everything here? Where are we going next?”
Glancing around the empty apartment, then at the laser in his hand, Bomber nodded to himself. There was nothing left for him here. That life belonged to Simon Caine, and he no longer existed. Bomber didn’t want it anymore.
“We’re goin’ to a bar,” he said. He jammed the pistol deep in his pocket and headed outside. He didn’t look back.
A three-headed Chinese dragon squirmed above the pub door, flickering slightly where dust particles interfered with the projection. Its heads were perpetually frozen in a huge roar, but the body behind them undulated from side to side with scaly, snake-like grace. Two Mandarin sentences spun around the dragon and intersected at clever angles so that their meanings changed at several points along their revolution.
Bomber had always liked the sign. Right now it read, Good luck and happiness come to those who bury the bodies carefully.
He nudged Hawthorn in the ribs and pointed at the individual heads of the dragon. “Three heads. Triad place. Watch yourself, okay?”
“Why? What have you got to do with the Triads?”
“Used to do odd jobs for a guy called the Emperor. People know not to fuck with me. You, they’ve never met before.”
“Jake, I’ve been fighting and dodging Feds for the past ten years. I’ll be okay.”
That was a solid argument, Bomber had to admit. Certain people might be more dangerous in a fight, but they were only individuals; there were around two hundred full Constables stationed in the City alone, plus hardware, and several thousand junior Constables. Add to that the Federation’s massive intelligence network and Hawthorn’s credentials started to look good by sole dint of him still being alive.
Bomber shoved his way through the door and strode past the steroid-enlarged bouncer without even looking at him, trusting Hawthorn to follow his lead. The rectangle of fake wood thudded closed behind them. Bustling out of the little cloakroom, they entered the bar itself, and Bomber listened as the conversation in the room came to an abrupt halt. The bartender took one miserable look and started to take the cups and glasses off the counter, whether they were empty or not.
The design of the bar showed just how much a good decorator could do with green, red and brown. Lots of wood stained to look ancient, fake paper walls backed by brick or concrete, antique copper taps raided from some older pub. Endless strings of dim paper lanterns hung from the rafters, throwing tasteful light over everything.
The silence deepened when Bomber strode further inside. All the normal bustle had stopped dead, reduced to a hundred hostile eyes staring at him. He did his best to ignore their looks, as best as his automatic threat-search would allow it, and scanned the crowd for anyone he recognised.
Bingo, he thought, homing in on one particular face. Bomber takes the fucking jackpot.
He crossed the floor to a large table tucked away against the far wall of the bar. He leaned over it casually and looked his man dead in the eye.
“How ya doin’, Stoney?” he said with an unpleasant smile. “Not watchin’ the door anymore, huh?”
The still-faced Chinese man in front of him rested his elbows on the table and shook out his waist-length black hair. A big scar marked his face that hadn’t been there before, a long pink trail going up one cheek and into the forehead, like a cut or a glancing blow from a bullet. One blind, milky-white eye stared from the scarred socket. It was basic damage, he could have easily gotten a cybernetic replacement, but Bomber remembered the Triads were always a bit funny about gangland honour. It might be some kind of punishment.
The man inclined his head a few millimetres. “Mr. Simon. I thought you were dead.”
“Not yet. The Emperor is, though. He went rabid and I had to put him down.”
Three of the man’s companions slid their chairs back and reached for weapons, but Bomber was faster. He slapped the nearest gun out of the way, kicked its owner in the crotch, and pulled the laser from its hidden pocket over his stomach, shoving it up the second gangster’s nose. The third one might have been a problem, but Hawthorn curled an arm around the poor man’s throat and jerked tight in one smooth movement. Hawthorn’s free hand caught the knife coming for him, then twisted it calmly out of the choking man’s grasp.
Staring up at the spectacle from his chair, Stoney never moved a muscle. He said, “The Emperor is no longer our concern. We have a new lord here, and I am his right-hand man.”
“Good to see you moving up in the world,” Bomber scoffed, finger on the trigger. “We should have a drink sometime, reminisce about the old days.”
Stoney’s calm brown eyes swept to the laser gun, then back to Bomber’s face. “You’ve changed, Simon,” he noted, the slightest edge of surprise to his voice. “When did you start to care about anything?”
The moment suddenly lost its tension. By some unspoken agreement, they’d reached a mutual truce, and the gasping man sagged out of Hawthorn’s grip. Bomber and the other gangster lowered their guns at the same time, hiding them back where they came from. Even the one on the floor settled down to a low whimper.
Bomber slid into a now-empty chair and leaned his elbows on the table. “A lot of things have changed, Stoney. Stuff’s gonna be goin’ down in the City, and I want the Triads aware, maybe even involved.” He threw a meaningful glance over his shoulder at Hawthorn. “Some friends and I are going after the guy responsible for bombing your old base. Who sent the Russians into your territory, and left you vulnerable to the Yakuza. We thought you might want in on the action.”
“You’ve got a funny way of asking for help, Mr. Simon,” Stoney said, steepling his fingers under his nose.
“So I’m told. Are you in or out?”
“If I find your claims to be verifiable,” he answered sharply, “then I might be able to talk to my lord on your behalf. However, I do not think he would consider it a worthy use of our time and resources. If he says no . . .” He exchanged hard glances and silent nods with his men. “Officially, my hands are tied.”
Bomber gave him a shrewd little smile. “And unofficially?”
Turning even grimmer than usual, Stoney touched the still-fresh scar on his face, then clenched his fingers into a fist. He hissed, “Unofficially, I have a few scores left to settle.”
And that was exactly what Bomber wanted to hear.
“Charming people,” said Hawthorn as he shut the bar door behind them, leaving him alone with Bomber and the City lights. Fresh pavement crunched under their feet as they walked. Where to, nobody had decided yet. “We should throw them a dinner party sometime. Have all the nice gangsters round.”
Bomber grunted, hands in his pockets, watching his feet move one step at a time. With the job done his manic mood had worn off; now he was turning over plans in his head with a kind of morose persistence. It was mostly a matter of matching up resources and tactics with his memories of the airship and Gabriel’s profile. Anything that he knew wouldn’t work, he discarded. Anything that might conceivably stand a chance, he filed away at the back of his brain for later use.
He said, “They’ll come in handy. Sometimes you don’t get to pick and choose your allies.”
“Now you sound like Sarah.”
“Don’t,” Bomber warned.
“Suit yourself. By the way, we found something for you. It’s not great, but you can’t expect miracles on this kind of notice.”
