Queen of Angels

by Greg Bear

  He ate and contemplated contrast. His mind went back to Goldsmith like a chained dog circling an iron spike. What to do when you’re the best and you need contrast or else all is gray.

  + Relief through grand melodrama. Was that it.

  The blue figure was smiling; he knew that without seeing it clearly. His daughter. He could not avoid trying to look at the figure directly. It vanished every time.

  1100-11000-11111111111

  (The Examiner, having finished his work on the guilty of ten worlds, suddenly finds on his desk the folders of curriculum vitae for a number of terrestrial greats. He sighs and looks them over one by one. This great human being, by inventing such and such, has destroyed a hundred million; this other, by philosophizing, has misled billions. They are in his charge now, and he is growing increasingly weary.)

  Examiner: “Please, my Father, enough! I have judged the guilty. Why must I judge the best and brightest?” (No answer.) (The Examiner drops the folders on the desk, perhaps resigned.)

  Examiner: (Murmurs) “The least you could do is give me a computer.”

  12

  At six hundred, Mary Choy’s home manager woke her up with a persistent chiming. She ascended from a dream of swimming in the surf off Newport Beach with her mother and sister. “Jesus. What is it?”

  “Supervising Inspector D Reeve.”

  “What time? Morning?”

  “Six hundred, Mary.”

  “Put him on. No vid.” She sat up in bed, lifted her arms over her head and stretched to force blood into her brain. Shook herself vigorously. Threw one leg over the side of the bed. She had been searching the jags until two hundred with no results; none of Goldsmith’s acquaintances had seen sliver of the man.

  “My apologies, Inspector Choy.” Reeve himself seemed exhausted, face dark olive on the incoming vid, eyes hooded.

  “Good morning, sir.”

  “You were involved with the Khamsang Phung Selector kidnapping early this year, were you not?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I have a message in my desk memory that you wanted to be called if we tracked any suspects involved in that case.”

  She stood and shook out her hands, fully awake now. “Yes, sir.”

  “We have a Selector jiltz in a comb. One of the Phung suspects could be there. Do you want to be involved? I can put you on a backup team at the site.”

  No hesitation. “Definitely, sir. I’d like to be there.”

  Reeve gave her the location. Mary dressed quickly, grateful her transform chemistry could let her coast for many hours without sleep.

  Twenty three minutes after leaving her apartment, she stood on the north facing balcony of Canoga Tower, dark slim fingers lightly touching the polished brass railing, overlooking LA from a height of four hundred meters. On instructions from the local CEC, the Comb Environs Commander, she had ascended two thirds of the tower. A tightpacked curtain of air whispered a few inches from her face as she leaned forward, keeping out the cool early morning breezes. To her right dawn smeared gray and watery across the foggy horizon.

  Mary had accepted Reeve’s invitation simply to keep her hand in on Selector investigations. She had removed herself from the Phung case seven months ago; workload deadends and discouragement had forced that decision.

  She did not like these operations; jiltzing Selectors was like dipping into a dark nightmare shared by all society. But if there was a nexus that summed up all problems involving crime, society and public defense, it was the question of Selectors. She could not be an honest pd and refuse the opportunity.

  Waiting for further instructions from the CEC she concentrated on the view, glazing all other thoughts. She had assumed her standby just ten minutes before; she did not even know yet where the jiltz would be. That would be revealed moments before, giving her just enough time to rendezvous with her team section.

  Los Angeles was a glory at night. Mary had read once that only a young civilization wasted its light by throwing it into empty space. Earth’s young cities still did just that, all but the combs dark irregular towers against the general skyglow. Canted mirrors reflected night, their edges lumed by warning beacons and the dim glowing red lines of Meissner junctures. In the jag neighborhoods between the combs, streets blazed forth in orange and blue and homes sprinkled white and blue like earth-bound stars. Older smaller commercial towers contributed checkerboards of afterhours activity between the combs.

