“It should.”
“Thanks. That’s reassuring.”
He gazed steadily at her without speaking for a minute, then said, “Okay, we won’t talk about Chick. Let’s go someplace quiet and just talk, have a drink. No business, just personal, the two of us.”
Paula smiled. “Bullshit. I got a feeling that with you, everything’s business.”
Tremaine smiled back. “That’s probably true. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be personal at the same time. I’d like to know you better.”
Paula drank again from her beer. She still didn’t know what to think about him. She wanted to get to know Tremaine better, too, but she didn’t know how much he could be trusted. Still, she thought it might be worth finding out, and she was about to suggest they go to a nearby pub, when Amy Trinh walked up to the table.
Amy Trinh was half-Vietnamese, half-Cambodian, and beautiful. Tonight she was wearing black jeans tucked into knee-high black leather boots, and an open, worn leather jacket over an incredibly bright white T-shirt. On her face was heavy eye shadow and liner, dark red lipstick, and an expression Paula didn’t like one bit.
“Aw shit, Amy, you don’t look like you’ve got good news.”
Amy Trinh shook her head. “I don’t, my good friend.” She glanced at Tremaine, then looked back at Paula. “It’s Mixer. Word on the nets is he got picked up by Saint Katherine a few days ago.”
Paula stared at her, unable to speak for a minute. Her breathing had stopped, and she wondered if her heart had, too. Then, “Jesus Christ. How the hell did that happen?”
“Don’t know. Something about a wham-wham. No details. But…He’s due to go through the trial tonight. At least that’s the hard-core guess. Midnight, probably. But definitely tonight.”
Paula felt something heavy and cold drop in her stomach, a dull vibration rippling out from it and through her body. Oh, Mixer.
“We’ll never find him before the trial, will we?” Paula said.
Amy shook her head.
Word always went out about the trials, flexing along the nets, but unless you were a part of the Saints inner circle you’d never learn the actual location. “You free tonight?” Paula asked. “Got your scoot?”
“Yes, and yes,” Amy said, nodding twice.
“We can try anyway, can’t we?” The dull, sick vibration was still thrumming through Paula.
“Sure.”
“If nothing else, maybe we find him after, when they let him go.” An ache was sinking into Paula’s bones. “Pull him off the streets before the scavengers rip out whatever’s left of him.”
“Sure,” Amy said again. She almost smiled.
A slow, steady grinding worked through Paula, cut through now with a demanding surge of adrenaline. She turned to Tremaine. “Gotta go. Another time, maybe.”
“Who is—?” Tremaine started, but he cut himself off with a shake of the head. “Like you said, another time.” As Paula was getting up from the chair, he said, “You still have my card?” When she nodded, Tremaine smiled. “Do what you have to do. I hope things work out.” He paused. “And I’d like to see you again.”
“Could be.” Paula picked up her jacket and punched her arms through the sleeves. A strange thought flashed through her mind: Sheela would be glad to see her bailing on Tremaine. She turned to Amy. “Let’s go.” With one final glance at Tremaine, she said, “Bye and thanks for the beer,” then she and Amy headed for the street.
Amy’s scoot was half a block up from the club, plugged into a charger, and a teenage boy was squatting beside it, yowling. He’d tried to take the scoot, or rip something off it, and got juiced. Amy chuckled, then yelled “Asshole!” at the kid. “Leave my bike the fuck alone!”
The kid scrambled away, still howling, while people around them laughed. Amy de-commed the defense system, unlocked the two helmets and handed one to Paula. Amy climbed on first, then Paula got on behind her. The scoot was small, just big enough for the two of them, but it was jazz. Amy put everything she had into it—time and money and sweat—and it had all the power and cool she could ever want. She punched the scoot to life, the engine humming so quietly Paula wasn’t sure she even heard it; then Amy flicked it into gear and they shot out into traffic.
The scoot was smooth and quick, and Amy maneuvered it gracefully in and out of traffic, shooting narrow gaps between moving and parked vehicles, leapfrogging around cars and vans, even riding the curb once to get past a city bus. Paula hung on tight as they headed for the Tenderloin.