He held out a writing pad. It flashed up wireframe drawings of a truly ugly helicopter, an old Recommunist gunship stamped together out of car body panels and sheet steel. Unusually, though, most of the original armament looked intact. That was promising at least.
“She’ll fly,” he added.
“Great. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
Hawthorn chewed his lip. “She’s still on your mind, isn’t she?”
A cold wind blew through Bomber’s heart, and he shifted his head sideways a fraction to catch Hawthorn out of the corner of his eye. “I’m not gonna tell you again, Hawk.”
“You aren’t the only one who cares, Jake. I never knew what happened to any of you until you showed up and told me. Jamie was my friend.”
He clamped his teeth together so hard his jaw went white. Clenched fists trembled in his pockets, but he kept walking, silent as a fresh-dug grave.
“Honestly I don’t give two shits whether you like me or not,” Hawthorn went on stubbornly. “I told you I wanted to talk. I was there, I’m not just going to let them fade away by never speaking of them again. It’d be an insult to their memories. Sarah wouldn’t have wanted that.”
He knew he’d made a mistake as the words left his mouth. Even with his own boosts he never saw Bomber move, there was just a blur and a feeling of acceleration. The next moment Hawthorn hit the wall, the air knocked out of him, feet dangling off the ground. One irresistibly powerful hand pinned him against the concrete just by sheer pressure. The other was stopped in mid-punch an inch away from his throat. Bomber shook visibly, face pale, and read the fear in Hawthorn’s eyes.
“Don’t you ever talk about Sarah again,” he whispered, and let go.
Hawthorn fell to his knees coughing, and gasped, “Because nobody hurts more than you do, right, Jake?” He tested his ribs for any serious injuries, and stood up with deliberate slowness to glower at Bomber. “Go on. Blame me for it. Blame me for everything, I don’t mind, ’cause I wish I’d gone with you, Jake. I fucking wish I had. And I’ll tell you something else. Jamie was more than my friend. Do you get that, or do I have to spell it out for you?”
The words sank in slowly. Bomber stood there in silence for a long time, before turning away and heading back down the street. Hawthorn caught him up in a few steps, stubbornly keeping pace beside him. There was no way the subject was going to get dropped. Until Bomber’s phone went off.
He dug it out of his pocket, glanced at the little holographic screen, and went for the answer button in a hurry. The word ‘JOCK’ flashed up a few more times before the call connected.
“What’s up, Jock?” he said into the little plastic stick.
The voice on the other end dripped with acid sarcasm. “Oh, that’s fucking inspired, Simon. How long did it take you to come up with that one? I expect it was the product of several months’ hard thinking, at least.”
“Get to the point or get off the phone,” Bomber rasped. He’d already used up too much of his patience.
“You asked me to call you with anything important. I’ve been tracking Gabriel’s AI across GlobeNet for the last few days. It’s been casting all over the place, but activity suddenly stopped after it pulled up a street address in Hunan district. The details are in your mailbox. Either he gave up or he found what he was looking for.”
Bomber flicked the hologram over and checked. The information was already there, as promised, and he couldn’t help an appreciative hum. “Damn. You’ve been earnin’ your keep for a change, Jock.”
“Oh, that’s not everything. I also got you a tentative lead on Gina.” Jock preened, all too pleased with himself. “Underground sources say there was a scuffle in Odessa a few days ago, some shots exchanged between independent aircraft and a Federation task force. There was a girl involved, no clear identification. All video and satellite imagery has been put under lockdown by Federal order.”
“Federal order? That stinks to high heaven.” He shook his head. “How does havin’ the Feds on her back do anything for us?”
“Number one, I couldn’t get the old video, but I did manage to run a satellite trace on that group of jarheads. They’re heading into the City like they got a purpose. Number two, if they’re going after her, then they already know where she is.”
“Any clue as to their destination or ETA?”
“The best I can tell you is a day or two, depending on where in the City they’re going. They could make any number of course corrections between now and then.”
“Okay, thanks. That’ll give me something to work with. In the meantime I’m gonna need–“
Jock coughed to interrupt him. “Simon, I gotta run. There’s a lot of stuff going down in Laputa right now and I can’t hang out on the phone. Don’t bother calling me, I’ll contact you again later. Jock out.”
The call cut off with a hurried click, and Bomber was left staring at a wall, fuming silently. That was unusual for Jock. Worrying. He slipped the phone back where it came from and grunted.
“Bad news?” asked Hawthorn.
“Maybe. Don’t know yet. Either way, there’s work waitin’ for us in Hunan.”
The phone vibrated in his pocket to announce the arrival of a new message. Bomber turned and started walking again, back to the train station, with Hawthorn in tow. There was no time to waste.
Thankfully, the Major kept his mouth shut for the rest of the trip.
CLAIRVOYANCE: Part 34
Gina returned to her body like an over-stretched elastic band snapping back to normal. She stumbled, dizzy and disoriented, and sank to her knees on the smooth vinyl floor. Blurred vision slowly began to clear, and to her surprise, the same room as before danced in front of her eyes. Jupiter knelt down next to her, helping her into a sitting position. It was as if no time at all had passed.
And then, all hell broke loose inside her skull.
She wasn’t ready for the artifact. Still weak and confused, she hadn’t had time to recover, to get back on balance. The burnt city reared up around her, monstrous steel shapes climbing into the sky, burning the real world away to black ash. They were like great cages built to trap the people as they died. She could see their ghosts around her, solid shadows frozen in time, flaking down to skeletons as the fire ate away what was left. Then she raised her hands and saw that she too, was burning, melting into a pool of liquid fat on the street beneath.
She closed her eyes and screamed until the violent shaking of her arms brought her out of it. She blinked up into Jupiter’s face and struggled to remember which was real — the tea house or the city.
“What happened?” the old man asked, concerned.
“Don’t know,” panted Gina. She trembled like a leaf in a thunderstorm, and swallowed the urge to heave. “This room is . . .”
She couldn’t find the words.
Dozens of VR pods were packed into the limited space, each radiating thoughts and emotions like a Spice junkie. There were people in them, Gina knew, and she shivered. The drug pulsed through their veins and squirmed in their minds. And yet . . . It was like they were sleeping, calm and unfocused. Gina couldn’t believe it. Her own mind began to race from a kind of contact high, a background squeal of feedback ringing in her head.
On the Street only a handful of people even realised what they were doing, let alone how to control their trance. Spice wired them up and confused them at the same time, it scattered their thoughts all around and left them to pick up the pieces. That was why the minds in this room were out of place. They didn’t feel like junkies at all.
