Nightside City

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  He figured it had to be me. I had to be the only person on the dayside who could be calling for help. And besides, even if it wasn't me, refusing to answer a medical emergency call can get a ship's operating license pulled.

  So he found me there, unconscious, half-buried in drifting sand, my skin in sunburnt shreds, blind, with a bad case of radiation poisoning-besides the stuff from the cab I'd walked right across some of the richest unmined ore on the planet.

  He'd picked me up and brought me back to Nightside City and registered me in the city hospital under a false name, and he'd set up a credit account against his assets to pay my bills; then he'd called on 'Chan to see if he knew what the hell I had been doing that got me so close to getting killed.

  'Chan didn't know anything, of course, but he was still interested in seeing me, seeing that I was all right. We still check on each other sometimes. Ever since Dad bought the dream and Mama shipped out, 'Chan and Ali and I had been all the family any of us had. We weren't really close -I think we're all afraid that if we get too close we'll just get burned again-but we stayed in touch, all three of us until Ali left, and then just 'Chan and me. So he came and took a look at me and then went back to his work. He was a croupier at the time-I'm not sure which casino, because he moved around, but it was obviously one of the better ones if it used human croupiers, right?

  Anyway, Mishima had a lot of bucks invested in me, and it wasn't because he actually expected me to pay him back for the eye or anything else-he knew how broke I was. At least, he said he did, but I suspected he'd underestimated it a bit. In any case, he knew I couldn't reimburse him for anything. No, what he said he really wanted was just to know what the hell was going on. He said that was worth more to him than the money.

  I could understand that. I wasn't sure I believed it of him, and I thought he might be gambling on buying a share of a lucrative bit of business, but I could understand his curiosity. Even so, even if it was just curiosity and there wasn't any admixture of greed, I still wasn't too sure I really wanted to tell him everything.

  I said so.

  I thought he'd be pissed at that, after he'd gone and told me that whole story, but he wasn't, or if he was he didn't show it. He was calm and reasonable instead.

  "Look," he said. "You're in trouble, Hsing. Somebody tried to kill you. The only reason they didn't manage it is because I got myself involved. Whoever it was, and whatever you did to them, if they find out you're alive, they'll probably try again. And this time, if you don't tell me what's going on, I won't be there to help."

  "I know that," I said. I tried not to sound defensive.

  "Do you?" He pantomimed spitting in disgust-if he'd really spat the hospital would probably have thrown him out. "Look, I can tell people where you are and leave you to take care of yourself, or if you play along, I can keep my secrets to myself and even get you some guards. My treat-I won't put them on your bill."

  "Generous of you," I said sarcastically.

  He ignored that. "Look, you know, you've impressed me. When you caught that grithead at the Starshine it ticked me off, I admit-I thought you'd been lucky, cutting in ahead of me, and that you'd been poking in where you had no business. It didn't look ethical, where I was already on it. But it was a good piece of work. And you've been surviving out in the burbs on nothing for years, and that must be damn near impossible. And now you've latched onto something big and you can't handle it by yourself."

  "Who says I can't handle it?" I snapped.

  "I say so," he snapped right back. "The guy who found you frying on the dayside. Sure, you'd crawled halfway back, but you weren't going to make it, Hsing, and you know that as well as I do. You were dead if I hadn't found you."

  He paused for a minute, staring at me, and then added, "Hell, most people would have been dead already. You're tough, I'll give you that. Your symbiote died, for chrissake! I've seen them pump healthy symbiotes out of miners dead for a week, but you walked yours to its death and you're still breathing! Damn!" He shook his head in apparent disbelief. Then he took a breath and went on. "You got me off the subject, though. What I was going to say was that I can see where you don't want to tell me everything and then let us go on separately. You'd be worried I'd be screwing you over, and I'd be worried about what you were doing, too. I don't want that. Instead I want to offer you a partnership on this case of yours, whatever it is-the two of us working it together, instead of competing. We split everything even, and we forget about the eye and the medical bills. Hell, if it works out maybe we can keep it going-Mishima and Hsing, Confidential Investigations. How's that sound?"

