Mainline

by Deborah Christian

  The Shirani smuggler leaned against the edge of her desk, arms crossed on chest, clothed in a red work coverall of finer make than any Reva recognized. The battleslash caught her eye again, the unexpected splash of color distracting from that fine-boned face, a countenance that now belonged to a stranger.

  Lish's voice hadn't changed, at least, and the edge to it demanded attention.

  "I've been thinking about our arrangement," she began. "After that business in Rinoco, I've decided we don't need a discussion after all. I'm terminating our contract." She considered something, then added, "You did well enough, on security advice. I'll give you a reference, if you need one. You, too, Fixer." That last an afterthought.

  Reva's lips thinned, one brow arching in unconscious surprise. A reference? As if she did security work for hire? She didn't da inquire about those details, but wanted to know more. Now, what would draw Lish out? Maybe playing off that imperious high-caste attitude....

  "Why no discussion?" Reva demanded. "If you're unhappy with my work, clarify what you expect."

  Lish regarded the assassin coolly. "How often do I have make my expectations clear? You offered to handle security. Fine. You did that. And questioned me in front of my derevin, and tried to take charge of operations. And now—"

  "And now we know Yavobo is after you. This isn't a smart time to send me—to send us packing, Lish."

  Of that much she could be certain, anyway. Yavobo hadtargeted the Holdout both before and after the timeshift in Rinoco Park.

  Lish moved around the desk, answering serenely enough, in defiance of her body language. "I'm leaving when Devin's ready," she said. "I know you think I'm in danger from Adahn's hit man. But I'll be safe as long as I'm on my own turf, surrounded by 'Jammers. The ship will be ready in two days, and then I'm gone."

  "But if—"

  "This discussion is closed."

  Reva regarded the arrogant and overconfident woman across from her. "Played castle-stones lately?" she asked on a sudden impulse. The smuggler looked at her blankly, and Reva shook her head. Her gut was telling her right. This woman wasn't making the right calls. Not like the other Lish, who'd started to smarten up and plan for the unpredictable. This one didn't play the great game of strategy in stones, or in real life.

  She glanced at Vask and caught his eye. There was no reason to stick around here. If Yavobo wanted the Holdout, Reva didn't intend to stay close to this target any longer than necessary.

  Lish busied herself with the desk console, then stood, pulling one plastic chit and then a second out of a slot on the console. Credit chits, withdrawn in that moment from her online account. She handed the money markers to the couple before her. Vask took his from her hand; Reva ignored the proffered card, so the Holdout dropped it in her lap. "Sorry we won't be doing any more business together," she said, her inflection imparting the opposite. "You'll want to clear out your room."

  She nodded toward the wall, and the residence quarters beyond. "I expect you'll be out of here by the end of the day," the Holdout concluded. "After that your names are off the access list. Call my business number if you need a reference." Then she turned her back on them, done with an unpleasant task, and adjusted the position of the sculpture on her desk. Chiming notes rang out as her hand disturbed its sonic wave field.

  It was dismissal, rude and brief.

  Vask looked at Reva and she nodded toward the door. They left without farewells, and the Holdout didn't bother to watch them go.

  * * *

  "What do we do now?" Kastlin hissed as they walked the hallway past Skiffjammers and rooms of shipping supplies.

  "Wait." The single word was all Reva would yield until they came to their room.

  Lish had provided separate but adjoining quarters in that other Line. Now Vask walked into the room that had been his own— then tiptoed right back out again. In it were off-duty Skiffjammers asleep in their bunks. Reva's room, it turned out, lodged them both. Like the apartment, they shared here as well.

  Vask followed her inside and shut the door.

  "What are we going to do?" he asked. "She didn't tell us all that much."

  "No, she didn't." Reva roamed, opening lockers and drawers, seeing what was there to salvage. "Though it would be pretty stupid to ask much more. Of her, or the 'Jammers,"

  "Why not? We might sound forgetful—"

  "We could sound worse than that. We could sound brain-wiped."

  "So?" Vask joined her in the rummage through drawers.

