by John Appel
“More than you might think,” she said, as the boat slowed again, rounding a corner onto a broader canal, one of the major thoroughfares.
“Shit,” the driver said. A massive freight barge sat wedged across the canal a hundred meters ahead with One World banners draped across it. “They must have just blocked the channel. Call it in,” he snapped to his assistant before heeling the craft over to the right, cutting across the broad canal, aiming for a narrower intersecting canal midway between themselves and the barge. “Hang on, this might get choppy.” Meiko grabbed hold of a stanchion with her good hand.
“Pop the berry?” the assistant asked.
“Not yet,” Zheng half-shouted over the now-brisk wind they all felt as the driver punched it. “Liable to set the buttonheads off if they see just one Constabulary boat by itself. Might think we’re easy pickings.” Zheng stood and faced forward, hands gripped tightly on the rail behind the driver’s station, her knees slightly bent and flexing as the boat surged forward. Her jacket blew open, and Meiko could see Zheng’s twinned shoulder holsters.
With a start she realized that she was probably the only person on the boat without a weapon.
The boat bucked like an aerobraking shuttle as the driver accelerated. That connection gave Meiko the framing she needed to reach for, and find, a relative sense of calm. Just another ride.
“Shit, someone’s coming after us,” Fari Tahir called out. The driver jerked his wheel to the right and the boat skipped sideways as he aimed to shoot straight up the intersecting canal. Meiko risked a glance at their pursuers and caught a glimpse of Okereke, who had a death-grip on the closest stanchion. The station-sider looked like she was about to heave up her breakfast then and there. Meiko twisted further and saw what Tahir had: two boats about the size of their own, cutting towards them at speed. Any chance the interlopers weren’t after them was dashed by the person standing in the bow of the lead boat pointing directly at the Constabulary craft.
“Pull up the real-time feeds and find us a way around,” the driver ordered their assistant.
“I’m trying, system’s down,” he said.
“That shouldn’t be possible,” Zheng said, nearly shouting now between the wind and the whine of the boat’s motor. She let go with her left hand and swept it across each of them in turn, twisting to point at Meiko and Okereke. A fresh contact icon popped up in Meiko’s personal field and she accepted it. Status icons appeared over the heads of each party member as if they were all part of an interactive game. She popped open a map window and saw everyone’s location painted on it. An ad hoc tactical net. She must expect trouble.
They came upon the next concentric belt canal and the driver heeled the boat hard to the left. He’d no more gotten it pointed down the channel when Zheng shouted “STOP!”
Barges were wedged across the new canal in both directions. They were trapped.
Noo
Chatterjee Canal, New Abuja
The driver spun his wheel hard to the right and cut his speed at the same time. The boat slewed as if to turn down the intersecting canal, but the barge wedged firmly across the way blocked their path. The driver abruptly jerked the wheel to the left as the obstacle loomed dangerously close in front of them. The left side—port side, she remembered—slammed into the quayside wall with a sickening crack, followed by a horrible scraping sound. The impact threw her from her feet, and she found herself the middle layer in a human sandwich, with Fari on the bottom and Teng on top of her. The pressure proved the last straw for her queasy stomach and her plantain omelet wound up splatted across both Fari and the bottom of the boat. Water splashed over them all and added cold and wet to her inventory of discomfort.
The boat slammed to a stop with a second crash and more water cascaded over them. On the plus side, Teng was thrown off of her by the impact, and she herself slid off of Fari’s back only to wind up on top of Teng. Her head slammed into one of the seats, hard enough to have her seeing stars. She heard screams and cries of distress,
but they seemed to come from somewhere away and above.
A strong, thin hand grasped hers and pulled her upright as her vision cleared. “Are you OK?” Ogawa, the Commonwealth woman, asked.
“Mostly.” She gingerly probed the top of her head, finding a lump and wetness. She pulled her fingers back and examined them, finding water and vomit but no blood.
“EVERYONE UN-ASS THE BOAT!” Zheng’s command voice hadn’t suffered from their collision, at least.