  "Like a cheap vid entertainment," I said, but I didn't mean it. The truth is that it sounded pretty good. I was tired of trying to do everything on my own all the time, and as Big Jim's partner, I figured, I'd be able to work in the Trap again.

  But then I remembered that unless Nakada's scheme worked, there wouldn't be any work in the Trap in a few years. There wouldn't be any people in the Trap. It would all be in daylight.

  I'd had enough daylight to last me forever. I didn't need any more. I wanted the city to stay on the nightside. The only chance I had of getting that had nothing to do with Mishima; it was up to the Ipsy.

  And I still didn't know why Lee and Orchid and Rigmus had tried to kill me. And I didn't know whether Nakada's stunt had a chance of working.

  And I didn't see any money in the case, no matter what happened. If I went any further with Mishima, I had to let him know that.

  "Hey," I said. "I'll let you in on one secret, anyway. I'll tell you how much my fee is on this job that's nearly gotten me killed and cost you a few dozen kilobucks. Then you can tell me whether that partnership offer is still good, whether you want a piece of the action, or whether you'd rather just dump me back on the dayside."

  "All right," he said, nodding. "I'll log on. What's the fee?"

  "Two hundred and five credits. Flat fee, no expenses, no contingencies." I kept my face deadpan.

  He stared for a minute, then slowly grinned at me. "Charity work, Hsing? For those squatters? Is that what all that crap about rent collectors was about?"

  "You got it," I said.

  "Squatters? God, Hsing, you almost got killed for a bunch of squatters?" The grin broadened.

  "Hey," I said. "Out in the burbs I take what I can get." I grinned back.

  His grin grew wider, and then he chuckled, and then he burst out laughing, leaning back, roaring with laughter, so that the chair had to struggle and squirm to keep him from falling.

  I was glad to see that. I was pleased that he was taking it that way, as something to laugh at. After all, it was costing him one hell of a lot of money, for the eye and the rescue and the medical bills.

  So I was glad he was laughing, instead of threatening to take it all out of me somehow.

  For myself, I didn't laugh. Oh, I saw the humor in it, certainly, but I was a little too close to laugh at it. It wasn't just money for me; somebody had tried to kill me. I was lying there in a hospital, up to my bald little head in debt, and I could see the humor, but I wasn't ready to laugh at anything yet.

  "Oh, Hsing," he said. "I'm going to enjoy working with you-if it doesn't bankrupt me!"

  I grinned, then managed to laugh with him a little after all, and it was at least partly genuine.

  Part of it was relief at Mishima's reaction. Part of it was something more.

  I thought I would enjoy working with him, too. I'd worked alone long enough.

  I might live longer with a backup.

  Chapter Seventeen

  WE LAUGHED AND BANTERED FOR A WHILE, BUT eventually we got back to business. He still wanted to know what the case was, and how the hell a two-hundred-buck job had got me stranded on the dayside.

  "Someone was trying to collect rent from all the squatters in the West End," I told him. "They wanted me to stop it, keep them from being evicted."

  "So?" he said. "That's a simple shakedown. You call the cops, they take care of it.
If they don't, you hire muscle. Hsing, you aren't muscle. You're tough, I won't argue that, but you're small, and up until now you worked alone. Muscle can't work alone; a bullet or a needle can kill anybody. So why'd they come to you?"

  "First off," I said, "they did call the cops, more or less. They called the city, anyway. The rent collectors were legit; they really were working for the new owners."

  Mishima blinked at me. "What new owners?" he demanded. "Dawn's coming, Hsing; who'd be buying?"

  "That," I said, "is what the squatters hired me to find out. And no, they didn't try hiring muscle; they couldn't afford it. Not when the collectors looked legal. They might have had to take on the cops. Besides, I was a lot cheaper."

  He stared at me for a moment. "All right," he said. "So that was the job? Find out who the new owners are?"

  "Find out, and stop them from charging rents or evicting the squatters," I explained.

  "All right, then," he said. "What did you find out?"