  Suborbital jet liners crossed overhead to LAX oceanport with dull booming noises like sea creatures from an inverted deep. Bands of first, second and third neorbit satellites excelled a Milky Way never clear in LA’s haze. Nothing in a city like LA ever stopped; whole communities always awake active doing thinking. She could dytch to that rhythm; she loved the city. LA was her mother and father now, huge and enveloping, all nurturing all employing, healthy and unhealthy, challenging and demanding. Threatening.

  Mary had been on two previous Selector jiltzes. The first had been a farce; no victims or suspects only a brokendown hellcrown stripped for parts in a deserted decaying shade California bungalow. On the second they had found Phung himself locked away in a jag seven three industrial space strapped naked to a filthy cot clamped in a small import (Hispaniolan) hellcrown, his sentence served—two minutes in hell beyond anything conceived by the most perverse theologian.

  Selectors were tro shink careful, very bright nearly all high naturals though twisted this one way: believing themselves to be the purifiers of a sick order. They seldom made major mistakes. Tonight might be crucial; that it came on the heels of the eight murders and a discouraging search was annoying but par.

  Mary pictured Selectors getting Goldsmith doing their job claiming to do her job for her. She turned away from the view. Fully a third of US citizens spot-polled by LitVid supported Selector illegal activity at least tacitly cocktail chatter support uninvolved go with the mob approval or deep bitter eye for eye. Ironic that most of this third were untherapied; Selectors preyed most often on untherapied, they being more likely to commit the sort of crimes that spurred passion for retribution.

  Knock on the door who is it bringing pain what a surprise.

  “Lieutenant Choy,” she heard in her left ear. “Take Aisle La Cienega to level five four, lane Durant, dominium two one. That is a three level outer cavity dwelling. Your first position is west first floor facing arbeiter elevator entrance, joining third team commander Lieutenant R Sampson and Junior Lieutenant T Willow. Probable weapons include flechette and aero pistols. Pd medical will be on scene.”

  Mary specked all her expensive transform being violently rearranged by flechette and prodded by a pd medical asking questions: What is this? Do you wish return to normal anatomy for this trauma? She had never been injured in line of. Precaution; police wisdom quick moves.

  She walked the distance to the meeting point with Sampson and Willow. They stood in plainclothes near an airshaft balcony a hundred yards from her first standby, talking quietly. Mary joined them and they moved ninety degrees around the circular shaft. Warm air from below lifted Mary’s hair. When they stopped Sampson smiled at her; Willow was solemnly nervous.

  “Reeve tells us you’re secondary in this jiltz,” Sampson said quietly.

  “It’s not my primary,” she admitted. “But I’m concerned. I worked with W Taylor and C Chu last year to track the Phung kidnappers.”

  “These could be more important,” Sampson said. “We may have three or four victims. As many as ten Selectors. Maybe even the second in command.”

  “Shlege?” she asked.

  Sampson nodded. “If we’d jiltzed a week earlier, we might have had Yol Origund himself.”

  “Really.”

  Sampson showed her a pd slate with floorplan of the dominium. “Three levels. Very expensive. Owned by A Pierson and F Mustapha, city licensed public lawyers. Both Pierson and Mustapha had connections with the Raphkind campaign staff. Both have been seen in New York by local pd in the last three hours. But
the dominium is occupied.”

  “On loan,” Willow said with a lift of brows, as if it were terribly significant. Mary nodded.

  “It’s probably dirty east,” Sampson said. “But everybody here is local. Nano watchers in the paint have tagged six regulars four occasionals in the last twenty four hours. Victims were not seen being brought in; that was before we tagged this for a jiltz.”

  “Any idea who the victims are?” Mary asked.

  “CEC and Reeve think two petties and two executives. No names. Shlege is big on executive responsibility.”

  “Comb executives?”

  “No,” Willow said. “One is a shade manufacturer. We don’t know what the petties do.”

  “They have aeros and flechettes,” Mary said. She turned to Sampson. “Do we get issue?”

  “This is sensitive territory; only first team has weapons.”

