He tried to cover the hurt expression. “Sure. I’m on for the whole night.”
“I’ll remember.”
The message he’d sent bothered her. She still didn’t have the skill to decrypt it with her inserts, and she wasn’t carrying a handheld array, so she couldn’t work on it. For a moment she toyed with scanning him thoroughly just to see what kind of inserts he was carrying. Of course, if there was any serious wetwiring he’d detect the scan.
Why should he be wetwired? Heavens, I’m getting paranoid. So why don’t I scan him?
Dorian was back at the bar, smiling with his group of friends. Probably getting teased for getting the brush-off.
The tributary grew narrower, branching several times on both sides. Trees began to arch over the water, the tallest ones touching above midstream, their twigs starting to interlace. Cypress Island sailed on through a tunnel of coronal splendor.
Mellanie went down to the restaurant deck and helped herself to the buffet bar. It was dim inside, allowing the eaters to gaze out at the jungle. Her ticket didn’t qualify her for a table by the transparent walls, so she took her plate back up to the top deck, and sat on a bench in front of the bar, watching the intricate lacework of branches above the river. Some of the trees had a luminescence that verged toward ultraviolet, making her white top shine.
She stared down at the wool for a minute, not really registering what she was seeing. “Oh, sod it!” she muttered. Her platinum and purple virtual hand touched the SI’s icon.
“Hello, Mellanie.”
“There’s somebody on board I’m worried about. I need a message decrypted.”
“Very well.”
She’d been expecting to argue her case. The agreement caught her by surprise. She opened the file for the SI.
“Roughly translated, he said: Identity confirmed. It’s her.”
“Oh, God,” she gasped. Alessandra’s goons have caught up with me! She hunted around in a semipanic, but Dorian was nowhere to be seen on the top deck.
“Do you have any weapons with you?” the SI asked.
“No. What about your inserts? Is there anything that I can use to fight him off?”
“Not with any certainty. I might be able to load kaos software into his wetwiring, assuming he has some. Shall I alert the Tridelta police? They can have a helicopter with you in minutes.”
She glanced up at the radiant arch of light they were sailing under. “How would they get down to us?”
Her link with the unisphere ended.
Damnit! Not now. She sent a scrutineer package into the nearest onboard array to check what the problem was. The network management routines reported that the node was no longer drawing power; it had been damaged physically.
OUR CYBERSPHERE NODE IS SUFFERING A TEMPORARY FAULT, the bridge array sent on a general broadcast. PLEASE DO NOT BE ALARMED. A NEW CONNECTION WILL BE ESTABLISHED SOON. THE COMPANY MANAGEMENT WOULD LIKE TO APOLOGIZE FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE IN THE MEANTIME.
Mellanie started shaking as the text ran down her virtual vision. “Come back to me,” she whispered into the fluorescent night. “Come on, you got through to Randtown.” Some awful inner voice was saying that Randtown had never been this isolated from the planetary cybersphere; it had landlines, a network. This was a lone boat in the middle of a jungle on a planet with only one city.
She clenched her hands, and pressed them against her legs, forcing the shakes to stop. Think! I can’t beat him by myself. Waiting for the police wasn’t a serious option. She didn’t even know if the SI had called them. She brought her stilled hand up to her face, giving her arm a curious look. It’s still in there.
A fast scan around with her inserts revealed one of the boat’s arrays was installed behind the bar. Mellanie rushed over and ducked under the counter-top.
“Hey,” one of the barmen told her. “You can’t come back here.”
She flashed him a distracted smile as she ran her hand along the shelving. Scrabbling fingers found the array, tucked away behind boxes of snacks; it was a small one, used to handle the bar’s finances, but it had an i-spot. She pressed her palm against it. “Just one second,” she told the barman. “We’ll make out later.”
His jaw dropped. He didn’t know if she was joking or not.
Mellanie’s virtual hands activated a host of inserts, and fed in the code. The SIsubroutine decompressed, and flowed through the i-spot into the boat’s tiny net.