  "If it seems like we don't remember simple things we're supposed to know on a daily basis, like someone's name, or Lish's call code, and we fuck up often enough, they'll think we've been wiped. And that means we might be spying, or turned to the side of whoever wiped us." She shook her head. "It's too dangerous. Better to be ignorant and pass as best you can than to give yourself away by asking too much."

  "Uh-huh." Kastlin took in the logic of that policy, and found he couldn't argue with it. "I still don't like being in the dark like this. There's too much I don't know."

  Reva gave a small snort. "That's right. And you won't, until you have your nose rubbed in it."

  "Meaning—?"

  "Oh, like traffic laws change—you get pulled over for a violation you didn't know was a violation. Only it is, here. Or call codes change." Kastlin ticked that one off in his head. Systems Control, unreachable. "It's the small things trip you up. Believe me. Like asking for a kind of food no one's ever heard of. No one can help you with that."

  "I'd feel better if I could hear some street talk, though," he said. "How the 'Jammers stand, what Lish's reach is on the waterfront. Stuff like that. Things we used to know."

  Reva shrugged. "That couldn't hurt."

  "You know what?" he said. "I don't think there's anything here I care to pack up and drag off with me. Nothing I can't replace, anyway. I'm leaving it."

  "Oh?" Reva turned around, the Sundragon blast tube in her hand. "Look what I found." In this Realtime, the weapon had been left behind in the Lairdome, instead of in Lish's car. She slipped it now up the right inside forearm of her bodysuit. "Sure you don't want to look a little closer? Might be surprised at what you find."

  "Maybe later. I'm going out for a while. See what I can hear."

  Reva continued her search. "It's your party, Fixer. I'll meet you back at the apartment."

  "Right." He raised a hand in a lazy farewell. "See you later," he said, and left the room.

  A once-through of their quarters assured Reva there wasn't much she'd take with her. The holonoveis could stay there to enliven some 'Jammer's off-duty hours. A color-brush—that went into her carrybag, along with some earrings, a splash bottle of perfume, a few items of clothing. She'd pulled the electric blue Lyndir-cut dress off the rack before she realized what it was.

  The dress she'd worn when she confessed to Lish that she'd been hired to kill her.

  In Mainline, it was in a closet at Evriness. She sat on the bed, dress in hand, looking through it and into that other Timeline where it was charged with significance.

  Why was it here, now, at the Lairdome? It was the kind of mystery that hinted at so much more. Had her actions in this Line been different?

  There was simply no way to know. And no safe way to find out.

  Her clenching fingers balled the dress up into her fist, and tears came unbidden to her eyes. It was always like this after such a drastic change.

  I hate this, she thought. The not knowing. The lost connections. I promised myself I'd never come so far—!

  She cut the self-reproach short. There was no help for it. She had had no control over it, not with the Sea Father involved.

  I'll stay out of the damn water from now on, now that I know better.

  She glanced toward the closed door, and imagined the hallway beyond it. Was this it? Just simply walk out of here? It felt wrong to abandon Lish, knowing Yavobo hunted this woman, after she'd spent so much time and energy on keeping the smuggler alive. The Holdout still. l
ooked pretty damn good to her, too, even though she was so high-handed you wanted to smash her face in—

  But the Lish she was drawn to was a different person, in a different place, another time. It wasn't this woman.

  Let it go, Reva. ...

  She sighed and tossed the dress back on the rack. That particular shade of blue she could live without.

  Slinging bag over shoulder, she headed down the hall. Past lounge, past 'Jammer ready room, and out into the warehouse bay. She spent a heartbeat considering a last talk, a good-bye, anything that might bridge the distance between her and Lish—-and gave it up for a bad idea. She turned then, to walk out of the Lairdome, back into the muggy bright R'debh day where she could resume her life in this now-alien place.

  Then she noticed Skiffjammers forming up, blast rifles unslung and at the ready. An officer escorted someone back through the gates and into the warehouse. The officer was Eklun, wearing Captain's flashes. Reva did a double take before the stranger by his side compelled her attention.