  Mary sniffed with professional disdain. “We’re on nine lives again.”

  Willow glanced between them. He was four months new. Sampson relieved his puzzlement. “The pd doctors tell us they can reassemble a severely damaged body about nine times per individual before some fatal incorrectible snouts up. Nine lives. Like cats.”

  “Ah,” Willow said, showing enlightenment. “Have either of you been…reassembled?” His face fell, seeing Mary’s small grin.

  “Only Mary,” Sampson said. “By choice, not necessity.”

  “Sorry,” Willow said.

  “Nada.”

  “It’s a fine transform,” Willow continued, digging his hole deeper. “Really…Fine.”

  “T Willow comes from a south county christian tech family,” Sampson said by way of explanation.

  “We don’t see transforms often in south county,” Willow said.

  “No apologies necessary,” Mary said. “But being stylish leaves me with only eight lives.” Stylish. On the sly spin.

  Willow thought about that, nodded seriously. “When do we put on our helmets?”

  “Last pico, in final position. We haven’t had a Selector jiltz pd down in three years,” Sampson said. “Let’s hope Origund still thinks we’re brothers under the skin.”

  They all lifted their heads in unison as the jiltz leader’s voice spoke through earphones. They were to set up a listening post and wait for other sections to complete the surround on the dominium’s two lower levels. Court ordered nano watchers and listeners had been sent into the dominium’s sewage and structure; microscopic, extremely efficient and detectable only by the most extraordinary means.

  “We might even get a picture on this one,” Sampson said.

  “Heads up videophiles,” Willow said. All three received instructions to move into the next position.

  They crowded into the arbeiter elevator, stooping to fit. Sampson issued a pd code for control and the elevator took them without protest to their assigned level.

  Located on the comb’s outermost neighborhood the dominium seemed to hover within a sculpted cellular hollow almost thirty meters wide. The dominium’s first level opened onto a shaded greengrowth walkway tinkling waterfalls real birds in ornate brass cages sleeping on perches. The second level was isolated one glass wall pointing through a gap between comb mirrors at a dizzying view of north Los Angeles. The third level connected by a slender unrailed bridge to a private roof atrium designed for access by arbeiter service.

  Next to the unrailed bridge on the third level surrounding the dominium, an arbeiter maintenance alcove offered a hiding place. After unfolding their helmets and slipping them on, they set their slates to scrambled listener frequencies, disguised as machine chatter to evade detection.

  “These folks must be tro platinum,” Willow said wistfully as they hunkered in the alcove. Mary found a clean ledge and sat folding her long legs into a lotus. Willow watched her with frank admiration; curiosity for the new.

  “Corp legal and political jobs,” Sampson said. “Rewards to the puzzle pieces.” Among the pd, “puzzle piece” was pejorative slang for anybody who took advantage of legal lacunae.

  “How can they torture execs or anybody else when they hide in the nooks themselves?” Willow asked.

  “You should read Wolfe Ruller,” Mary said. “If you’re really interested in Selector philosophy.”

  “I suppose I should be.”

  “Something about ‘Social antibodies filling the molecular spaces that might otherwise be used by antisocial offenders,” Sampson said.

  “Why, Robert,” Mary chided. Sampson was sharp but not known for his lit learning.

  Sampson grinned boyishly. “Anything to impress you, M Choy.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “I’ll look up Ruller,” Willow said earnestly. “He’s in the pd library?”

  “He’s probably in your issue copy right now,” Mary said, tapping Willow’s slate where it hung on his belt. “Standard reference for our advanced age.”

  “Feed coming in,” Sampson said. They listened intently. Within the dominium they heard footsteps and muffled conversation. Since they were not controlling the listeners they could not tune to any given room. The voices gradually cleared. Two men talking. Something made a sharp whickering noise: staccato breathing of a victim under a clamp. Mary felt her skin tingle: apprehension, a deeper horror than she had felt looking at the victims of Goldsmith.