“Why?” Noo asked as Ogawa bent to scoop up someone’s bag, stood, and flung it onto the quay, narrowly missing a number of bystanders who’d rushed forward. Several of these crouched down, arms extended, reaching down for the beleaguered company.
“Because we’re sinking,” Ogawa said calmly. She bent for another bag, heaved it up, and passed it to one of their rescuers.
“Shit. I hate coming down the cable,” Noo grumbled. She started to bend down but her head was having none of that.
“Climb out. I’ve got this,” Ogawa said, scooping up another bag and tossing it to one of their rescuers. Noo realized she was doing this one-handed; the woman wasn’t exactly skinny but though she lacked Fari’s muscular bulk, she evidently was a lot stronger than she looked at first glance. She caught Noo staring at her and jerked her head towards the quay. “Go on.”
Noo clambered awkwardly around the scattered bags towards Fari, who had just boosted the driver up onto the grasping hands of the quayside rescue crew. She realized with a shock that their craft was sinking more rapidly than she’d thought possible; the water was ankle-deep and rising fast. She glanced forward and discovered that the bow was a ruin, with water pouring in at an alarming rate.
With a mutter of “Come here, Auntie,” Fari grabbed her and hoisted her halfway up to the quay. Her flailing hands were caught by a pair of men in paint-splattered smocks, who each grabbed one and pulled her up onto solid ground. Noo turned around in time to see the two pursuing boats slowing as they approached, one on either side of their beleaguered vessel. The people clustered at the bows of each glared at her, her companions, and the whole quayside crowd with what certainly looked like malicious intent.
She twisted her fingers and toggled the tactical network Zheng had presciently set up. “Incoming hostiles, right and left. At least twelve,” she said hoarsely. Her djinn picked it up and rebroadcast it to the others.
Zheng, newly hoisted onto the quay, spun to see their pursuers closing in. She snapped her fingers and her Constabulary ID shone above her head. The AR tag’s border turned red as she drew her stunner. The crowd pulled Ogawa and Teng, the last of their little band, onto the quay and the group closed ranks around Zheng, even the Directorate spy accepting the constable’s leadership. Zheng turned to address the crowd, her djinn amplifying her voice so that it rang out and echoed off the buildings across the street. “Thank you, but please stand back while we sort this out.” She waved at their rescuers and the other bystanders, most of whom took a few steps backwards, muttering. She turned back to face the canal. “Non-lethals,” Zheng ordered.
“That’s all I’ve got,” the driver said, but Teng’s hand shifted direction and he plucked a stunner out from under his tunic, instead of whatever he’d initially reached for. Wonder what else he’s carrying? Noo drew her own stunner and stood, wet and sore, covered in her own puke, and waited for the trouble to start.
She didn’t have long to wait. The hostiles, unhampered by things like an abrupt collision or sinking boats, scrambled up onto the quay.
Zheng held up her left hand, holding her stunner low by her right leg. “I’m Lieutenant Zheng of the Constabulary. Do you have something you’d like to discuss?” she called to their pursuers.
They answered her with silence, and as soon as everyone but the boat drivers had clambered onto solid ground, they rushed Noo’s little party from both sides.
Noo braced her feet and swung her weapon up as the first stunner shot buzzed. She tried to sight around the driver,
who found himself face to face with a pair of assailants. She stepped to the side as he was driven back and snapped a shot at the one closest to her. Her breath came hard and fast as she scrambled backwards, away from the rushing swarm, and she fired again and again. Even un-aimed, one her shots found a target and one of the attackers crumpled to the ground, tripping up the beefy woman following him.
She caught a flicker of movement on her right and spun, ready to fire, only to see Ogawa fly past upside down. She turned around further, heart pounding, thinking that perhaps their rescuers had joined the hostiles, but for the moment, the shocked crowd was holding back. She checked the others and saw Teng and Fari and Zheng each tangling with at least one opponent hand-to-hand, while the driver’s assistant backed them up with his stunner.
