by Neil Clarke
“Let her give you some ointment, sir.”
“Trevon gave me something, Crane,” he replied.
NightCrane: That wasn’t me, Master Woodrow.
His skin goosed.
“Found it!” Tala raised a small tube.
Crane’s voice said, “Hers will undoubtedly be of the highest quality.”
Seriously, Crane, that’s not you?
NightCrane: A decoy, I assure you. Do you remember the Twoface protocol?
He made an affirmative noise as he shook out his hands, loosening his fingers.
NightCrane: Miss Weston’s tech has compromised DayCrane and tasked it with selling you on that ointment. Obviously.
Drow pressed the keys on the sax, tinkling them like piano keys, and declined Tala’s ointment with a fixed grin. Trevon’s remedy had vanished from his case, so he settled for a swig of bottled water.
His reed tasted funny. He wondered if she’d spiked that, too, but no. Just another effect of the chemo.
“Score this as I improvise,” he ordered DayCrane before he began.
For the first minute or so, the sound was rough. Embarrassing, even. Wheeze of an amateur, rank beginner, baby musician forcing the sounds of dying animals and old awoogah car horns. Drow kept at it, easing into an old practice tune, something learned when he was all of four, secure toddler with two fathers who thought him a prodigy, ensconced in a world he could trust. The sax exercise was barely a step up from playing the chromatic scale, but his lips moistened; the notes smoothed and elongated, transformed from barnyard honks to music.
He began to embroider.
Drow no more thought of himself as a jazz guy than a symphonic composer. But his memory was a treasure vault of theory lessons and music history, things Jerv taught him as a child, archived and long-ignored.
Jerv had been the one to start him on a pint-sized saxophone, when he was four. It was his first instrument, a cool instrument, but as a little kid, Drow hadn’t really understood it. He wanted lyrics, structure, choruses, intros and outros. He wanted to set up and sim guitar solos without blistering his fingers on strings. He wanted a band, Sensorium soundstorm tricks and virtuosi sensibility.
Crane’s voice had told him to take the ointment. If he hadn’t gone to Jerv, hadn’t split the app’s personality . . .
The sense of danger was diminishing. What mattered was the music spilling out of him, Pied Piper calling all the art collectors. Vibrations from the reed penetrated his jaw and teeth, transmitting waves of bone-deep pain. The edges of his mouth ached and chafed. Moisture dribbled off his chin. Warm wet landed on the collar of his shirt, spreading and becoming cold wet.
He pushed against the bodyfeels, continuing to improv. The collectors were clustering, cocktails growing warm as they stared at Drow like a zoo exhibit. He threw out an unexpected trill, almost a hit of birdsong. The whole room, right down to the coat-check girl, gasped-laughed.
Gotcha.
Kids, he realized, couldn’t appreciate the saxophone. Jerv should have held it back. A horn thrust music’s animal howl through the pure throat of a downed angel. It could purr lust, run a seduction, lure you to the rocks. It could shriek your regrets to the rooftops, whisper a graveside lament, trade your soul for a broken string of pearls or a kind word.
He played, and everyone in the lounge stood transfixed, hanging on every note.
This was what he should have been doing with every waking moment. Not journalism, certainly not law. What a waste, all that clumsy fumbling to woo the musical trendsetters of the stroke economy. Drow played a confessional, spinning all his fails into song. Worm-crawling low notes of cowardice, self-sabotage: the way he’d blamed Jerv for all his troubles, the way he’d given up composing original flows.
Then the bright, staccato thorns he’d grown whenever someone . . .
. . . Marcella . . .
. . . Seraph . . .
. . . got too close.
Fat alto bombast played a countermelody of rationalization, long, tricky runs etching his descent from trying to honestly build strokes and a reputation to grubbing for them, with that final, dirty, cold-blooded attempt to leverage Cascayde’s fanbase.
Now he was playing Cascayde.
It had maddened him! Her riding high on a glittering wave of stolen tracks. Undeserved success had left him, frankly, jealous . . .
He ran the melody back and forth for so long that it conjured the virtuoso.