“Below optimum processing capacity available,” the SIsubroutine said. “I am operating in abridged mode. Why am I here?”
“I’m being stalked by a killer. He’s probably got weapons wetwiring.” She stood up and checked around again, half expecting Dorian to be coming for her. The barman moved up close. “Are you serious?” he asked in a low murmur.
“Hell yes, but later.” Mellanie backed out of the bar. She winked. “I’ll call you.”
“Suggest you call the police,” the SIsubroutine said.
Her mouth twisted into a groan of frustration. “I can’t. That’s why I decompressed you. I need help.”
“Do you have a weapon?”
“No. Find out if there are any on board.”
“No weapons listed on ship’s manifest.”
“Can you infiltrate kaos software into the killer’s wetwired armaments?”
“No kaos files in my directory.”
“Crap. What do I do?”
“Suggest you leave the ship.”
For a moment she considered it. The tributary wasn’t a problem; she could certainly swim to shore, or take a lifeboat. Then she’d be alone in the jungle. Kilometers from anywhere. Possibly alone in the jungle. If she jumped over the rail people would see her. The captain would stop. Dorian would come after her through the trees.
“Think of something else,” she instructed.
“Review enabled. Available processing capacity will not run comparative escape option routines at optimum level.”
Mellanie was rapidly losing faith in the SIsubroutine. This wasn’t going to be like Armstrong City where it hovered around her like a guardian angel. I need a weapon, something that’ll give me a chance. That same calm she’d had when she dealt with Jaycee had returned, blocking out everything else around her. There actually was one place on board that might have something she could use. She just had to get to it. God alone knew where Dorian would be lurking. He was certainly a class above the kind of street thugs that had been sent after Paul Cramley. A compliment of sorts.
Mellanie walked calmly to the stairs that led belowdeck. Surely he won’t shoot me in public? But there was no telling. Kazimir McFoster had been in the middle of LA Galactic, for heaven’s sake.
“Can you detect any encrypted local communications?” she asked the SIsubroutine.
“No. The captain has ordered an assessment of the onboard net to see why the boat functions have dropped to emergency default mode. The diagnostic software is interfering with my comparative option routines.”
“I might be able to get a weapon. Incorporate that possibility into your review.”
“What kind of weapon?”
“I don’t know. Nothing very powerful.”
“Complying.”
“And keep watching for encrypted traffic. I want to know where he is.”
The restaurant was crammed with passengers having their meal; long queues snaked back across the floor space from the buffet bars. With all her sensor inserts active, Mellanie couldn’t detect any of the power signatures that would indicate active wetwiring. She took the stairs down to the casino deck. There were only a few devout gamblers here; most of the tables were deserted, which wasn’t what she wanted. Warm air gusted up the stairwell from the third deck. Mellanie hurried down to the club. “Give me a floor plan,” she told the SIsubroutine. “Is there any escape route? Can I get to the lifeboats?”
“Canceling comparative escape option analysis.”
Mellanie clenched her teeth in anger. Then the boat’s schematics fli
pped up into her virtual vision.
“Lifeboat access is available on all decks,” the SIsubroutine said.
“Can I launch one without the bridge crew knowing?”
“I can block a launch alert.”
“Great.”
“Resuming comparative escape option analysis.”
At the bottom of the stairs a holographic sign flickered like a faulty strobe telling her that the hermaphrodite dance troupe Death by Orgy would be starting their first performance in twenty minutes. This was definitely what she was looking for. Heavy rock music thumped at her as soon as she went through the screened entrance, loud enough to make her bones vibrate. The club was packed solid and absurdly dim. Holosparks flittered through the air like perverted comets, providing the only flashes of illumination as they circled around the denizens writhing on the minute dance floor. She had to switch her retinal inserts to full light amplification mode to see where she was going.
