Alita

by Pat Cadigan

  “All good things come to an end,” the woman replied. “But yours had an exceptional end. You lost your life. Next card, either hand.”

  “I’m still alive,” Ido said a bit defensively, using his left hand again. His heart gave another thump. The image on this card was the ruined cathedral, at an angle that showed the screen on the building across the street in the background as well as a supply tube arching over the single intact spire. Zalem wasn’t in the picture.

  “Traditional tarot has the Tower. Iron City tarot has the Temple in Ruins,” the woman told him. “This is your here-and-now.”

  “That’s everyone’s here-and-now,” Ido said, not bothering to hide his disdain. He took some more analgesics.

  “But it’s yours in particular,” the woman insisted. “Last card. Right hand this time.”

  “I figured,” Ido said, turning the card over. The picture on this one showed a man hanging upside down by one foot from a structure in the trash pile. A small portion of Zalem’s trash chute showed in the upper left-hand corner. “So, what—are they gonna hang me for my crimes?”

  “Not hanging; suspended.” The woman smiled at him. “Taking time to think.”

  “Thanks. This has all been very informative.” Ido leaned on the Rocket Hammer case to push himself to his feet. “But I have to go do some real things in the real world.”

  “Look at the cards,” the woman ordered him, her voice suddenly hard and impatient, as if he had been wasting her time.

  “All right, I’m looking,” Ido said. “They haven’t changed.”

  “No, they haven’t.” She covered the first card with one hand. She tapped the centre card, the one picturing the ruined cathedral. “Don’t live in the past; it’s gone. And you’re not in the future yet. Tomorrow isn’t real.” She covered the third card with her other hand. “You need to be right here in the present.”

  Ido sighed, feeling a little stupid that it had taken him that long to get it. Although why she had felt the need to go through a silly charade just to tell him the cyborg was hiding out in the cathedral was beyond him. She could have simply whispered it in his ear. Or sent an anonymous message.

  “You never know who’s watching,” she added. “Or from behind whose eyes they’re watching.” She tilted her head to one side. “Except you. Your eyes are always your own, aren’t they?”

  “That’s a different conversation for a different time. I have to go,” Ido said, remembering the bartender’s words and wondering if he’d ever see him again. He put a few credits on the table, then added some more. It was a generous amount and she made it disappear quickly.

  “Thank you,” she said. “As our ancestors used to say, have fun rocking the casbah.”

  Ido wasn’t sure that was quite right, but he put another credit on the table before he left anyway.

  * * *

  All right, I did what you asked. I sent him there, just like you wanted, she thought at the shadow in the sky.

  High above her, the man with the chrome optics leaned on the railing and smiled as he looked down. This was going to be good.

  * * *

  The cathedral was as deserted as Ido had ever seen it, but that didn’t mean anything. Legend had it that drug dealers hid their various goods here, but Ido was pretty sure that wasn’t true. It seemed a bit too obvious for one thing, and not terribly convenient for another. Plus, having been a psycho cyborg’s killing ground hadn’t done much for the ambience.

  So maybe it was a good hiding place for drug dealers to keep their inventory.

  Ido shook his head. He was over-thinking worse than when he’d first landed on the ground, uncertain but determined to make the best of a bad situation, without the faintest idea there could be worse things waiting.

  And now here he was, an experienced survivor of catastrophe. He dragged the Rocket Hammer case up the cathedral’s cracked and broken front steps.

  The debris seemed to have increased several times since he’d last been inside. But then, he didn’t usually go inside—it was more convenient to assemble the Rocket Hammer outside in the shadows. Not tonight, though; he wanted the case close at hand, so the analgesics were in easy reach.

  Ido moved along the wall to his left. Here the empty arched windows were high up and the structure was still pretty solid. There wasn’t as much large wreckage there, so it was easier to manoeuvre the case. Finally, he found a spot behind a pile of large broken stones and chunks of splintered, mouldy wood where he could lay the case down and open it. Before he did anything else, he topped up all the analgesics.