Don’t be afraid, came words blowing through her mind like a warm breeze. Fear and disorientation gave way to curiosity. Gina acknowledged the contact, although she kept on guard.
What exactly shouldn’t I be afraid of? she asked, but there was no response.
Instead, for a short glimmering moment, a vision crashed into her mind of a starry sky. Hundreds of brilliant sparks were linked together by thin strands of light like a spider’s web. Then the image vanished again, and Gina was left only with the echoes of many voices fizzing in her brain.
Jupiter gave her a look of intense interest. “You can hear them, can’t you?” he asked softly, and she nodded, sensing his emotions. Surprise and wonder radiated out from him in waves, but underneath them Gina found a calculating edge, some part that was already tallying up figures. He continued, “We’d better get you into your pod.”
“You expect me to get in there?” she balked. “With them?”
“You expect me to help you,” he countered with a sour smile. After a moment’s hesitation, Gina hung her head and gave in. She wasn’t in much of a position to argue.
Helping her to her feet, Jupiter led her towards the back of the room where a handful of unoccupied pods sat waiting for a body. Her muscles were weak and disoriented, and she struggled to walk. Jupiter all but lifted her into the smooth rubber seat. Then, his face as serious as a tax return, he placed two tablets of Spice in her hand. In the same movement he chucked a pair of tablets down his own throat and swallowed them dry.
“Take them and relax,” he said, “I’ll join you in a moment.”
Gina felt coldness spreading through her body as she stared at the tablets. Her heart boomed in her throat. She was afraid of those pills. She had to take them, but she wasn’t sure what would happen if she did. The dead city flashed into her head, blackened towers sagging in the wind, but she desperately chased the vision away. All that remained was a faint keening noise in the farthest recesses of her mind.
She bit down and swallowed the Spice whole. Then she lay back into the foamy rubber of the pod, slipped the VR crown on her head, and let Jupiter shut the lid on her. It would take a few minutes for the drugs to kick in. She kind-of wished Darius was nearby, or Mahmoud, or any familiar face. A mind she knew, just as a point of reference, to help her navigate this mess. If only Bomber or Rat could be here . . .
Then, like a radio slowly tuning in to the right frequency, her mind began to expand. She opened her eyes into the goggles.
Fog surrounded her. Cool wisps tingled over her arms legs and left tiny drops on her skin. Despite the temperature, she didn’t feel cold, just . . . prickly. The fog could’ve been made of needles instead of water.
People began to drift out of the grey, slowly gathering in front of her by ones and twos. They each said hello as they stopped at a respectful distance away, every face smiling warmly. The fog turned a golden colour as more people came to stand before Gina. They were all lovingly rendered by the pod’s hardware, perfect down to the wrinkles on their cheeks. There were no cheap Main Street avatars here.
And they thought. Each avatar had a mind, or at least a piece of one, radiating comfort and welcome. Gina blinked, mouth agape, and tried to comprehend it.
Jupiter strolled to the front of the group and nodded at her. “The system should have adapted to you now,” he said plainly. “Welcome to the Network.”
“The Network?” asked Gina, apprehensiveness giving way to curiosity. “I don’t understand what I’m seeing.”
“Ask yourself the obvious questions, Gina. Where are you? Can you feel us? Are you getting any feedback?” He smiled. “If you concentrate, can you read my thoughts?”
She bit her lip and reached out, wrapping her mind around Jupiter, letting herself take in the emotions emanating from him. Anticipation. Satisfaction. Relief. His third eye was just beginning to open to a fresh dose of Spice.
Deeper inside, she found mechanical thoughts, images of electronics and software working in harmony. Two gnarled hands worked away in front of her, day and night, slowly building an off-the-shelf VR pod, but modifying it as it came together. Making it better.
The experience left her fuzzy and unclear. It was a bit like how she’d connected with Gabriel, but in the same way that smoke signals and message drums were a bit like a GlobeNet linkup. It was communication on a different sort of scale.
“You built these,” she whispered. She understood that much.
“That’s right. Many years ago I was a VR engineer, before I got turfed out on the Street and became another homeless wreck. I had a life. Within months I was down to begging for food, telling myself I’d never take those little pills. But I did. I opened my third eye, and the Idea came to me.
“It’s always been about Spice. Spice is what gives us the ability to interpret nearby brain waves into conscious thought. But Spice is considered a scientific dead end, a failed experiment, too stressful on the human mind to ever be useful. That’s what I thought, until I had the Idea. Why couldn’t I record and replicate people’s brain waves? Why couldn’t I send them to other telepaths electronically, even hundreds of kilometres away?”
Jupiter made an expansive gesture, encompassing the people and the world around him. “They told me I was mad at first, but the technology to do it already existed. All I had to do was take an EEG manipulation module and link it up to my homemade VR equipment. Two of my closest friends sat down in a different room, we swallowed our tablets, and when we went into VR . . . We found the Network.”
“I don’t feel any . . .” Gina began, but she hesitated in the face of Jupiter’s smile.
“Open your mind,” he said gently, offering his hand to her. Behind him the crowd shifted as everyone linked hands with the people closest to them. Jupiter continued, “Touch us and let yourself go.”
Hesitantly she reached out and took Jupiter’s outstretched hand.
The minds around her suddenly flashed into focus. It was like diving into a hot bath filled with something more than water, flowing through her and everyone else, connecting them all together. Things started to make sense. Love, comfort and joy flowed through her core from so many different places, so many different minds that understood and accepted her, and she found herself echoing those feelings. It didn’t matter what anyone was before. In the Network, they were . . .
Not one, exactly, but part of something greater.
Gina closed her eyes and let herself drift into that place. There was no room for fear or anger or pain. The others felt her wounds and soothed them, even as the part of Gabriel inside her watched with interest.
Do you know what you’ve gotten yourself into, Gina? he asked her. With her guard down, she could feel and hear him as clear as day.
No, she admitted, but I think I like it.
She pushed him down again and gave herself up to the Network.
The ingenuity of it struck Gina as she let the other minds go through her, and felt their eagerness to see more of her memories and experiences. She only had to think, and the environment around her changed itself to accommodate whatever she imagined. Rooms, objects, people — anything. Right now she stood in a pretty convincing simulation of the Street of Eyes, staring at herself.
Gina Hart arched her back under a lamppost, wearing a cheap little business suit and boots, staring into the eyes of a guy in a yellow-blue bomber jacket and a matching baseball cap. He held up a small credit chip with a large number on it.