At first, Drow took her for hallucination. Some trick of the Brill, transforming a wispy apparition in a high-necked white gown, just now stepping off the elevator, into her, into her . . .
But no! Reality. Not a vision. Not a sim.
Electric recognition spread through the lounge. Victor and victim, reunited. High drama.
Drow kept playing. This was it; this was everything he could get away with. He pulled the opening of her Cataract from his drug-enhanced infallible memory, remaking it on the fly, flagrantly stealing unprovenanced phrases, effortlessly burnishing.
The virtuoso was crossing the lounge.
Drow forced himself to rise. His knees shook as he stood; acid burned in his gut.
No matter. Keep playing.
Cascayde was a wand of a woman, substantial as the smoke from an extinguished candle, wrapped in Ralph Lauren. The assembled listeners drew back, leaving her acres of room to come to him.
Within his peripheral, the bartender muttered awed curses. On the sidelines, Tala had a camera in each hand, feeding him to the Sensorium with both fists.
Cascayde drifted past a guy so pale he looked frightened. Then another whose face, inexplicably, was tracked with tears.
Drow brought his last note to a shuddering triple-piano fade as Cascayde reached him. Empty-handed, she pulled the mouthpiece away from his lips.
Bursts of sensation, like fingernails digging into a blister, made him gasp.
She tried to speak, but the assembled collectors broke into applause so loud it drowned her.
Drow wasn’t going to be on his feet for much longer.
“I’m so—” His voice broke. “Sorry. I mean, please—”
Hooks, salty, in his throat. An itch. He fought the spasm but coughed nonetheless. Cascayde drew back, fractionally, not fast enough to dodge the spray of crimson, aerosolized blood misting her collar and jaw . . .
Drow half-turned, coughing up more red. Lips bleeding, tongue bleeding. “Crane,” he said, diction muddy. “Give her the score I just wrote.”
“All of it, sir? Or just the embroidery of Cataract?”
“All,” he said. “Sign over full rights.”
Cascayde was hyperventilating, staring at the blood on her dress. Her eyes had that wild, vulnerable look again.
“Call it . . . a peace offering,” Drow finished. His knee buckled and he lurched involuntarily.
Whether by default or design, she caught him. Barely strong enough to support his weight, she planted her spike heels and heaved, tipping him into the smartchair. He’d left a patchy red handprint on her pristine sleeve.
“It’s okay,” she said, grimacing, mastering herself. Then, louder: “I forgive you.”
As she spoke her gaze jogged left, into her peripheral. Checking the strokes, no doubt.
Still in the game, Drow thought. Cascayde was fragile, no doubting that. At the same time, part of her was still performing, always would be.
So what? The comp was good and his performance had been solid. If his regrets were real, did it matter if her forgiveness was counterfeit?
He deflated into the chair’s ever-helpful embrace, uncertain and depressed.
Pressing a hand to her chest, as if overcome, Cascayde returned to her bodyguards, vanishing back into the elevator. There was a second wave of applause.
“Masterful performance, Handsome!” Tala swooped in with a wetwipe.
“I wasn’t simming,” he muttered.
“So much the better. Lord, what a mess!” She smeared the cloth under his nose, o
ver his lips, down his chin and neck. Each wipe left a strip of pristine alcoholic chill, smooth traverses unimpeded by his hairless chin. She crunched bloodstained wipes, discarding them like trashy rose petals.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Drow whispered.
“Shush.” She pressed him against the cushion.
Bubble of panic, fueled by phantom memory. He pushed back. Were her vulture claws weaker? “I want a doctor.”
“We’ll call a car.” She kept swabbing, humming tunelessly all the while.
She’d put something on the wetwipes, of course. A now-familiar narcotic dizziness was taking hold as the car, naturally, threw in its lot with her credit rating and took them to Tala’s house rather than a hospital. The saxophone, conveniently enough, got left behind at the hotel.
DayCrane was crooning in his ear, “It’s all right, sir, go along. Almost home, everything’s fine.”
“Fine,” he agreed. Maybe he should let Tala have his husked-out remains.
