House of the Sun

by Nigel Findley

  Finally my reflexes kicked into gear, and I got fragging going. Three running steps across the room, then a dive out the window, tucking into a smooth landing roll. Would have worked like a hot damn, too, if it hadn't been for the fragging hibiscus bush just outside the window. A silent tuck-and-roll became a loud rustle-and-crash, but at least the flowering bush absorbed my momentum and gave me a (relatively) soft landing.

  I came up in a crouch and looked around wildly. Nobody coming for me, not yet. I worked the action on the pistol—a brutal-looking Browning automatic of an unfamiliar model—and checked the load. A full clip of fourteen rounds, according to the indicator, and one in the pipe. Feeling like I had a nasty big crosshairs painted on the back of my skull, I moved away from the blown-out window.

  Just in time. Behind me I heard a smash, the sharp ripping of light autofire, then a godawful whump that felt like a troll had just boxed my ears for me. I hit the ground—not entirely my idea, as the pressure wave slammed into me—and out the corner of my eye I saw a dirty-red fireball lick momentarily out the window. On my belly I did the high-low crawl through the foliage as shrapnel, bits of wood, and assorted shreds of tissue spattered down around me. When I was what felt like a reasonable distance from the house, I bellied up and tried to calm myself.

  Okay, just what the frag had happened? Scott had taken down my contact, that's what had happened. And now he was dead.

  He had to be dead, didn't he? When Tokudaiji's samurai tossed a grenade into the library ...

  No, that made no fragging sense at all. For all they knew, their boss-man, the oyabun, might still have been breathing. They wouldn't have fragged the room just in case.

  Which meant bruddah Scott had done it himself, didn't it? Probably a belly-bomb of some kind. A suicide mission. He'd hung back to draw some more of Tokudaiji's troops in, then he'd suicided violently, taking at least some of them with him.

  So why the frag was I still alive?

  Later, I told myself firmly, think about that later. Lord knows, I had enough to worry about at the moment, like getting out of the oyabun's enclave with all my anatomy intact. By now, all of Tokudaiji's samurai would know of the hit. They'd know that two people had gone in, a chauffeur and some pale-skinned reprobate name of Montgomery. They'd be cranked up, and they sure wouldn't be in any mood to accept the excuse, "Hey, chummer, I had nothing to do with it . . ." Thanks, Scott. And thanks to you, too, Jacques Barnard, you fragging slot.

  I had to move, and I had to move fast. It was still less than a minute since the gunshots, and only seconds since the explosion had gutted the library. Tokudaiji's sammies would be operating on instinct and training—both probably well-developed—but things would only get worse when they had a chance to think as well as react. By the time they got their collective drek together, ideally I'd like to be several counties away. Looking around to get my bearings, I took off in the old high-low crawl again, heading directly away from the house through the heart of a large flower bed.

  It wasn't long before I ran out of bushes and had to cover some open ground. About ten meters of open ground, as it turned out, which separated me from some pretty thick-looking jungle. Ideal. A quick look around me, and I burst from cover.

  Which startled the frag out of the Armante-clad guard who was just coming around the corner of my flower bed. He was fast as greased lightning, swinging his submachine gun around to cut me in two. But fear had me so hopped up that I was even faster. Also, the fact that he saw a wild man with rolling eyes and hibiscus twigs in his hair probably set him back for a millisecond or two. I dug in and cut to the right, planning to put my shoulder into his gut. He danced back just in time, so I slammed him in the throat with my forearm.

  My left forearm. The forearm of the boosted-strength cyberlimb that Jacques Barnard had paid to have installed. Trachea and hyoid bone and vertebrae gruntched under the brutal impact of synthskin-clad titanium. The samurai went one way, his SMG went another, and I went a third, hesitating only long enough to put a round from the Browning into his chest just for good measure. At a full run I plunged into the jungle. Behind me I heard the fluttering whop-whop noise of a small helicopter spooling up.

  * * *

  Don't ask me how the frag I got out of there in one piece, chummer, I couldn't tell you. I made it, but I don't think I'll ever fully recall the details. Whole whacks of time, minutes upon minutes, were total blanks for me. I know I crawled through tropical jungle. I know I dodged homicidal guards. I know I eventually climbed a fragging palm tree to jump over a fragging ferrocrete wall. I know I ran through more jungle—how far I ran, I don't know—tearing the crap out of the clothes Scott had supplied me, and coming this close to blowing out an ankle. I know I eventually came to a narrow public road in a residential area where I boosted a car and basically got the frag out of there. But the images—the memories—are disjointed, like scenes in a badly edited simsense—disorienting and confusing.

  I was driving my stolen car, a tiny Chrysler-Nissan Buddy three-wheeler that had seen better days, roughly west when the emotional reaction hit me. I pulled over to the side of the road, killed the electric motor, and got the bubble top open just in time to yarf up my breakfast all over the curb. My right hand was shaking as if I had some kind of palsy; my left would only move in ragged jerks, which was the cyber analog of the same thing. I felt cold and tight all over, as though I'd put on skin that was half a size too small and that had just recently been pulled out of a refrigerator.