It was her memory. The sight of Bomber’s face made her bite back moisture behind her eyes. Then, shaking her head, she dismissed the scene and returned to the fog, the communal place where everyone went in between imaginations.
In a way Jupiter had duplicated Gabriel’s dreamland in VR. The sheer ambition of it left her speechless.
She smiled at him as he welcomed her back to the group, even though they’d never been out of contact. “This is amazing, Jupiter. I can’t believe you built all of it.”
“I didn’t,” he said. “I rented time on an AI to do most of the programming for me. I’ve never been much on software. And, of course, I had help.”
“Your two friends?”
Jupiter rubbed the back of his neck with a stab of embarrassment. “Friends, and more. Lu Yin was a dear man. He believed in me when no one else would, and lent me more money than I could have asked of anyone. He died a few years ago, shortly after . . . my wife left us.”
Sending him a wave of comfort and understanding, she said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were married.”
“Old wounds,” he said dismissively. The Network echoed some of his pain back to Gina, but he managed to mask most of it, keeping it for himself. “I met her on the Street of Eyes, another telepath with nowhere to go and nothing to live for. Adrift like the rest of us. She did more than just survive on the Street, though. Even while everyone else seemed to be spiralling the drain, she always grew stronger despite the odds. She pulled me out of the gutter with her. Half of this is hers.” He choked out a raspy little laugh and cleared his throat. “But that’s enough about me. You must have a lot of questions.”
Gina nodded. “I still don’t really understand how you treat people with problems. Even with this, it’s hard to imagine . . .”
“Think of it like VR therapy. You take us into your mind, into the artifact, and we’ll explore it together to see if we can make any sense of it. Any information is a bonus. You have to be able to understand something before you can come to terms with it.”
A cold shiver crept up Gina’s spine, but she balled her fists and steeled herself. “Whatever’s necessary.”
“Then it’s time we talked about what we need from you. Somewhere a little more comfortable.”
He closed his eyes, and the world changed to fit his imagination. A sunny street corner swam out of the mist. Little round tables were arranged on the pavement outside, green paint peeling off them in a charming run-down way. Gina couldn’t see anyone but she got the distinct feeling that there were people around, just out of sight, out of mind. Jupiter sat down and summoned a wine glass out of nowhere, then gazed at her with the same sharpness as their first meeting, the same piercingly intelligent eyes.
Gracefully, she adjusted her little black skirt and planted herself on the little plastic chair opposite him. She’d been traipsing around in jeans for weeks, but here, where she had to imagine her own clothes, her brain seemed to default to miniskirts. Anything that showed off her legs.
“Let’s put our cards on the table here,” Jupiter continued levelly. “Those pills I gave you earlier are fake, the operative ingredients in them being sugar and water. Despite that fact, you’re sitting across from me following along to my thoughts, feeling everything I feel. Putting your words straight into my mind.” He raised his glass at Gina and took a small sip. The taste of tart red wine echoed from him into her mouth. “In summation, you shouldn’t exist.”
“Other people have pointed that out to me,” Gina replied with stony courtesy.
“Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m glad you do. I’ve been waiting for you for some time.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “I created the Network because it was the right thing to do. It’s kept me and a lot of others sane when we could’ve easily slipped into the abyss. That was my wife’s dream, to help people, to share our feelings and by doing so achieve a greater understanding of each other. There’s just one pitfall. Without more Spice, it doesn’t work. Everything collapses in on itself like a house of cards.”
“I don’t know why I don’t need it anymore. I don’t understand how . . .” She clamped her mouth shut before she could let anything slip about Gabriel. What these people didn’t know couldn’t hurt them, and she didn’t want to say more than she had to.
“Our dependence on Spice isn’t going to change. I don’t think it’d be possible for us to learn what you’ve achieved, and that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. My problem is that buying Spice is becoming increasingly difficult. Not two years ago you could get it from most street corners for five grand a tab. Now only specialised dealers sell it, charging five times as much, and their sources seem to be drying up one by one. I don’t care if it’s gangland trouble or some kind of clean-up by the Feds, but pretty soon Spice may be off the market completely.”
“You still haven’t told me what you actually need,” Gina pointed out.
“It’s simple. What we need is someone who can use her telepathic abilities in ways we can’t, someone who can access information that’s out of reach for us. Someone who can help us find out how to make Spice for ourselves.”
Gina’s eyebrows climbed up her forehead, and she sat back in her chair, unable to conceal her surprise. She imagined a cold glass of vodka orange to buy her time to recover. “I didn’t realise producing it was so difficult.”
“I’ve done a bit of research,” Jupiter said cynically. “There’s a lot more than simple chemicals at work. The stimulant compounds increase your hormone activity and general awareness, but every pill also contains nanorobots which temporarily affect certain areas of the brain. Mostly temporary. To put it simply, you don’t make these things with a home chemistry kit, or even your average meth lab. Nobody seems to know where it comes from or who makes it. The source uses so many blinds and middlemen that it’s impossible to follow the trail by conventional means.”
The implications of that speech slowly sank into Gina’s brain. She sighed, taking another swig of her drink. She didn’t know why she hadn’t suspected it before. A telepathy pill! Of course Gabriel would be involved, somewhere, somehow.
“Nanobots, huh?” she grunted. “Makes you wonder if there’s anything those little buggers can’t do.”
Jupiter clasped his hands together on the table. “You understand why we need Spice. You understand why we can’t approach the people who might have some answers. They don’t let third eyes anywhere near them, except their own guard dogs. They’re careful about their secrets.”
“But somebody who doesn’t need Spice can slip in under the radar,” ventured Gina.
“Exactly. If we can follow the distribution channels back to their source, we can find the recipe and nanoblueprints to make Spice. Once we get our hands on those, the sky’s the limit.”
Gina gave it a moment’s consideration. Then she reminded herself she didn’t have much of a choice. It was this or come crawling back to Gabriel, and she wouldn’t do that. Not now. Maybe not ever.
“I’m in,” she said, and finished the rest of her drink.
She found she didn’t need sleep inside the Network. Time passed in a contented haze without stopping to eat or drink. Surrounded by peace and love, using only her mind to interface with the world around her, the needs of her body fell by the wayside.
She couldn’t remember how long it had been, but Jupiter’s words still echoed in her mind. He’d said, “You’ll need an implant.”