  It was a cyborg. The armored body looked like a mecho's, blued-duralloy plating and servos hinted at by streamlined joint housings. The face was human except for cyber-eyes and the skull casing, gleaming blue-silver like a helmet as he passed from sun to shadow.

  She glanced back, and saw that Lish had emerged from her office. If there was danger in meeting the cyborg, she wasn't going to risk dealing with it in the confines of a closed-in room. In the warehouse bay, 'Jammers could maneuver and give her cover. Security bots swiveled slightly, tracking the newcomer through targeting sights, although they remained passive, reassured by the 'Jammer escort and lack of threatening movement.

  Who could this be? Reva wondered. Then she saw the Holdout pull a credit chit from her breast pocket, a gray card with the hint of a holographic validation stamp on its surface. The cyborg reached out one gauntlet-like hand, took the large-denomination bank marker with a movement as smooth as if flesh and blood animated the armored shell.

  "Tell Hajba thanks for his help." Lish's voice carried faintly to where Reva stood, and suddenly the assassin realized what she was witnessing. In that other Mainline, Reva and Vask had agreed to deliver payment to the Scripman's pickup point. In this Line, he'd sent someone to collect: a one-man task force capable of claiming his pound of flesh if necessary.

  Lish had made it, just under the wire, and was in the clear by over 7 million credits. Rich, by anyone's standards.

  The cyborg departed with a half-bow, a strange gesture from a creation neither man nor mech. The derevin escorted him back to the gate and the air car waiting there. Reva felt eyes on the back of her neck then, and turned to see Lish staring at her. Hands on hips, as if to say, there, it's done, it's all taken care of. Rid of the Scripman, and rid of you.

  Reva returned the stare until the Holdout broke off, her slender red-clad figure retreating into her office. Then the assassin left Lairdome 5, out of the gate now devoid of car and cyborg, and went back to the meager haven offered by her north city apartment.

  CXI

  In Mainline, the Ministry of Internal Security had offices in a towerplex near the government center of Amasl. In this Realtime, the whole architecture was subtly off. The place where Security's high-rise should be was now occupied by a small park with a leaping fish pond as its centerpiece.

  Vask swore under his breath.

  Internal Security didn't advertise its presence and wouldn't be listed in a lobby directory. There were eight offices ringing this plaza. Where to start?

  Two hours later—and two more head-pounding recall alarms later—he was inside the third building to the north of the plaza. He found what he wanted at his third stop down from the top floor.

  Instinct cautioned him to come in like an ordinary agent, in the physical, to see and be seen among his peers. So he surrendered thumb- and retina print at the door, offered his field ID code, and was admitted into the Ministry's offices on Selmun III. Obray met him personally in the door to his office and ushered him in. The Commander took a seat behind his desk, and Vask dropped casually into a nearby chair.

  "What in the seven hells is wrong with you?" his superior officer roared immediately.

  "Sir?"

  "You wounded or hurt?"

  Vask blinked in surprise. "No."

  "Then get the hell up on your feet and report, man!"

  Kastlin sat for a heartbeat longer and then shot to his feet. His heart was racing with sudden anxiety.

  Shit. Reva was right about that. It's the little things that trip you up.

  Obray studied him with flint-hard eyes, his dress whites crisp and smooth, his hands resting on the desktop spaced apart just so. He toyed with a writing stylus, the only sign of tension Vask could detect in the man.

  "Well?"

  Kastlin drew himself up. This was a drill from training school, reporting as ordered to the officer of the day. He remembered the drill, but went through the motions like an ill-rehearsed stand-in.

  "Agent Kastlin reporting as ordered, sir. I heard the recall."

  "Took you a damn long time to get here, too. What? Three, four hours? What was the delay?"

  "It wasn't possible to disengage immediately, sir. I was in a meeting with our subject of investigation, Shiran Lish."

  Vask heard himself say the half-lie, and winced inside. As if he'd been with Lish that whole time. That was the first time he'd ever colored the truth in a report. It was one thing to omit irrelevant info and unconfirmed theories—everyone did that, now and then, and he'd held back his share about Reva—but an exaggeration like this was as good as a lie, and lies belonged on the street, not in an official report. Thank the gods Obray was no sensitive or truth-reader.