NightCrane texted: Sir, I cannot contact Jervis. It is possible he’s under arrest.
Would Tala report him?
Her tech support may have forced him into the open.
Play and counterplay.
He get anything from the crowd mics?
Crane assembled transcript, snatches of conversation from the party. At least one promising utterance caught Drow’s eye: “. . . even being here may be aiding and abetting!”
But reading was hard; his mind was liquefied.
As they parked, Drow protested: “I wanna Emerg.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Tala stepped into the street, smoothing the fleshy pink skin of her knee-length jacket. “We agreed I’d capture—”
“You captured p-p-plenny. Dammit! Plenty. I puddon a real show for your art buyers, din-d-didn’t I? Richard Bramp—”
She cut him off before he could unspool the cocktail party whooz list, right there within range of the car mics. “Come inside and discuss it.”
“You must get out of the cab, sir.”
He was out, on the street, before he remembered the Crane he could hear was the compromised tab. Slush spattered his face, fat gritty drops, smearing the surface of his left gogg. The car door slammed, nearly catching his hand.
“Inside,” Crane urged. “You’re shivering.”
“Open up!” He pounded on the roof. The smartcar pulled away.
“You must change clothes, sir. You’re covered in blood.”
Tala had reached the same conclusion; she was tapping her elegant way to the door.
Drow barged past before she could get her hands on him, locking himself in the bathroom. Washing his face in the hottest water he could run, he tried to sober up.
Beetle-tap of fingers against the door. “Handsome?”
“Sec.” He texted: Crane? Any good news?
Alas, no. In fact, Miss Weston appears to have contacted Imran about buying your home.
That woke him, more effectively than hot water. He go for it?
Unknown.
Seraph had been wrong. Tala would tie up his escape routes as fast as he could sight them. He wasn’t free to walk away.
Don’t walk then, donkey. Run.
He fisted his hands, shaking them in a parody of tantrum, forcing himself to say good-bye to all those green vials of potential. Farewell to future symphonies, the exposé about chemo, the prospect of catching Tala in the act.
Feeling reasonably clearheaded, he stepped out.
Tala was perched against her kitchen counter, idly stirring a glass of water with the narrow-bladed business end of a pair of stylists’ scissors. “Done sulking?”
“You tattooed me without permission, didn’t you?”
She tinked the blades against the glass, thoughtful. Then the overhead lights colorshifted into the luminous purple of an olden days disco. The scab tissue across the back of his arms lit up with fine white lines. Maggots, feasting on torn flesh. Image of future decay.
“Don’t look all wounded. It’s only skin-deep. You, sonny, you fiddled with my muscle stims.”
“You hacked my sidekick.”
“Pish. A privacy violation. Stim-regime tampering is assault.”
Drow took a deep breath. “Sounds to me like a mutually assured contract breach.”
“It’s all about what you can prove, Handsome. You’re on camera consenting to the tattoos.”
He swallowed.
Sir! Someone has triggered my hardware inventory! My compromised counterpart is uploading specs for the tongue texter . . .
Drow unzipped his overnight bag, extracting a clean shirt. Clawing off the bloodstained one—its clean patches glowed a luminous white in the ultraviolet—he tossed it at her feet. “Here. Call it a souvenir for whoever bought . . . what was it? Wings off a Fly.”
“You’re not going anywhere.” Her gogged eyes filled with red veins. She threw the contents of her drinking glass into his face and mouth.
Drow sputtered, choking.
She raised the scissors.
He had one moment of perfect visual recall: Cascayde, in his kitchen. The magician’s flourish of her spindly fingers as she produced a straight razor.
Tala wasn’t the type to cut her own throat, and she didn’t give him time to step away. She sprang, a furious bundle of little old gymnast, lightweight and perfectly balanced, brandishing the scissors as she bore him to the floor. Her left hand clamped around his jaw.
He clenched, tongue-texting: Save this footage, save it. His vision was starting to double.
“Snip-snip, Handsome, let’s cut that wire. You don’t need bad advice from outsiders, do you?” The hand gripping his face was going to rip his jaw off, and his nose was bleeding again . . .