Everybody had a few minor implants nowadays, basic medical stuff, biofeedback monitors and immune boosters. As a rich girl, Gina had gotten a new set at the start of every school year. What Jupiter was proposing, though . . . That was something else.
“A bright idea I had a while ago,” he’d told her, holding a small metal sphere in his hand. “This is a portable EEG scanner and emitter, basically the same hardware as I’ve put into my modified VR crowns. When implanted, it sits at the base of the skull and reads the electrical impulses from your brain, and it can also induce impulses by directly stimulating your spinal cord. It’ll allow a telepath with an open eye to communicate with the Network from the outside world. Telepathy only, though. It’s not a VR implant. That kind of technology doesn’t exist yet.”
“Jesus. A brain implant is a hell of a commitment, Jupiter. I’ve known you, what, two days?”
“I understand it’s a big thing, but there’s no reason to worry. Even if something went wrong, the implant is easily removed with basic surgical facilities. Any back-alley wetware shop could do it. It doesn’t come with any reliance on us.”
“What about my artifact? My treatment?”
“I told you this isn’t a charity. We’ll start your first session when you get back. Don’t expect the world, though. There’s only so much trauma you can deal with in one go.”
She gave him a long, hard look, but she couldn’t detect any underhandedness in his mind. Either he was being honest or just a very good liar. Still prevaricating, she said, “You’re not making things easy for me here, Jupiter.”
Cool grey eyes regarded her, sharp as razors. “Before we do anything, you’re going to have to learn to trust me. It’s the only way we’re going to be able to cooperate.”
“I just want some answers,” she said, a bit too harshly, biting back the wave of raw fear and dread that accompanied any thought of Gabriel’s burnt-out city. There were horrors there which she didn’t look forward to revisiting.
He flashed her a wry smile. “Don’t we all?” he asked, and logged out.
She’d been alone since then, working out simulations of her battle plan. Getting used to the sharing of minds and feelings with the other people in the Network. There were dozens, all with their own sad stories of how they ended up on the Street, taking Spice in a futile attempt to get away. That was the common thread binding these people together. Gina couldn’t help feeling some sort of sympathy. She understood them, and they understood her.
Well . . . They understood the person she used to be. Right now she wasn’t even sure she was still a person, and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could go on with this ragged hole inside her.
She looked at her plan again and nodded, satisfied that it wasn’t going to get any better than this. She’d have to play most of it by ear anyway. Brute force and personality would have to carry her through.
Suddenly she felt Jupiter’s presence splash back into the Network. He slowly materialised in front of her, but never seemed to quite resolve properly, staying sketchy and rough around the edges. His Spice trance was fading. The Network’s machinery struggled to read and deliver the impulses from his recovering brain. Regardless, he recognised Gina and gave her a pleasant nod.
“I think we have everything you need,” he said. There was a funny hesitation to his voice, probably mechanical. “Come out when you’re ready and we’ll get things underway.”
“Whatever,” she said and watched him disappear a second time.
Gina Hart closed her eyes and pulled the VR crown off her head. Sliding back into the real world, she felt a sharp, unfamiliar pain at the back of her neck. Her shaking fingers searched the skin and found a set of stitches covering a tiny incision scar. Some kind of anaesthetic had left the spot cold and numb to the touch.
Slowly, the unwelcome reality began to dawn on her.
Jupiter, you son of a bitch.
Even two hours later she couldn’t stop shivering. She didn’t know what started her off, whether it was the anaesthetic or the Spice or the shock of waking up after nonconsensual surgery. Trembling hands sorted through clothes from the donated wardrobes of women a few sizes less curvy than herself, and picked out the things she could squeeze into with any kind of dignity.
She sighed as she inspected herself in the mirror. Right now, it was going to take more than a low-cut top to make her look good.
Big blue bags showed under her bloodshot eyes, framed by skin as pale as death. A sterile dressing covered her new scar, and she couldn’t keep herself from rubbing it every so often, quietly raging. She looked like a fucking junkie. That might work for getting close to street dealers, but if she wanted any chance of getting to the higher-ups, she needed to look her best.
A little timer went off in the corner to let her know it was safe to take the bandage off. Craning her head around, she just managed to get a look in the mirror as the dressing came off. A dose of skin-sealant had already reduced the scar to a little white line across her skin. It wouldn’t be too bad, as long as she wore something that covered it without giving the impression she had something to hide.
Another stir of anger twisted in her belly, and she clenched her teeth. She still couldn’t believe Jupiter had had the gall. It might be easier to cope this way, but it felt like a betrayal of the trust she’d placed in him so far. It was sneaky and dishonest, but any way she thought about it, Jupiter had her over a barrel. She needed the treatment. What choice did she have?
The worst thing was, they hadn’t actually turned the implant on yet. She’d been separated from the Network for hours now, and while it didn’t feel quite like drug withdrawal, it was too close for comfort. Every part of her screamed to be let back inside, and her own body was suddenly a cold, lonely place where she didn’t really like to be.
She packed all the clothes away, leaving one outfit for tonight and one for tomorrow, a combination of tight button-up blouses and skinny jeans that left nothing to the imagination. Neither one felt quite right, but then she could barely remember the last time she wore her own clothes. They’d all be in a lockbox inside Easy Hotel until such time as she coughed up the unpaid rent. If the staff hadn’t already taken them home or sold them off with the rest of her belongings. Even her trusty old Mk5 was on the bottom of the Atlantic ocean.
No, she didn’t have much left beyond her immediate assets: junkie chic notwithstanding, she had the body of a goddess and a face that practically begged to be in front of a camera. It was just a matter of using those assets to their full potential.
A bit of make-up took care of the bags, and some nano-enriched eyedrops coloured her sclera a brilliant white, hiding every imperfection. She blinked and blinked until the nanobots drew away from her irises and left her vision clear. Then, with a few final touches to her cheeks and lips, she downed tools and assessed herself in the mirror one last time. This was as good as things were going to get. Her face might not launch a thousand ships, but the figure would definitely be in triple digits.
She stuck out her tongue and made a face at the mirror. Can’t stall them any longer, she thought grumpily. Let’s go strut your stuff.
Gina Hart strode out of that room with her head held high and a projected air of confidence that she didn’t really feel. Every head in the tea house turned to look at her, and she allowed herself a smile as the chatter — mental and verbal — died away at the sight of her. Two dozen people looked at her with a mixture of awe and appreciation, and she liked it a lot more than she probably should. The ones with their third eyes open immediately tried to read her.