The Saints. God damn, Mixer, what the hell happened? Crazy women living in the Tenderloin who had taken on the names and characteristics of historical saints—St. Lucy, St. Apollonia, St. Christina the Astonishing. The worst of them was a woman who sounded completely insane to Paula, the “head” Saint: St. Katherine. The Saints held periodic “trials” of other men and women, the trials based on what their namesakes had been put through, and St. Katherine’s trials were the worst. Paula didn’t know exactly what was done to the victims, but they emerged from St. Katherine’s trials as complete neurological wrecks, with their language capacities pretty much shot to hell. Those that lived. The survivors of St. Katherine’s trials made the net zombies look functional. Jesus Christ, Mixer; how the hell did you let yourself get taken by her?
The Tenderloin rose before them, growing as Amy weaved through traffic, headed straight for it. Then, as they reached the edge of the district, Amy swung the scoot around and they moved along the perimeter, slower now. A nearly solid wall of buildings loomed ten and twelve stories above them, marking the border of the Tenderloin; the wall of buildings, broken only by hidden, narrow alleys, enclosed something like sixty square blocks of a city within the city. A city that ran full speed through the night, slowing only when the sun rose. Paula had lived here once.
Amy braked, jumped the curb, Paula grabbing her harder; then they crossed the sidewalk and plunged down a flight of concrete steps, the scoot bouncing and jerking its way to basement level. At the bottom of the steps was an opening into a weirdly lit, covered alley. Amy headed the scoot into the dim alley, even slower now, her boots out and brushing the concrete for balance. The alley walls and ceiling were covered with what appeared to be patternless stretches of phosphorescent molds, which gave the alley a shimmering look.
Ahead, a metal gate barred their way, and Amy rolled to a stop. A short, thin man, hardly more than a boy, emerged from a doorway in the alley wall and barked something at them in what Paula thought was Chinese. He held something that might have been a weapon under his arm, though it looked more like a console of some sort.
Amy shook her head. “Don’t speak that shit to me, you little fucker!” Then she shifted into Vietnamese.
The boy answered, still in Chinese, anger in his face. Amy snapped back at him, and finally the boy answered in Vietnamese. The two spoke back and forth for several minutes, the only words intelligible to Paula being “Amy Trinh” and “Paula Asgard.” Finally the boy did something with the console and the gate crackled, a pulsing glow flowing over the metal. Then the boy disappeared back into the doorway.
“Fucking young punks,” Amy said to Paula. “No pride. The Chinks still have the most power inside, and a lot of the young kids coming up want to be just like them. No pride, and no sense of history.” She shook her head.
“Where did he go?”
Amy turned to her, grin visible under her visor. “Kid thinks he’s bad shit, but he’s afraid of making a mistake, let the wrong person through. He doesn’t know me, so he juiced the gate and went to get authorization.”
The kid reappeared, followed by a tall, handsome man with a thin moustache. “Amy,” the tall man said, nodding.
“Hello, General,” Amy replied.
The tall man smiled and shook his head. “Are you in a hurry?”
“Yes.”
“Then this is not the time to talk. Perhaps some other night.”
“Sure, General.”
Still smiling,
the tall man switched to Vietnamese and spoke to Amy for a minute. She responded, after which the man turned to the boy and said a few words. The boy, stiff and silent, fiddled with the console; there was more crackling from the gate, the metal dulled, a click sounded, and the gate swung open. Amy gave the tall man a mock salute, flicked the scoot into gear, and they shot forward.
The alley beyond the gate was more of the same: enclosed, and lit by the pulsing swatches of green and blue. Near the end, as pale gray light began to appear ahead of them, another gate was already open, and they drove through, Paula glimpsing a shadowed form standing back in a wall opening. Then the alley ramped upward, a rectangle of light appeared, and moments later Paula and Amy shot up and into the Tenderloin night.
They emerged in the Asian Quarter. The sky was filled with lights: message streamers swimming through the air in flashing red, three and four stories up; above that a shimmering green, red, and gold dragon undulated, sparks shooting from its eyes, smoke pouring from its nostrils, and advertisements flowing along its body; and high above the dragon, a network of bright white lights and tensor wires webbed across the street, connecting one building to another, pulsing rapidly against the night sky.