She turned back and raised her own weapon, then lowered it in stunned surprise as Ogawa simply took the hostiles on their side apart all by herself.
Noo had cracked her share of heads in her day, and while she wasn’t in Fari’s class by any means, she could hold her own in a brawl. She’d watched her partner spar in training, cheered her in a few competitive matches; and they’d had to mix it up with miscreants on a few occasions. She’d seen Daniel fight too, though his style was nothing like Fari’s. Where the younger woman fought like a lorry with a pair of whirling hammers attached, Daniel was like a mongoose, lightning-fast strikes and kicks coupled with sinuous motion.
Ogawa moved in a way Noo had never seen before, flowing and spinning, bouncing from left to right, never still. She looked more like a dancer or rhythmic gymnast than like someone engaged in combat. As Noo watched, dumbfounded, the Commonwealth woman spun on her head and one hand as her scything legs kicked a pair of attackers squarely in the head. Somehow, she turned her horizontal rotation into a sort of flowing cartwheel that brought her behind her opponents, a pair of bruisers each easily half again her mass. They staggered from the force of her kicks but remained upright.
Noo’s senses returned in a rush. She jerked her stunner back up and fired twice, dropping them both.
Hot hands grabbed Noo’s left sleeve and jerked her sideways. She spun, letting her assailant do the work of swinging her weapon to bear as she ducked a wild punch. She came face to face with a short, skinny man with shocking blue hair and a scraggly beard, so she shoved her stunner into his gut and pulled the trigger, then stepped back as he collapsed into a spasming heap.
She turned back and saw Ogawa spinning in a vertical circle as she executed a one-armed handstand. Her legs snaked around the neck of a stocky man and her momentum yanked him off his feet. Ogawa sprang free and landed lightly on her feet, swaying and bouncing side to side as her target tried to roll over to stand. Unceremoniously, Noo stepped forward and stunned him.
With a start, she realized that all the attackers on their side were down. So was the Constabulary boat driver, pinned beneath the two-meter, hundred-fifty-kilo woman who’d driven him to the ground before he stunned her. Ogawa bent down to roll the woman off of him. Noo realized that the attacker’s boats were pulling away from the quayside, and she took a couple of potshots at the drivers, but they were out of stunner range too quickly for her to bag them.
“One thing the vids never get right,” Noo wheezed between shots, “is how fast a fight is over if one side’s playing for keeps.”
“Got that right, Auntie.” Fari’s voice floated from behind her. Her partner came up on her right side, breathing a little heavily herself but otherwise seeming no worse for wear. Zheng appeared on Noo’s left, missing the right sleeve of her jacket, her hair charmingly mussed. “What do we do now?”
“I’ve called for backup and an air extraction,” Zheng said. “But it sounds like things are breaking out all over the city so it might be a while.” There was a low growling sound to their east, perhaps a block or two away. The braver bystanders hovered nearby, goggling at the twitching bodies of the attackers.
As the adrenaline surge faded, the physical toll of the last few minutes came due in the form of muscle ache down her whole left side. Her head hurt too; she probed the lump again, but her fingers came back blood-free again, thank the Mother. At least her stomach wasn’t bothering her anymore, or maybe it was just too far down the damage roster to be acknowledged.
“Where’s the crews of these barges?” Fari asked.
“Good question.” Zheng scanned the buildings fronting the canal as she slipped a fresh charge cartridge into her stunner. She turned to face the locals and passers-by who remained. “Did anyone see who jammed these barges in here?”
One of the painters took a cautious step forward. “No crew, konstebo,” he said. “They bots.”
That made Noo’s headache worse. She made a note on her djinn to call the firm’s senior tech analyst, Haissani, to see if he had any idea how hard that would be. She wasn’t sure just how big a deal screwing up the city’s canal network was, but if it was anything like the time a programming error had brought the station’s transit system to a halt for two infuriating days, it was pretty bad.