  “Have you ever seen a clamp?” Willow asked. “I mean, besides the limited one we’re shown in training—”

  Sampson held his finger to his lips. The voices tuned in with crystal clarity.

  “Watch this one,” an older sounding man said. “Don’t let the wipers set their gain too high. Ramp the dream down at the end of five minutes.”

  “In a smooth place,” said the other, voice high-pitched but not necessarily female.

  Mary glanced at the slate screen; it was on. “Vid,” she said. They simultaneously pulled up their slates and watched the broadcast picture. Far from perfect; nano imaging usually left much to be desired. They could see a small round room probably central in the dominium no windows a single open door, two figures standing. Furniture: three beds or cots a chair a panel or keyboard controller leaning against one chair.

  “Three people on those beds,” Sampson said softly.

  Mary’s stomach knotted. Quiet forms; unmoving. Not dead. Wishing perhaps to be dead.

  “Team one making first level arrangements,” CEC said. Mary wondered where CEC was. First team, probably. She could speck CEC’s anger at having his comb invaded by Selectors. “Team two taking visual positions on second level surround.”

  “Just a few minutes now,” Sampson said. An arbeiter rolled past their position, stopped to survey them placidly with crystalline insect eyes. Willow flashed a pd override at the machine. It did not respond, turned and rolled away from the alcove onto the narrow bridge leading to the dominium’s atrium roof.

  Mary glanced at Sampson wide eyed then jumped out of the alcove and followed the arbeiter across the bridge, ignoring the lack of rails and the twenty meter fall on either side. Behind her Sampson informed the other teams that an arbeiter had refused to submit. She intercepted the machine just before it made the service elevator entrance, grabbed it with both hands and gently lowered it to the rooftop. It did not protest but within the building loud hooting alarms went off.

  Mary stood for a moment beside the prone machine, made her decision quickly walked to the edge to see what was happening and gestured for Willow to join her. He crossed the bridge with arms held out walking tightrope teetering recovering running up beside her. In her ear CEC barked orders to move in now. She looked over the roofs edge and saw five pd running past the waterfalls and bird cages on the first level, two taking up positions blocking exits. Mary caught Sampson’s eye across the chasm and pointed to the service elevator entrance on the roof. Peering out of the alcove Sampson nodded agreement to her plan, obvious to an experienced pd. Should anyone come up through the roof she and Willow would wait behind the service entrance to tackle
them. If they failed Sampson would offer another line of opposition.

  Staccato slamslap of high frequency air hammers against lower doors. Crashing and popping. “First floor jiltz,” the CEC said. “Four officers inside.”

  Mary’s heart flipped. She grabbed Willow’s shoulder and urged him behind the entrance shelter. They squatted on either side of the door. She rearranged her legs to keep them limber and bounced experimentally. Touched her fingers to the shelter. Elevator vibration. Someone coming up.

  “We’ve got seven here on the first and second floors,” the first team leader announced. “Three victims recovered, two under clamp. Call in a therapist.”

  Willow flattened himself against the opposite side of the cylinder. Mary did likewise. The door opened. An arbeiter rolled out eyes swinging. Seeing its prone companion a few meters away, it emitted a squeal.

  Mary grabbed the rim of the door swung around sprawled across the rooftop and reached with her other hand into the entrance grabbing madly for anything she could find. Willow reached around from a standing position. Together they hauled out a shrieking woman with a flechette pistol in hand. Shreds of tumbling metal whined against the roof behind them. Like pulling down a wasp nest. Mary gritted her teeth and pushed two rigid fingers into the woman’s stomach. Willow swung a fist into her face. Blood spattered on Mary’s arm and the woman went down head back into the service elevator, kicking out at Mary. She stood and grabbed the pistol hand deliberately breaking the woman’s wrist and two of the fingers flung the pistol across the rooftop straddled her grabbed her hips and pulled her between her legs out of the elevator. As the woman’s bloody face passed by Mary reached down almost gently pulled back her hair and grabbed her ears.