The streets and walks of the Asian Quarter were as full of people, vehicles, and movement as the sky was of lights. Amy maneuvered the scoot into the thronging street traffic, a mass of bikes and scoots and carts and riks and vans. They were in the heart of the Asian Quarter, and they had to get out. The Saints were definitely a Western thing; no trace of them would even be allowed here. Paula and Amy would have to make their way to the Euro Quarter.
Paula had lived in the Tenderloin for six years, right where the Asian and Euro Quarters merged together. She had loved the energy, the unrestrained life that flowed through the streets and the air. She had lived here and breathed all of it into her, giving just as much back in her own way—with her music. The days had been for sleeping, the nights for living. An endless cycle of energy. But as she’d grown older, it had become too much for her. When you lived in the Tenderloin, you couldn’t ever get away from it. Paula had come to need times of peace and quiet, relaxation, things she could never get while she lived here. She still loved the Tenderloin, but now only as a visitor.
Their pace was agonizingly slow. Paula craned around Amy’s neck, but didn’t see anything that unusual, just a typical street jam. Then, as they crept forward, she saw it: a pedestrian spillover from the sidewalk, flooding the street. Paula finally spotted the source, Hong Kong Cinema disgorging a huge audience through three doors while a crowd waited to get in for the next showing. The marquee floated in the air directly above the street, rolling the titles in Chinese, English, Vietnamese, and French. Paula hooked onto the only one she could read: Ghost Lover of Station 13. Shit, Paula thought, no wonder.
They slowed even further as they got closer to the theater, now at a lurching crawl. Paula breathed slowly, deeply, trying not to think of what might be happening to Mixer. She let her gaze drift slowly from side to side and behind them. Familiar places, old haunts. Hong Kong Gardens, the cafe next to the theater. Shorty’s Grill across the street, sandwiched between Tommy Wong’s Tattoos and Ngan Dinh Body Electronics. Back half a block, a favorite hangout of Paula’s—Misha’s Donuts and Espresso.
And then, amid the familiar places, Paula spied a familiar face, a woman legging a pedalcart three vehicles behind them. Jenny Woo. Like Boniface, a name Paula had given to Carlucci just a few days earlier. Like Boniface, someone she couldn’t stand.
Paula swung around to face forward again. Another coincidence, like seeing Boniface? After all, Jenny Woo did live here in the Asian Quarter. But still…Boniface was harmless. Jenny Woo wasn’t. Jesus.
They were finally past the Hong Kong Cinema, traffic eased, and their speed picked up a bit. Amy found a break at the next intersection and turned hard left, giving the scoot a blast to shoot through and down the street. Now they were headed straight for the Euro Quarter, only three blocks away.
Paula turned around again, but didn’t see Jenny Woo. There were riks and bikes and a pedalcart behind them, but no one familiar in any of them. Maybe it was another coincidence. Maybe it wasn’t even Jenny she’d seen.
For the next three blocks, Paula kept looking behind them, but never saw Jenny Woo again. Then they were crossing into the Euro Quarter, and Paula turned her attention back to the street in front of her and the shops and sidewalks around them. She couldn’t worry about Jenny Woo. Mixer was more than enough to worry about. And it was Mixer’s face, more than any other, that she wanted to see again.
Amy and Paula gave up just after dawn. As they’d expected, they’d had no luck ferreting out the site of St. Katherine’s trial, they just got further confirmation that it was to take place, or already had, and that Mixer was definitely the “defendant.” So they had spent the last hours of darkness cruising the streets of the Euro Quarter, occasionally venturing a block or two into the other Quarters, searching for a staggering, catatonic wreck. They’d come across an astounding number of candidates, but none of them had been Mixer.
Amy dropped Paula off at her apartment building as the sun was rising, with a promise to return later that afternoon to pick her up for another run through the Tenderloin. They both needed sleep and food, and rest for their burning eyes. Unspoken was what they both knew—the fact that they hadn’t found Mixer within an hour or two of the trial, whenever it had been held, was bad. Real bad. The two most likely possibilities? Scavengers had picked him clean before Paula and Amy could find him. Or he hadn’t even survived the trial. Paula didn’t try to decide which was better.