  He was definitely overdoing some of the meds, but he decided he would be okay as long as he didn’t make a practice of hunting while still wounded from his previous misadventure. The thought replayed itself in his mind and he almost laughed aloud. “Misadventure”—as if he were a character in a novel doing something brave but foolish, and not quite legal.

  Whether it was brave or foolish was debatable, but it certainly wasn’t quite legal. If there was no mark out on the cyborg, no price on his head, then by the letter of the law Ido had no business hunting him, even if he had absolutely no intention of killing him, none whatsoever. He simply had to pull that chip out of him. Without the chip, the cyborg would no longer have episodes of uncontrollable, violent rage.

  No, Ido thought sadly, he was almost certainly wrong about that. The cyborg would never be the same. After being repeatedly taken over by anger and fury, the man was almost certainly a rageaholic now. And he didn’t have to be fast to be dangerous. He was as ruined as this cathedral. Vector wouldn’t want him any more, and he wasn’t fit for anything apart from illegal fights in south-town.

  Ido had just finished assembling the Rocket Hammer when he heard a voice say, “I know you’re here, old man.”

  Ido froze, kneeling behind the pile of broken stones.

  “Thought you woulda had enough the other night,” the cyborg said. “I coulda killed you then, you know. Coulda just squeezed your head between my hands till it was nothing but bad meat in a basket of broken bone, or just tore it off your neck and drop-kicked it into the trash pile. Pounded you into the street till there was nothing left but a stain. Lotta ways I coulda killed you. But I let you go because I thought you were just a sad old man playing hero. I even called your ride home for you.”

  Ido suppressed a sigh. This was Iron City; what did he expect? The fortune teller hadn’t promised not to give the cyborg a heads-up. It was a hard world, and if he got the worst of it again tonight, he had only himself to blame. He’d come here knowing damned well he wasn’t ready for a fight.

  “Are you just gonna hide in the dark, old man?” the cyborg asked. “Did you lose your nerve? You gonna make me come and find you?”

  Holding the Rocket Hammer, Ido rose to his feet, ignoring the muffled pain in his ribs and back. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness so that he could see the cyborg fairly well. “No, I’m right here.” His voice echoed and he felt a tiny bit of gratification when the cyborg looked around, obviously unable to figure the direction it was coming from. Maybe the cyborg’s built-in night-vision wasn’t very good. “But tonight, I’m not just some old man you can beat with one hand tied behind your back.”

  The cyborg spotted Ido as he approached and burst out laughing. “What kind of an outfit is that?”

  “An old-man outfit,” Ido said.

  “And you brought a toy!” The cyborg lunged for the Rocket Hammer.

  Ido slammed the blunt end into the cyborg’s midsection. The blow sent him flying backwards to land on his back on a small pile of rocks, looking surprised.

  “Okay, now it’s a party!” The cyborg flipped up to his feet, wavered as he almost lost his balance and then dropped into a fighter’s crouch, hands up and ready.

  A brief but intense wave of déjà-vu swept over Ido; he shrugged it off as he moved around to the cyborg’s left. The cyborg tracked him. “You think you’re some kind of Hunter-Warrior? There’s no bounty out on me, old
man. I’ve committed no crime. You can’t attack me. That’s against the law and against the Hunter’s Code.”

  “What would you know about the law or the Hunter’s Code?” Ido said, unable to help himself.

  “I know all kinds of things, thanks to the Watcher.” The cyborg actually sounded smug. “You don’t know about him, do ya? Course not. He won’t speak to you—you’re just an old meat-bag and that’s all you’ll ever be. I’ve been chosen.”

  “For what?” Ido asked. If he could keep the guy talking, he’d be too distracted to think about making any super-fast moves, which might allow Ido to take out a knee. It was hard to make any moves, super-fast or otherwise, with only one good leg.

  “Enhancements!” the cyborg crowed.

  “Good for you.” Ido feinted high with the Hammer and the cyborg raised his arms to counter. Ido twisted the weapon as he dipped and added propulsion to the pointy side. It made a direct hit on the cyborg’s left knee and took the lower part of the leg off completely. The cyborg bellowed in rage as he toppled over, blue cyber-blood spurting from his thigh.