She chuckled. Blocking them was as easy as brushing away a swarm of flies, and only a small, distant part of Gina still found that disturbing.
One of Jupiter’s assistants, a small Chinese woman by the name of Mai-Lin, appeared out of the crowd and greeted her warmly. Gina found it hard not to return the feeling. Being in the Network together seemed to create an undeniable connection. Then Mai-Lin pointedly invited Gina for a walk in the garden, giving them a good pretext to head outside.
Most of the eyes followed her out, admiring the curve of her back and the movement of her hips. She stopped for a moment in the doorway, smiled, and winked over her shoulder.
“You know how to get attention,” Mai-Lin said, not unkindly, as the room almost erupted in animated conversation behind her. She led the way to the entrance road where a small black car sat low on the tarmac. The faint purr of electric motors emanated from under its bonnet, punctuated by the sound of feet treading on gravel.
Mahmoud’s van was gone from its parking space. Gina treasured a quiet stab of relief, mingled with regret. At least he was out of it.
“There’s only a few people out there who are still known to trade Spice, most of them centred around the Street. I’ve compiled a list if you want it. Remember, do whatever it takes to get a name or some kind of contact info for their supplier. We’ll be activating the implant on your say-so. It gives off a wireless signal, but it’s faint enough to pass for background activity on a mobile phone. Stick to that story if anyone grills you.”
Gina felt a fragile smile appear out of nowhere. She laughed, “There’s more to me than just a pretty face.”
God, she wanted a cigarette.
“I’ll believe it.” Mai-Lin patted Gina on the shoulder. “Break a leg.”
“Sure,” said Gina. She straightened her clothes, climbed into the car, and let the autodrive putter its way along the congested roads of her City.
It took her to the only place where she knew the score better than anybody. She waited patiently for the Street of Eyes to heave into view.
CLAIRVOYANCE: Part 33
“The arrangements have been made,” Hideo said, loosening the medieval-style velvet doublet that was his idea of formal attire. “The Fifteen are coming here. Banshee included.”
He stripped off the bits of plate armour on his shoulders and elbows and stretched. From the bags under his eyes, he hadn’t been well-acquainted with sleep lately. Rat offered him a beer from the hotel room fridge, taking one for herself as well, and he thanked her before taking a long draught from the bottle.
Jock blinked owlishly, his eyes puffy and red from wearing goggles too long. Pink marks showed on his forehead where the VR crown’s electrodes had been. “My hearing must be going,” he rasped. His throat was rough, his lips cracked and dry. “I thought I just heard you say they’re all coming to Laputa.”
“I’m as surprised as you are, David. Somehow they agreed.” He shrugged. “I guess the report we sent them was sufficiently scary.”
“It fucking scares me.”
A dark cloud passed over Hideo’s expression. “I just don’t understand how Banshee’s mixed up in this. Bringing down GlobeNet is like hacker Armageddon. No communications, no trade, no transport. Half of Laputa would starve.”
“Ask him when he gets here,” suggested Rat with a hint of sarcasm.
“It’s at the top of my list.” He gave her a faint smile, then turned back to Jock. “They’re arriving tomorrow, so be ready. I’m going to need you in that meeting.”
Jock rolled his eyes and sighed, “Couldn’t I just project in from VR? They’d never know the difference.”
“You know the rules, David. You either come in person or you don’t come at all.”
Hideo let himself drop into the leather embrace of the big terracotta-coloured couch, rubbing the bridge of his nose. When he stopped moving for a second Rat was convinced he’d fallen asleep. Then he popped back to life to take another pull of his beer.
The three of them sat and drank for a while, without talking, and Rat discovered she felt good in a strange way. She was knocking back bottles with some of the biggest hackers in the world. She felt like she’d been adopted into the family.
“I think I’m getting closer,” Jock said suddenly. “I’ve been finding more and more traces of Gabriel’s AI barrelling through satellite images and CCTV records. I don’t think they’ve been able to narrow the target down any further than Hunan district. The guy they’re after has got some serious skills at staying hidden.”
“Oh, that reminds me.” Producing a small chip from his pocket, Hideo passed it to Jock with exaggerated care. “That’s a Federation IFF chip. It’ll get you access to the Federal emergency satellite network and any local transmitters you need. If the attack on Europe was anything to go by, we may need that access very badly.”
Jock whistled, impressed, and pocketed it. “Not bad.” After another sip of beer he added, “Any luck cleaning the zombies off our systems?”
“No. Apparently they’re resisting any attempt to find or remove them, tenacious as hell. They’ve got a lot of stealth coded in.”
“You’re gonna have to make a public announcement about them. The people have to know.”
Hideo’s lip curled. “Not yet, they don’t.”
“Hideo, we have no idea when Gabriel might pull the plug, and by then it’s gonna be too late. Do you want mass hysteria on your doorstep?”
“Enough,” said Hideo. It was an order, and it was going to be obeyed. Hideo made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. “I’d better go. There is a lot of preparation to be done for the council. Thanks for your advice, David, I will think on it.”
He flowed upright, buttoned his doublet back up, and excused himself. Just before the door fell shut, Rat glimpsed two of Hideo’s bodyguards falling into step behind him.
Moving into Hideo’s empty spot on the couch, Rat settled closer to Jock and said, “He seems a little stressed.”
“I don’t envy him.” He smiled briefly at her. “Hideo and I made a bet when we were at college, which one of us would be the first to get their own country. He won. When I got my first glimpse of what it was really like, I didn’t want it anymore.”
She snorted, “I didn’t know you actually had any fuckin’ ambition.”
“Oh, I did. Then I got everything I was really after.” Jock stood up and rubbed at his eyes. “Time to get back to work, huh?”
He left her sitting there, alone and once again excluded from being useful. She drank until her head buzzed with alcohol and she was too pissed off to keep doing nothing. Then she grabbed her old hoodie and went out in search of something to do.
She found the King in the hotel’s big conference room, overseeing progress. Two women in work uniforms were taping insulation over the windows to block thermal cameras. The windows themselves, coloured by electropigment, had been turned completely opaque. Another technician was fitting bug detectors over all the doors, and a small white noise generator sat in the middle of the room, just in case a microphone did somehow manage to make it inside.
For once Rat felt glad to see Hideo’s angular bronze face. She needed the company.
She said, “Wow, you’re taking this pretty seriously.”
Hideo looked at her as if he was dredging up the distant memory of who she was. A brief smile came to his face. “Alex-han. Is David with you?”
“Too busy playing with his toys,” she grumbled, shaking her head.