She climbed the stairs to the third floor, walked down to her apartment, and unlocked the door. She stood in the doorway for a minute, listening. The building was so quiet. This early, most people were either still in bed or just waking up. She stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
The apartment seemed terribly empty. Paula wandered through it, making several circuits of the two rooms until she finally sat on the edge of her bed and stopped. Yes, it was the same place, nothing had changed. Except…
Two weeks ago she’d lost Chick. Now it looked like she’d lost Mixer as well. It was just too much. Paula lay back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. She was tired, so tired. She closed her eyes, and wondered if she would ever get up again.
12
THIS TIME WHEN Mixer came to, he was naked from the waist up and strapped to a large, flat, horizontal wheel, his arms and legs spread-eagled, bound at the elbows and wrists, thighs and ankles. He was on his back, sweating in the stifling heat, his blurred gaze trying to bring the ceiling overhead into focus.
The ceiling seemed very far away, and after several moments Mixer realized it was—twenty, twenty-five feet above him. He found he could move his head, and he raised it, turned it from side to side. The wheel was about three feet off the floor, supported by…what? He couldn’t tell. Though the ceiling was high, the room was smaller than he’d expected, maybe twenty by thirty. At the moment it was empty. There was a door at the other end of the room, but no windows. The walls were covered with prints and paintings and photographs depicting saints and martyrs, some dispensing good works, others being tortured and killed.
How the fuck did I get into this? Mixer wondered. And why St. Katherine? Why not one of the others, like the one who pulled all your teeth out of your head without any anesthetic? Right now he’d take that over having his brain gouged and jittered by St. Katherine’s Wheel.
He let his head fall back on the wheel. He flexed his hands and feet, his arms and legs. Not much give. But his right arm…They’d left the exoskeleton in place. He wondered if there was enough power in the exo to tear out the straps.
Mixer turned his head to the right. His vision was sharp now, and he could see the straps over his right arm and wrist, wrapped tightly over the exo. He didn’t much like what he saw. The straps were made of woven metal strands. What were the chances of ripping
through that, even with the exo? Not good, not fucking good at all.
Mixer rolled his head back, facing the ceiling once again, then closed his eyes. His stomach was fluttering, knotting up on him. Man, oh, man, he was scared. Dying was one thing. This was another. He’d seen a survivor of St. Katherine’s Wheel. The guy had been a mess, like he had perpetual epilepsy—a walking seizure, with two “pilgrims” caring and begging for him like he was a holy man. And that’s where I’m headed, Mixer thought. His one hope was that he’d be so far gone when it was over that he’d have no idea how fucked up he was, and how much he’d lost.
What he could use right now were a few of the neutralizers he’d taken for the wham-wham. Or some kind of drug. Something to freeze him down. Of course, that was part of what got him into trouble at the wham-wham, the neutralizers fucking up his judgment.
Goddamn wham-wham. How long had it been? Hours, or days? Days, he thought. The Saints had kept him doped, he knew that much. Good stuff, though, since he felt pretty clearheaded. He’d come to several times, and he thought he remembered being given food and water, being taken to the can, but it was all pretty vague. He remembered different faces. St. Katherine’s, hers he knew best—long and sharp and, he had to admit, beautiful; if she wasn’t so crazy, and if she wasn’t going to scorch his brain, he could fall in love with a woman who looked like that. There was another woman, older, dressed all in black, with a hard, worn face. And then a third, a woman with the most incredibly beautiful eyes he’d ever seen. Electric blue. Couldn’t have been real, those eyes. St. Lucy.
Mixer opened his own eyes again. How long was he going to be here? The “trial” was going to start soon, he was sure of that. Why else strap him to the wheel?
The straps. Why not try? Nothing, absolutely nothing to lose. Mixer breathed deeply twice, closed his right hand into a fist, then pulled, trying to rip his right arm free. There was no give, and he pulled harder, trying to use his elbow for leverage. He could hear the whine of the exo motors straining, getting nowhere. Sweat dripped down his face, his neck, slid off his arm.
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