  "I found out that somebody-one person, using fifteen names-had bought up most of the West End. Listen, Mishima, are you sure you want in on this?"

  "Yeah, of course I'm sure," he said. "Who was it?"

  "Don't be so sure, damn it," I told him. "Remember, this is the case that got me dumped on the day side."

  "I hadn't forgotten that, Hsing. I can take care of myself. Now, who the hell was it?"

  I hated telling him. It was like giving up a piece of myself. I owed him, though, and I had to tell him.

  "Sayuri Nakada," I said.

  He blinked again. "No shit," he said, staring at me. "Nakada's buying the West End?"

  I nodded.

  "Why?" he asked.

  I called to a service module in the back wall for a drink of water, which slid out on a floater. I sipped that down slowly before I answered.

  "That's where it gets tricky," I said. "I found an answer, but it may not be right, and it gets messy from here on. I don't know everything I'd like to."

  "Go on," he said.

  I was past the worst part, giving up Nakada's name. The rest wasn't that much. "Nakada has hired a bunch of the brains-the human ones-at the Ipsy to stop Nightside City from crossing onto the day side. She really thinks they can do it."

  He considered that. "She does?" he asked.

  "Yes, she does," I said.

  "Can they?" he asked.

  "I don't know," I said truthfully. "Probably not. I'll get to that."

  He nodded. "Go on."

  I went on. "Apparently, Paulie Orchid got her together with them-you know him?"

  Mishima nodded again. "I've heard of him."

  "I don't know whose idea it was originally, whether it was Nakada or Orchid or this person Lee at the Ipsy who came up with the whole thing. I hadn't gotten that far. I had talked to Nakada, and gotten the story from her, that the crew at the Ipsy was going to set off a fusion charge that would stop Epimetheus right where it is, before it rotated the city past the terminator. She'd have bought up as much of the city as possible, at cheap dawn's-coming prices, and would be running smooth after the bang, when dawn isn't coming anymore and land values head for high orbit. Simple enough, right?"

  Mishima didn't answer. I went on. "Then I went over to the Ipsy to get some details, because the way Nakada told it, with just one big fusion charge, it not only wouldn't work, it obviously wouldn't work, so obviously that nobody but an idiot like Sayuri Nakada could take it seriously. If they tried it the way she described it, they'd probably wreck the whole city, and without even slowing down the sunrise. I figured Nakada had it wrong. But the people at the Ipsy wouldn't talk to me. I don't mean they took convincing, or that they were hostile; I mean they wouldn't talk, they wouldn't even tell me why they wouldn't talk. I mean, even when I waved a gun around and acted dangerous, they said nothing, absolutely nothing. So after I got tired of the silent treatment I threatened to put everything I knew on the nets, which I figured would crash their whole system, or at the very least cut Nakada's profits, but they were still not talking, which seemed crazy. Finally, I got an agreement that they'd talk it over and get back to me in two hours-but instead they horsed me with a neural interrupt, and Orchid and his buddy Bobo Rigmus paid me that little visit you saw." I shrugged. "And that's it."

  Mishima considered that for a long minute. "Either I missed something, or that's just crazy," he said. "Why'd they try to kill you? Hell, why didn't they just tell you what you wanted to know? Didn't they try and buy you off first, or anything?"

  "Nope." I shook my head emphatically. "Never offered me a buck."

  "But that's haywire!"

  "I know it is," I said.

  Mishima sat back to think matters over. I lay back to let him. I was tired; I might be healed, but that didn't mean I was healthy. I was horribly aware of the absence of my symbiote; without it, I could catch diseases, I could be seriously injured in stupid little accidents, I'd take weeks to heal up if I damaged myself. And I didn't have much of a reserve of strength of my own anymore.

  I closed my eyes and rested for a moment. Then Mishima cleared his throat, and I looked up at him again.

  "So you blew my spy-eye down to keep me from seeing you talk to Nakada?" he asked.

  I nodded. I hadn't mentioned that, but he was smart enough to work it out for himself. It didn't seem important.

  "I don't know about that, Hsing. I mean, yeah, you were probably smart to try and keep me from finding out Nakada was involved, but shooting the eye just got me mad."