“Just as well. He can be a bit trying at times.”
A kind-of weird, conspiratorial feeling filled Rat. She’d never been alone with Hideo before. Her initial dislike for him was fading — as Japanese went, Hideo was a pretty tolerable one. For a second she found herself eyeing him up, wondering what it’d be like to climb into bed with him. Probably not bad. He was pretty fit, had a nice backside, and seemed like the type to bottle up loads of sexual frustration inside . . .
She murmured, “Hey, your majesty, you got a minute?”
“I’m a little bit busy . . .” He trailed off in mid-sentence. Scrutinising her with his eyes, he caught the lopsided smile and the lazy look on her face, and he snorted a laugh. “You’ve had a few, haven’t you?”
“Guilty.” As horrible as it sounded, she couldn’t stop herself from giggling.
“Well, what can I do for you?” he asked with unfailing politeness.
She shrugged awkwardly. Her brain had trouble thinking serious thoughts, ones that didn’t involve sex or beer. She managed, “I, uh . . . I feel a little bit like a fifth wheel. Jock doesn’t want me around, and I don’t know what to do to help.”
“Really?” Hideo murmured, smiling. Then he dropped his voice to a whisper. “It just happens that I’ve already got a job in mind for you. How do you like the idea of doing some spying?”
Blinking at him, she blurted, “Spying?”
“Keep it down!” he hissed. “Look, nobody else knows who you are or that you’re with us, right? All you need to do is hang around the other guys from the Fifteen and keep your ears open. That’s all. Who knows, you might even enjoy yourself.”
Rat was too drunk to think much, and she reduced his offer to one crucial question. “How likely am I to get shot ‘keeping my ears open’ for you?”
He seemed to give the question some thought. “Not very,” he said eventually.
“Okay, I’ll take it.”
Hideo turned back to the work in progress, satisfied. Rat crossed her arms and gave him a lopsided look. Her mind was going off in odd directions, reaching through the alcohol fog, and she began to remember the time she’d spent around the King. The way he always looked at her. The slight edge to his body language. Something was going on that she didn’t understand.
She said quietly, “Y’know, I can’t figure you out. Everyone who’s ever known I was a girl has been all over me like a bad rash, but when I look in your eyes there’s nothing.” She yawned and kneaded her face, which felt like it was made of rubber. She half-expected Hideo to say something into the pause, but he stood rigid and silent, face turned away from her. Rat went on, “Is it ’cause you got someone stashed away somewhere?”
“Please excuse me,” he rasped, almost cutting her off, “I have to go make the security arrangements. I’ll talk to you later.”
Stiffly he walked away, and Rat didn’t think to go after him.
All the tiredness of the day came down on her like a hammer. Crashing, she just made it back to her room before her eyelids closed of their own accord, and let herself drop onto the bed. The next moment she was sound asleep, snoring gently, not even bothered by the creaks and groans of Jock’s VR harness in the next room.
Hawthorn was sitting by himself in one corner of the building’s old cafeteria. His was the only table that wasn’t covered in plastic sheeting, located conveniently near the bar, which was littered with broken glasses and every kind of empty drinks container in the world. A half-empty bottle of whiskey stood on the table in front of him, its label eroded beyond all recognition by the combined effects of time and moisture.
Without waiting for any kind of acknowledgement, Bomber sat down and took a slug from the bottle. It tasted like paint stripper, burning his throat on the way down, but that had never stopped him before. Finally he put the bottle back and tried a smile. It was forced and awkward but he just about managed it.
“Good stuff,” he volunteered.
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew what it was.”
“So don’t tell me.” Bomber swallowed another mouthful. “Didn’t we ever warn you about drinkin’ alone?”
Hawthorn looked up with a ghost of a smile on his lips. “You did. I just never listened to you.” He raised his glass in salute, then drained the whole thing. “Bottoms up.”
“It’s tough to lose people in action,” said Bomber, not without sympathy. “I’ve been where you are now, Hawk. You can’t stop wonderin’ what you could’ve done differently to save them. How you can look their squadmates in the eye when somebody ain’t there for the next briefing.”
“You know every goddamn thing, Jacob,” Hawthorn shot back, but he couldn’t seem to put much venom into it. “You walk and talk like some big tough marine dude now, but I still remember the old Jake Dusther. The one who was wrapped around Sarah’s little finger. The one who used to laugh.”
“I don’t think that guy still exists.”
“Why not? ‘Cause you lost people?” He gave a small smile and toyed with his glass. “I fucking hated you, Jake. You and Sarah had that squadron sewed up tight. Jamie was in your club by default, and Pia too ’cause she was there longer than any of us. Only one person got left out. The rookie who always had to prove himself. The little brother who could never be good enough. What the fuck are you supposed to do when your CO and XO are in bed together, and the XO can barely stand to give you the time of day?”
“That’s water under the bridge, Hawk.”
“It ain’t. Not by a long shot.” Shaking his head, he poured another glass full and drank it. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
For a moment Bomber struggled to say it. He had to dredge up the galling words one by one, and rasped, “I need a favour.”
Coughing, Hawthorn dropped his glass on the table. “Say what?”
“I’m still going after Gabriel. If you’re shippin’ out anyway, you and your boys could . . . make a real difference.” In terse, halting sentences, he laid out the contents of Jock’s phone call and a quick explanation of who Gina was. He finished, “This is gonna get ugly real fast if we don’t make a move.”
Hawthorn took it in with a painfully neutral expression. “That’s a pretty intense cock-and-bull story you got, Jacob,” he said coolly when Bomber had finished. “But even if it’s all true, I’ve got other things to think about now. The Colonel’s orders aside, Gabriel was never our primary concern. The Federation is.”
Snorting, Bomber pushed down a stab of wry amusement. He could tell the bastard was enjoying this. There was one thing that Hawthorn never got to grips with, though, one thing he’d always failed to understand. The fact that other people might know him better than he knew himself. That they could see right through him. He never even entertained the concept of someone else being able to push his buttons.
Bomber said, “The Colonel knew what he was doin’, Hawk. If we can get our hands on any of Gabriel’s tech, whether it’s Hephaestus or this new info-weapon, we could finally have a chance to hit the Feds where it hurts.” A mean little smile played on his lips as he calculated his next sentence. “And if you don’t think Gabriel is something to be worried about, you’re more of an idiot than I ever dreamed.”
“Mm. You’ve got a funny way of asking for help, Jake.”