The rumbling sound to the east grew louder. She glanced around nervously, looking for cover or concealment and finding both scarce. Aside from a few benches and the ubiquitous sycamore trees lining the quay,
the street was bare of handy obstructions they could use as firing positions. Not that their tiny band would be able to hold off a crowd, stunners or no.
Fuck me, I hate coming down the cable.
Turbines whined overhead as a formation of bots zoomed past, following the canal, their golden AR tags proclaiming them Constabulary bots. “Reinforcements?” Fari asked hopefully.
Zheng shook her head as they sped past in the direction of the ever-louder crowd. “No, or not directly. I think they’re going to try to interdict the rioters, though.” The officer seemed to come to a decision, nodded once to herself, and spun on her heel. “We should put some distance between us and that lot, though. Let’s move.” She began to stride briskly in the other direction, the others at her heels, only to be brought up short by the sight of a large apron-clad woman who looked Noo’s age, her hair done up in the beehive style that hadn’t been fashionable since their primary-school days.
“Auntie Chell!” cried the driver happily. “She runs a cafe a couple blocks from here,” the driver explained. “A lot of the marine branch eats there on the regular.”
Flanking Auntie Chell was a mixed crowd of people of all genders and ages, wearing everything from workout clothes to sharp business suits. They all were armed after a fashion, Noo realized with a start, bearing blunt objects of every description, from Chell’s walking stick to cricket bats, with a couple of donga sticks for good measure. The cafe owner marched directly up to Zheng, who regarded the crowd warily. “The buttonheads give you trouble, konstebo?” Chell asked.
Zheng glanced back at the array of still-twitching bodies lining the quay and started to answer but caught herself. She turned fully and scanned their would-be assailants and Noo did the same, squinting through her headache. Auntie Chell tapped her stick on the pavement while she waited.
Angry retorts from the crowd answered that news but quieted swiftly when Chell raised her hands above her head, her stick grasped firmly between them. The polished wood glinted in the morning sunlight. “Miguna’s dust-touched thugs aren’t welcome in Bluewater,” she proclaimed, and the crowd at her back cheered.
Pleased as she was by the prospect of reinforcements, Noo felt anxious about being part of a
much larger brawl than what they’d just been through. Zheng apparently felt the same. “I can’t condone you breaching the peace,” she said, using her djinn’s voice amplifier just a touch, enough to make herself heard without seeming like she was shouting.
“Then you’d best see to keeping it, konstebo,” Chell shot back.
Further discussion was cut short as a phalanx of Constabulary aircars, surrounded by crowd-control bots, came roaring up the course of the canal, screaming past them at just below rooftop height. One set down a short distance away while the others landed up the street, close to the ever-louder rumble of the riot. Constables in full riot-control gear piled out and deployed in double-ranks across the street as their bots took position overhead. The nearest car disgorged a stocky officer whose AR tag identified zem as Captain Thanh. Ze beckoned to Zheng, who trotted over to confer with her superior.
Noo and Chell exchanged glances. “It looks like you won’t need that today, Auntie,” Noo said, with a wave at Chell’s stick.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Chell said, resting one end on the ground and clasping both hands atop it. Her eyes flicked towards the line of police. “But I think I be needing it another day soon, if not today. The yellowjackets can’t be everywhere, all the time. And the pot’s right boiling.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Toiwa
Commissioner’s Quarters, Ileri Station, North Ring
Toiwa lingered over her coffee at the kitchen table while her husband, Eduardo, cleared away the breakfast dishes. Her dress-uniform tunic hung over the back of the chair next to her, and a tea towel covered her dress shirt to spare it from the perils of coffee spills or honey smears. They were alone in the apartment; their son and daughter had left for school in the company of some friends.
At least we got breakfast together. Mother only knows when I’ll get home tonight.
“The Saljuans have backed off for now?” Eduardo asked. He wore his hospital scrubs, fabbed from smart fabric that repelled organic material—like all the body fluids a nurse came into contact with. The joke that his attire was armor for the kitchen and housework as well as his job was an old one between them.