  "I want a briefing in full, Kastlin. Update me on events since the sweep at Rinoco."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Go on, then. What happened after the borgbeast attack? We lost track of you."

  Vask wondered if the slow marshaling of his thoughts seemed as ponderous to Obray as it did to himself. Probably; the Commander was looking more grim by the moment. He said what he could, then, erring on the side of brevity—no telling what this Obray knew, or how much he himself had held back or volunteered in the past events of this Realtime. Kastlin lied by omission, and wracked himself as he heard a bare-bones narration of events pass his lips. Too bare.

  I can hardly tell him about the ghost-ray and the timeshift, he agonized. Can I? I don't need to muddy the waters with that issue, not until I have it figured out for myself. Stick to the facts for now—where I was, what I did.

  He related how he'd followed Reva and Lish, struggled with Edesz, and later slipped out of Rinoco Park. How it had seemed important to stay with the assassin, who seemed upset over events in the waterpark—an understatement that almost made him laugh with nervous tension. Then the meeting with Lish, ending in Reva's termination, and dismissal of them both from the Holdout's association.

  He made no mention of Yavobo, and hoped that was one tidbit missing from Obray's knowledge base. Kastlin finally wound down and remained at attention, awaiting his commander's response.

  Obray Parnos drew his brows together, looking for some flicker of unease in the Mutate before him, and finding none. He dropped the stylus on the desktop and pushed himself back in his chair. He didn't offer Kastlin a seat as he addressed the agent in clipped, formal tones.

  "I think you've gotten too involved on this assignment, Agent. At the very least, you're out of touch for too long. At worst, you're getting involved with these criminals as if they were real people. I don't like to see you risking your life to save the butt of someone destined for brain-wipe and prison."

  Kastlin said nothing, and kept his eyes on the cloud-smeared sky beyond Obray's window.

  When no response was forthcoming, Obray continued. "The reason I sounded recall is this. I want you well away from Lairdome 5 this afternoon. I'm bringing the Holdout in for questioning, and I don't want you accidentally caught up in the action, if t
here is any."

  Kastlin started. "Questioning, sir?"

  Obray smiled slyly. "A grab-and-dump. Terrorists have given us cause and hearsay evidence. Now we have sufficient reason to pull her in. When we're done, we'll have all her secrets. Then we'll arrest her, and she'll be out of action for good." The Commander seemed proud of himself, as if it were a coup. From his standpoint, it was. Kastlin didn't feel the same.

  "You know her layout there. Sit down with Lieutenant Adari to map it out. I want to know where Skiffjammers can hide, where her security bots are positioned—the usual."

  Kastlin could only nod in silence.

  "Good. Then there's one other loose end I want tied up. This assassin of yours. Bring her in. As soon as Shiran is locked down, we're off this ball of mud and on to bigger and better things. I don't want you wasting your time on some minor bomb fanatic. We'll bring this killer in and let the Grinds take it from there."

  Kastlin offered a salute by way of acknowledgment. It wasn't his habit, and the old Obray would never have expected it, but this—this wasn't the old Obray.

  His superior returned the salute from behind his desk. With long-unpracticed military precision, Kastlin spun about-face and marched stiff-backed from the Commander's office. It was the only way to avoid betraying himself by eye contact or speech.

  Lish's taking down was inevitable; whether this Holdout or the one he knew, he'd seen it coming for a long time. Why, then, did he feel like a traitor, compelled to reveal her security arrangements?

  As for Reva—she was his ticket out of this Timeline.

  There was no way he was turning her in now.

  He let himself back into the apartment, and found Reva engrossed in another holovid. He tapped her shoulder. "Can you stop that?" he asked. "We gotta talk."

  She nodded and pulled the neurogrip from her head. "What's up?"

  He ran a hand through his hair and let a studied look of worry crease his brow. "The bottom line is this. I want to go back. You want to go back, too."

  "What have you got in mind?" she asked. "Made friends with the Sea Father lately?"