  Ido was shocked. He had expected the joint to break, not break off. Chiren would never have done such shoddy work that one blow could amputate a leg—

  She hadn’t. The cyborg had been AWOL for over a week, which meant he hadn’t had any maintenance. He’d been out picking fights and tearing arms off other cyborgs as if nothing could hurt him, as if he weren’t subject to wear and tear himself. Now he was probably on the verge of falling to pieces, and this “Watcher”, whoever or whatever that was, hadn’t thought to mention the need for maintenance along with the Hunter’s Code.

  The cyborg was trying to get back up on his good leg. “Okay, old man, you want a fight, you got a fight. I was holding back before. Now I’m gonna kill you.” He managed to get to one knee, propping himself up on the stump of his left thigh. “You think I can’t fight you like this?”

  “You haven’t laid a hand on me,” Ido pointed out. “Listen, you’re very close to complete system failure. You need maintenance—”

  “I handle that myself,” the cyborg said scornfully. “And I never felt better. Come on, you think you can fight me? Then fight me!”

  Ido sighed and raised the Rocket Hammer over his head, aiming for the place where the cyborg’s arm connected to his shoulder. The cyborg smiled and Ido felt a surge of guilt mixed with pity for him.

  Then the cyborg flickered.

  * * *

  When Ido came to, the cyborg was shaking him like a dog with a chew toy and his body was screaming with every different kind of pain there was.

  “Wake up, you old bastard! C’mon, I wanna see you give it up!” The cyborg had both hands around his neck. “This ain’t gonna be quick for you, old man. You don’t get off that easy!”

  Ido’s hands were empty. Where was the Rocket Hammer? How long had he been unconscious? He was trying to look around when everything suddenly went black again.

  This time, it was the impact of the back of his head on a cement floor that jarred Ido awake. His ribcage was on fire as he started dragging himself away from the cyborg’s mocking laughter. How the hell had he managed that flicker move with only one leg, Ido wondered; how had—

  Something like a steel vice caught him by the ankle and squeezed. The sound of his bones breaking made Ido’s stomach lurch violently; the taste of bile and dirt made him vomit again.

  “Shouldn’ta eaten a big dinner!” the cyborg said, laughing even harder as he dragged Ido through the dirt and rubble on the cement floor by his ankle. Ido grabbed desperately for something, anything he could use as a weapon. His right hand closed on a rough chunk of stone or concrete.

  “Now, where were we?” the cyborg said in a chatty tone, pulling him close and reaching for his neck. Ido brought his right hand up and slammed the chunk of rock into the cyborg’s face as hard as he could.

  Everything stopped.

  At first Ido didn’t dare move. But time stretched and the cyborg didn’t even twitch. Ido manoeuvred himself out of his grasp and scuttled backwards, vaguely aware that his ankle was swelling rapidly.

  The cyborg sat upright, still not moving. The broken chunk of rock was still stuck to the spot where Ido had hit him, defying gravity and all sense.

  “I must be dead,” Ido said aloud, just to find out if he could speak. He dragged himself over to the cyborg’s left side, wondering what was keeping the rock stuck there. But he couldn’t see anything.

  It took him a few seconds to work up enough nerve to touch the rock. To his surprise, it still wouldn’t move. He pulled on it and it came away with a sickening wet sound. Finally, he saw there was a short length of iron bar protruding from it that had stuck in the cyborg’s eye. Horrified, Ido hurled the chunk away; at the same moment the cyborg toppled over backwards.

  Ido waited a few moments; when the cyborg didn’t move, Ido rolled him over and took a jackknife out of his coat pocket. The pain in his ankle was intensifying but he had to get this done before it got bad enough to incapacitate him. The chip would be at the top of the spine, just below the medulla. He touched the blade to the artificial skin.

  “I’d rather you didn’t do that,” said the cyborg.

  Ido jumped back from him with a yelp. The cyborg rolled onto his back again. “He’s pretty much dead, but I’d prefer if you left the chip. I’m not done having fun with it.”

  The voice was the cyborg’s, but it sounded like someone else was using it. Ido tasted bile as his stomach threatened to lurch again.