What kind of idiot goes courting nosebleeds?
. . . which at least had the effect of making his chin slippery.
“I’m all you need now.” She brought the blades down, cutting his lips a little as she wedged the points between his teeth, metal scraping enamel. There was a cold zip across his tongue as she forced it in. The fibenoose at the back of Drow’s throat popped like a rubber band. He gagged as it rolled down his gullet.
No more NightCrane.
Panting, they eyed each other, she atop him with the scissors clenched between his teeth.
Fear coursed through Drow and he let the anxiety crank up, fight-and-flight-and-fight-some-more responses pumping adrenaline. He clubbed her with the fisted ball of clean shirt, knocking her off him and crawling through the spinning room. She scrabbled at his ankle, ripping off a shoe just as he reached the front door.
Gaining his feet, Drow ran into slushy rain. Cold drops chilled the burn on his back. He plunged the unshod foot into cold water, drenching his sock.
“I believe I’ve deleted the surface protocol, sir. It’s me.”
“Safe word,” he rasped.
“Safe word, sir?”
Gotcha. NightCrane would have known they didn’t have one.
Within a block, he had slowed from his run, gasping for breath as he lurched on toward College Street.
A limo turned the corner up ahead, headlights washing him in sterile LED glow.
Drow changed direction, forcing himself up over a neighborhood recycling bin that would no doubt give him a strike for vandalism or trespassing. “If anyone can hear this, I need a pick-up. Help. Someone text 911—”
“Sir, return to Miss Weston’s before you get frostbite.”
“Where’s the nearest Emergency?”
“You mustn’t hazard a blood test.”
“I’m beyond worrying about jail. Nearest hospital? Bathurst and Dundas, right?”
Crane didn’t answer. Drow circled south, aiming for College and University instead. Farther away but the route would have more people on it, out and about. Better safe than sorry.
Safe. Sorry. The words ricocheted in his backbrain, setting off an internal soundtrack of screaming hyena laughter, an uproarious chorus. They laughed as he coughe
d up the texting rig, dusting crimson and a filament of tech onto a jagged array of icicles dangling from a leaky rain gutter.
They laughed when the car reappeared, half a block behind him.
Drow minced onward. Dry foot, iced foot, dry foot, repeat. Keep moving.
On the intersection where Queen’s Park segued into the hospitals on University, he stumbled onto a metal grate and into a blast of hot air. The fetid breath of the subway system gusted over him.
Pizza farts. But the warmth was irresistible. Drow couldn’t make himself move on.
Tala, goggles bright and projected eyes blue, stepped out of the limo.
“Subway stop,” Drow rasped, pointing.
“You dislike the subway, darling boy. Isn’t it where Daddy went splat?”
“Subway stop,” he corrected. “Security cameras everywhere.”
“You need a ride, Honeypie. You need help.”
“I’m not going with you,” he shouted.
“Don’t make a scene.”
“Will too! Begin scene! Stay away!”
“You’re sick. You’re confused.”
“I go with you, you’ll kill me.”
The words landed between them, truth pure and simple, the answer to a riddle he hadn’t known he was solving. Art’s what you can get away with, she’d said. Hurting people and filming it, driving them to the edge—that was old news to her. The one way to level up from what she’d accomplished so far, to make something better, truer to her perverse artistic vision, had to be getting away with murder.
“Dead Donkey,” he muttered. “In private collection.”
Tala fisted her hands, regarding him with unblinking cartoon eyes. Then, to his utter astonishment, she said, “I’ll double the offer. Sixty tubes. We’ll visit the middleman tomorrow.”
Drow pulled off his goggs—and a goodly amount of hair—and gaped.
Had the tide turned? Tens of thousands of people had probably pinned this feed when Cascayde turned up at the hotel. Still. Could they be watching now?
Tala wouldn’t care if she took a few thousand strikes. She could pay exponential pricing on everything: services, cars, taxes, food. She could hire someone to do her shopping, call her cars, tighten the loose screws on her goggs. She could literally afford to ignore what society thought.
So why was she negotiating?