“The way I see it, you can either waste all the time you spent here gatherin’ intel on Gabriel, or you can help me take him down and maybe get some fuckin’ justice for the guys you lost. It’s up to you.”
A heavy silence fell. Hawthorn seemed to consider the idea for a long time. In the end he hissed out a deep breath through his teeth and sighed, “Okay, Jake, you’ve got me. For their sake. Not yours.”
“Thanks.” Bomber took a final swig of whiskey as he stood up. “How fast can we get to the City?”
“It’ll take a day or two to get everything done. I can ship the advance group out by tomorrow morning, including you and your friend. I’ll come along to make sure everything goes according to plan.”
“Of course,” said Bomber, and he smiled. “In that case, I’d better go and pack.”
Afternoon was breaking by the time Bomber and the others landed at the airport. Mixed feelings churned in his stomach. Somewhere in that sky of washed-out clouds was Gabriel’s airship, and the man himself, with the end of the world in his hands. If he used that info-weapon globally, millions of people were going to die. The chaos in Europe would be nothing but a blip on the radar by comparison.
The brooding mass of the City glowed just beyond the security fence; in the grey afternoon light it managed to look like some horrible disease eating away at the landscape. There was nothing but buildings and man-made spaces right up to the horizon. You could go off in any direction and all you’d find was more city, more people, all somehow managing to coexist packed together like rats.
Somehow, he thought, I always knew it’d end right back here.
Rubber tires squealed on the tarmac, and the little private jet that carried them pulled to a halt outside the little terminal. Bomber got up with the others — Toledo, Hawthorn and two of his best resistance people — and disembarked. They breezed through customs with the barest glimpse at their passports.
It was easy to walk free here even with a Federal warrant on your head. Nobody wanted to know who you were, why you came, or what you were doing. The City just accepted you, no matter what.
Bomber climbed into the waiting taxi, shiny and air-conditioned, and sat back as it rolled through the security gates into Shanghai district.
For the first time he noticed Hawthorn looking thoughtful as he stared out of the tinted windows, and it didn’t look like they were good thoughts. Bomber asked, “Ever been here before?”
Hawthorn didn’t seem to hear at first, but then he shuddered back to life and shook his head. “It reminds me of NYC,” he said, unable to keep a tremble out of his voice. Suddenly he cleared his throat and clamped down on his emotions. “I remember somebody sent me a video of the bomb going off, right after it happened. Part of some local news report. I just couldn’t believe it.”
“This ain’t New York,” Bomber pointed out flatly. “We’re off the radar for now, but if Gabriel or the Federation finds out we’re here, we’re fucked. Remember that.”
Suddenly all his expectations were turned on their heads when Hawthorn shrugged. “Okay, Jake. You know the place, you call the shots, but anything big gets run by me first. Yes?”
Bomber gave a brief nod and picked up his new palm computer. Their strategy was still up in the air, and he needed a better picture of the capabilities of Hawthorn’s team, but he could make a start.
The first thing he did was log on to GlobeNet and press Jock for information about Gabriel’s target, and — even more importantly — for Gina’s whereabouts. Last time the little geek had hemmed and hawed about her, and Bomber had begun to wonder if he was looking for her at all. Steps might have to be taken. He couldn’t afford any unreliables on his team.
Next he pulled up some floor plans for Gabriel’s class of airship and matched them up with his own brief memories of the place, in search of some way to make a direct assault possible. He might as well be trying to squeeze blood from a stone. Attacking Gabriel’s home pitch didn’t promise brilliant odds no matter how he looked at it. There were other ways, though. Gabriel could be drawn out. Baited with something he couldn’t resist.
Bomber turned to the two soldiers whose names he couldn’t remember, picked for their tech skills, and explained quietly, “I’m gonna need surveillance on Gabriel’s airship. Covert would be better, patch into existing cameras and radar if you can, but don’t be afraid to set up our own stuff. I’ve got to know everything about everything that gets on or off that ship. You got it?”
“Yes, Sir,” said one, without hesitation, but the other stayed silent until she got a go-ahead gesture from Hawthorn. Bomber made a mental note of that. He began to suspect opinion was divided about Hawk’s leadership qualities.
They arrived at their ‘base’ a few minutes later; an empty red-brick house on an ordinary residential street, with the keys hidden under the mat. It was unfurnished and quite old, but otherwise unremarkable, except for one thing. Bomber noticed it a few minutes after walking in the door. The ground floor showed a number of freshly-installed GlobeNet jacks, so new they still had shreds of packing plastic on them and bits of brick dust covering the floor.
“Will this do you?” asked Hawthorn, a bit too casually. Bomber looked at him for a long moment. Whether he was after validation from his old XO, or subtly continuing the old rivalry, Bomber couldn’t tell. Either way, he had to keep Hawthorn friendly for now.
“Yeah,” he said. “Good job, Hawk.”
“You look like you’re aching to get out of here.”
“I gotta hit the street for some intel, and some food. You get everything set up for when I come back.” He shrugged back into his jacket and did up the zip. “Watch Gabriel, but don’t attack without my say-so, okay?”
Hawthorn nodded. “Anything else you need?”
“Actually, yeah, I just thought of something,” grinned Bomber. “Can you get us a helicopter?”
“Christ! You don’t ask for much, do you, Jake?” Hawthorn asked flatly. He lobbed a small electronic notepad at the female tech, who caught it and nodded as she read it. Hawthorn continued, “I think I’ll join you, if you don’t mind.”
“I–” Bomber hesitated. Normally he wouldn’t care, but when he looked in Hawthorn’s cool blue eyes, he got the distinct impression that turning the Major down was not an option. Shrugging, he gave in. “Suit yourself.” To Toledo he added, “Keep an eye on things for me.”
The Spaniard gave a silent thumbs up.
With that, Bomber took to the streets with Hawthorn in tow. He followed the signs to the nearest subway station and ordered two tickets on his phone. The train waited for him as an escalator carried him down to the platform. It flashed a bunch of Chinese phrases on the side, written in colourful dancing holograms, which spelled out the name of Bomber’s old neighbourhood. He’d never learned how to pronounce it.
He never used to use the old apartment much, someone else had probably moved in by now, but he stored some useful things there. He hadn’t had time to grab half of it last time. Not with Gina to protect. He shut his eyes for a moment, trying to get her face out of his mind, and finally returned to his plan: Pick up some things. Talk to some people. Rattle some cages.
I wonder if they’ve missed me, he thought cynically and climbed aboard.
God, he hoped they were going to give him trouble.