  “I didn’t want to kill you—him,” Ido said.

  “You actually surprised me, Ido. I never thought you had it in you. I’m going to have to rethink some things. But don’t worry, I’ll be seeing you. I see everything.”

  Ido waited but there was nothing else. After a moment, Ido rolled him over again and removed the chip. The extraction was more the work of a slasher than a surgeon; his hands were shaking and his eyes were watering from dust and mould as well as from the pain of his broken ankle. Once he got the chip out, he braced himself for another surprise pronouncement but apparently the cyborg had breathed his last. Ido would have wondered more about what had just happened but his ankle was now screaming so much, he was no longer sure he hadn’t imagined everything.

  He called Gerhad, knowing she wasn’t going to take this well. In fact, she would probably kill him. He hoped so anyway.

  CHAPTER 18

  Sometime after Dyson Ido heard his ankle bones crack, Hugo was peering down into the darkness of an open manhole in an east-side alley and trying to decide if the job was really worth climbing down into it.

  “It’s not the actual sewer,” Dif said for what seemed like the hundredth time. “It’s an access tunnel the maintenance guys use to get around. Access tunnels run all over the place—they’re like invisible streets underground. You can climb down here and come out anywhere in Iron City.”

  “If you know where you’re going, anyway,” Louie added.

  “You got a map?” Hugo asked him.

  Louie and Dif exchanged glances. “Not for the whole city,” Dif said. “But I know how to get from here to the Velvet Orchid. And I know this is where our guy comes out.”

  “The Velvet Orchid isn’t directly above the sewer,” Koyomi said. “If it were, they wouldn’t do any business.”

  “No, but they’re practically on top of a main access point,” said Dif. “Makes it convenient for people to get in and out of the place without anyone seeing.”

  Hugo sniffed. “Like their clients would rather use the sewer than the back door. You guys are nuts.”

  “Married people would,” Dif said, a bit defensively.

  “That I can believe,” Koyomi said, nodding.

  “Not me,” Tanji said.

  “Only because you’re such a prude,” Dif said matter-of-factly.

  “See?” Koyomi said to Tanji. “Told you—everybody knows.”

  “Would everybody please shut up for a minut
e?” Hugo said, exasperated. “I can’t hear myself think.” He went over to the truck and leaned against it. After a moment Koyomi joined him, leaving the other three to linger around the open manhole.

  “I’m not crazy about the idea either,” she said, “but we can take him down out of sight—no witnesses.”

  Hugo made a face. “How big is the tunnel?” he asked.

  Dif and Louie glanced at each other. “Well, it’s higher and wider than I can reach,” Louie said, demonstrating.

  “How much higher and wider?” Hugo asked with a sigh.

  “We didn’t have a ruler,” Dif huffed. “Our guy’s pretty big and he can walk through them okay. So it’s at least ten feet high. And at least ten feet wide too. I guess.”

  Hugo sighed again. “That doesn’t give us much room to manoeuvre.”

  “Gives him even less,” Louie pointed out.

  “That’s not necessarily an advantage,” Hugo said.

  “I don’t like it,” Tanji said. “There’s all kinds of things down there. I heard Grewishka’s down there.”

  “Really?” Koyomi’s eyes widened.

  “It’s just a rumour,” Louie said. “But even if it’s true, he’d be in the sewer, not the access tunnels.”

  “How do you know?” Tanji asked evenly.

  “Hey, we’re not gonna live down there, just jack this one cyborg one time,” said Dif. “It won’t take long—we’re in, we’re out. What’s the big deal?”

  “It smells,” Hugo said.

  “You’ll hardly notice it,” Louie said. “And it’s not as bad as the sewer.”

  “That’s not saying much,” Tanji said.

  “Okay, okay!” Hugo made an impatient shushing gesture with both arms and they all shut up. “It’s gotta be fast, no screwing around. He has to go down in sixty seconds, ninety at most. If we screw up, we won’t get another chance. Or another job from Vector. Koyomi, you move the truck so it’s over the manhole—”

  “Maybe we should put a sticky-net over it too,” Tanji said. “Just in case he gives us the slip and makes a break for it.