The club sprang into gray-green focus. Fetish gear was in the majority. Semiorganic costumes offered up strangely modified genitalia as she slithered through the menagerie of bizarreos. Additional limbs were popular, several had infant-sized hands grafted on around the crotch area. Specialist cellular reprofiling had produced a lot of animalisms; furry arms groped at lines of teats, pointed ears twitched as they were licked by serpentine tongues, lustful smiles revealed sharp fangs.
In her white girlie clothes Mellanie felt like some virgin sacrifice on her way to the altar. Everyone looked at her as if they were sharing that thought.
Her inserts were picking up a lot of power sources inside the club, most of them too small for her to use, batteries for kinky toys. She needed the real S&M crowd to have any chance of success.
They were up at the bar, a cluster of large bodies clad in black straps, shiny chains, and hoods. Kaspar Murdo was also there, standing at one end, dressed in Spanish Inquisitor robes, with rusted iron chains around his neck, dangling a variety of medieval instruments.
Mellanie detected the largest power source in the club, her virtual vision locking the position in blue brackets, fortunately at the opposite end of the bar from Murdo. It was a cattle prod, one of many items hanging from the thick leather belt of a bizarreo femfeline. Her head had sleek black fur coming down to her eyebrow line, where her modified glistening red-brown nose jutted forward; long whiskers were rooted at the side of the slit nostrils. She wore a tight sleeveless black leather costume that showed off furry arms and legs. A long tail flicked casually from side to side as she talked to two other cat girls with more restrained modifications and a loosely chained boy slave in a toga with a worried expression on his face.
Mellanie shoved herself in front of the femfeline. “I need to borrow your cattle prod,” she shouted against the pounding rock track.
The femfeline yowled at a volume that rose effortlessly above the music. She brought an arm up and extended her paw fingers in front of Mellanie’s face. The polished onyx claws that had replaced her fingertips clicked out, their points a centimeter from Mellanie’s eyes. “Kitty says lick my litter clean, sweetie bitch.”
Her companions mewled their laughter.
Someone with formidable wetwiring, all of it activated, came through the club’s screened entrance.
“No time,” Mellanie said. She froze. Specks of silver appeared on her arms and face, as if she were sweating mercury. The blooms spread rapidly, obscuring her skin. Software flooded out of her, taking control of the organic circuitry that administered the femfeline’s adaptations.
The femfeline gave a start as her own tail snaked up and wrapped itself around her neck. It tightened. Her claws retracted.
“I’m taking the cattle prod,” Mellanie announced, and snatched it from the belt clip.
The femfeline smiled in excitement. “Yes, mistress, I’ll be a good kitty for you.” Her tongue licked out, a long obscenely flexible cord of wet flesh. “Hurry back.”
Mellanie pushed hard through the packed bodies, creating a wave of commotion. Behind her, Dorian caught it and began to thread his way toward her.
“Can you remove the safety controls on the cattle prod?” she asked the SIsubroutine. “There’s a lot of power in it. If I could use it in one burst it should be lethal.”
“Canceling comparative escape option analysis. Reviewing cattle prod systems.”
Mellanie reached the screened doorway at the side of the stage. “Open it,” she ordered.
The door slid aside. The corridor behind it was lined with small private cabins. She could hear moans, some of pleasure, some of pain. A whip made a loud crack. Someone screamed. There was snarling.
“Cattle prod safety systems bypassed. Battery discharge rate set to unlimited.”
She looked around frantically as the door slid shut behind her. Most of the cabins were occupied. There was a single emergency evacuation hatch at the far end. “How can I hit him with it? He’ll never let me get close.”
“Running comparative remote electrical assault option analysis.”
“Oh, hell.” Mellanie dashed for the escape hatch.
Dorian zapped the door’s lock circuitry with a single burst from the maser embedded in his wrist. A small circle of the tough composite smoldered and blistered. He pushed hard, applying the strength of his boosted musculature. There was a creaking sound, lost in the raucous music. The door popped open. He walked through the screening and into the relative quiet of the corridor. His sensor scans were immediately subject to a barrage of interference. Voices yelped and groaned behind the closed doors on either side. At the far end, Mellanie had got the escape hatch open. She jerked around. Half of her skin was silver, inserts and OCtattoos directing the interference directly at him. He scanned what he could of her with interest. She was doing the same to him. More effectively, he knew, but he could see what he needed to.