  I shrugged. "I had a point to make. I don't take kindly to that sort of harassment."

  "Yeah," he said slowly. "Yeah, I can see that. Okay. I still don't like it, but I see your point." He went on considering my story, and I rested a little more.

  "So why were you after all the details of Nakada's little scheme?" he asked. "I mean, all that stuff at the Ipsy- what did that have to do with the squatters' rents?"

  "Nothing," I said, opening my eyes. "But if somebody's going to wreck the city, I want to know about it." It struck me that he was worrying about all the wrong details. I'd gotten beyond worrying about the squatters; I was only concerned with whether Doc Lee and his buddies were going to crash the whole city.

  "The city's doomed anyway," Mishima pointed out.

  "Yeah," I said, getting a little annoyed. "But if I'm still here when they wreck it, I could get killed."

  "True enough." He settled back to think some more.

  I was doing a little thinking of my own, and I thought I had an idea. I was remembering some of what I'd been thinking back in my office when I got horsed, and again on the dayside. I thought I saw why they might have done what they did-the silent treatment and the attempted disappearance both. If I was right, it would be a relief in some ways, but a bit anticlimactic.

  Mishima interrupted my chain of thought. "Hsing," he said. "It seems to me that you've got a big edge on them now. They tried to kill you. That's illegal."

  The illegality of attempted murder was not exactly hot news to me, and I was not impressed. "So?" I said.

  "So you can get Orchid and Rigmus put in for reconstruction. We've got your testimony, we've got my tapes from the sky-eye, and there's got to be other evidence. Charge them with attempted murder. I'll back you up."

  "Yeah," I said. "But where does that get us? It may keep them from trying again, but I'm not even sure of that; I think it might be Doc Lee who's running the whole program. And while I can see how revenge might be fun, I hadn't figured you'd care about it. Are you developing a civic consciousness or something, trying to get criminals off the streets?"

  "Hey, no, don't you see?" he said. "It gives you leverage. You've got a hold on them. Maybe you can pry what you want out of them with it."

  I couldn't see using the attempted murder as a bargaining chip until I knew just what the hell was going on. Yes, it ought to work, but then, I had thought that threatening to put everything on the nets should have worked, too. "And maybe I can't," I said. "Or maybe I
don't want to. Look, Mishima, I appreciate what you've done for me, and I can definitely see working for you-"

  "With me," he interrupted, and I accepted the correction.

  "With you, then. I can see that. But not on this case. We're going at it from different angles, and I can't work your way on it. It's too important. You seem to keep missing what I consider the real central issue here. You ask about the squatters, and you suggest getting Orchid and Rigtnus put away, and ordinarily, that would be fine- you're protecting the client, concerned with my safety, and on most cases that would be great, but on this one my priorities are a little different. My first priority is the future of Nightside City. That's more important than squatters are, or than I am. If the city's destroyed, we're all dead anyway. Who cares about the rents in the West End if there's no West End?"

  He considered that for a minute. "I see your point, I guess, but I'm not used to thinking in those terms. Just what is it you think these people are planning? I know you said something about a fusion charge, but I didn't follow that. When you said they might wreck the city, I thought you were talking about bankrupting it, or knocking down buildings after it's evacuated."

  I shook my head. "No, that's not it at all. Nakada says that they intend to secretly rig and set off a fusion charge big enough to halt the planet's rotation, before the sun rises. Before the sun rises means no evacuation. That means there will still be people in the city. And a fusion charge big enough to do the job is enough to do one hell of a lot of damage if something goes wrong, and I don't see how a scheme that simple could go right. Look, if there were any economically sound way of saving the city, don't you think the casinos would be trying it? They've talked about it for years now, but they've never come up with anything. You think Sayuri Nakada and Paulie Orchid are smarter than the best the casinos can do?"

  "The casinos weren't figuring on buying the whole city up cheap beforehand," he pointed out.

  "Doesn't matter," I said. "If it can make Nakada rich, it could have let a consortium break even, at the very least."