“No weapons,” he said. “How curious.”
“I’ve got a message for Alessandra.”
He took a step forward. “What?”
Her inserts transmitted an encrypted signal into the corridor’s small array. The sprinkler system went off above him. Water poured down as the fire alarm sounded.
Dorian gave her a pitying look as the deluge soaked his shirt and pants. “Nobody can hear that.” Beyond the shower, Mellanie smiled.
The cattle prod lying on the floor by Dorian’s feet discharged. The water allowed its full current load to slam into him. His body convulsed, steam fizzing out of his clothes and hair. He arched his back, screaming briefly as his eyes bulged and his tongue protruded. The optical fibers woven into his hair melted. Black lines appeared on his skin when organic circuits burned, sending out thin wisps of smoke to mingle with the steam and water. Flesh ruptured volcanically where his weapons’ power cells were implanted. Blood and gore splattered across the walls.
It took five seconds for the cattle prod battery to exhaust itself. When the current failed, Dorian’s juddering corpse crashed to the floor. The SIsubroutine switched off the corridor’s sprinklers.
Mellanie walked over and peered down at the gently steaming body. The legs spasmed a couple of times.
“I’ll tell her myself,” she said.
Kaspar Murdo was enjoying the evening. It was a good crowd in the Cypress Island’s club. He knew a lot of them, and there were several promising newbies. Everyone said Death by Orgy was hot. He was looking forward to seeing them perform.
Then this vision in a fluffy white top and miniskirt sidled up to the bar barely a couple of meters away and asked for a beer. A first-lifer by the looks of her. She appeared slightly shaky, as if she was shocked by what she was seeing and trying not to show it. That meant she was curious, and not instantly repelled. It was a vulnerability he knew exactly how to take advantage of. He’d be able to encourage her at first, drawing her closer, reassuring her until she trusted him. Then with that trust established he could begin her training.
His bulk allowed him to push easily through the eager a
uthoritarian animalists and bizarreos who were gathering like storm clouds around their oblivious prey. He glared any objectors down, snarling back when he was barked at by a canineman. “This one is on me,” he told her as the girl proffered a one-pound note to the barman. “I insist. That means there can be no argument.”
She nodded with nervous gratitude, glancing at the instruments on the end of his chains. “Thank you.”
“Kaspar,” he said.
“Saskia.”
He grinned in a friendly, paternal fashion, and lifted one of his chains to show off the crude iron and leather device on the end. “Crazy, aren’t they?” he asked in a fashion that invited her to share the joke.
She smiled sheepishly. And Kaspar’s evening became the best in a long, long time.
It was close to midnight local time when the express from Paris slipped into Tridelta’s CST station. Renne was secretly delighted about that: it meant they’d get a look at the jungle. “Get us a riverside hotel as close as you can to the Octavious,” she told Vic Russell.
“Absolutely,” he said enthusiastically.
“The closest and cheapest, Vic.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Aren’t we going straight to the Halgarth team?” Matthew Oldfield asked.
“They can handle the rest of tonight’s shift,” Renne said. “Warren will let me know if there’s any status change.”
“Okay.”
“Gives us a chance to settle in before we see what Bernadette is up to. Don’t you want to see the jungle?”
“Hell, yeah.”
“Right then.” She told her e-butler to call Tarlo. “Where are you?” she asked when he accepted the call.
“Stakeout in a garage on Uraltic Street. A police informant we interviewed earlier said Beard would be here tonight.”
“I hope you’re wearing rubber socks. Those car batteries have a lot of current in them.”
“Very funny. What do you want?”
“I’m at the CST station.”
“In Tridelta?”
“Yeah.”
“Why? Has Hogan sent you as backup?”
“No. I’m following Bernadette Halgarth, Isabella’s mother.”
The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle Page 168