  Emotional shell shock, that's what it was, coupled with the very real symptoms of "adrenaline overdose." While it ran its course, I was incapable of feeling anything, fragging near incapable of thinking. If Ekei Tokudaiji with his head split like a melon, had walked up to me, I'd have shaken his fragging hand.

  The shakes and the nausea and the chills went away eventually the way they always do. After ten or fifteen minutes, I was almost back to normal except for the dull, thudding headache and queasy stomach of adrenaline hangover. I'm getting too old for this drek, I told myself. I wasn't a young lion anymore. Frag, I was thirty-five going on thirty-six ... and feeling half a century older than that, at the moment. I was losing the edge. Losing? Frag me, I'd lost it. How long had it taken me, back there in Tokudaiji's library, to register the fact that Scott wasn't going to geek me, too?

  It wasn't entirely age and diminishing capabilities, though, was it? There was more to it than that. I looked down at my left hand and clenched it into a fist again and again.

  It was still with me, wasn't it? The emotional baggage of that duster-frag beneath Fort Lewis, the op that had cost me my arm and Hawk, Rodney, and the others so much more. I was still fragged up by it. My timing was gone, my instincts were . . . well, were they fragged, or was it just that I didn't trust them? I didn't know. When that first gunshot had gone off next to my ear, the emotions that had paralyzed me hadn't been the emotions of the moment—if that makes any sense at all. They'd been loaded with resonances of the emotions of those distant moments when friends had been dying around me and when my left arm had been fried to charcoal. Somehow I'd never really recovered. It was as if I'd lost much more than my arm in Fort Lewis. Part of my self-image, part of my worldview, perhaps . . . part of my soul? It was that loss which hadn't allowed me to put it all behind me and move on.

  I could have done things different, I recognized suddenly. What do people always say when you fall off a motorbike? Get back on the fragging thing right now, get back in the fragging saddle. Had I gotten back in the saddle after my "fall?" Not a frigging chance, omae. I'd slipped the Seattle border and fled on down to the slower pace of Cheyenne. And I'd built myself a rep as the master of minimal exposure. Had I climbed back on that bike? No, chummer, it's as if I'd run from it and never again gone near anything that moved faster than a slow stroll. My choice, and at the time it had seemed the reasonable one. But now I was out of my safe little no-exposure comfort zone, and I'd be paying for that choice.

  I buttoned the C
-N Buddy back up again and pulled back onto the road. I was still too close to the scene of the crime; I had to extend, had to put distance between me and Tokudaiji's samurai. I also had to think things through and decide on my best course of action, but I could think just as well driving as I could staring blindly into space.

  Ten minutes later and I was heading northwest on Route 83, the coastal road that circumnavigates the island. At any other time, I'd have relished the view. Now I hardly even saw it, I had so much on my mind.

  What the frag had gone down back there at the oyabun s compound? What the frag had I gotten myself into?

  Obviously, a conspiracy to geek the oyabun—no prizes for guessing that much. Barnard had used me as a kind of Trojan horse, hadn't he? Used me to penetrate Tokudaiji's security, to draw the yak boss out, to let Scott get close enough to cap him.

  And more than that. Obviously, Barnard—with Yamatetsu's resources behind him—had set up the magical provisions that Scott the hit-ork had needed to do the job. The physical illusion spell or whatever the frag it was, that had let him sneak a fragging Remington Roomsweeper through a tight search. The shattershield spell that he must have used to slam down the magical barrier that an important target like an oyabun would have as a matter of course. A lot of that drek, you could pour the mana into a spell focus or a fetish of some kind, something, say, like the pot-bellied little guy on Scotty's lapel. Scott himself would have to be a mage or a shaman—probably the latter, I figured, following in his mother's footsteps—to trigger it (that's the way I understood it, at least), but he wouldn't have to have much juice of his own.

  So I was the cover, the camouflage under which the assassin got close enough to grease his target. Okay, I could scan that.

  But why didn't Scotty take me down as well?

  That was the sixty-four nuyen question, wasn't it? Frag, if he'd played it right, Scott could—maybe—have walked out of there alive. Grease Tokudaiji and his aide with the Roomsweeper, then cap me with another weapon. Claim that I was the assassin and that he'd been too slow to pulp me before I got my shots off. Sure, it might not have worked. Sure, Tokudaiji's sammies would probably have shot first and questioned the corpses. But it would have given him a chance, even a slim one. As it was, he suicided with a belly-bomb. Why not toss the dice and maybe—just maybe—live another day?

  So why was I still sucking air past my teeth? Good question, chummer, with two possible answers. One, cacking me was part of the job that Scott just didn't feel up to doing. In other words, my winning personality had been enough to convince a corporate hit-ork to default on part of his contract. Yeah, right. Two . ..

  Two, leaving me alive was part of the plan. A live Dirk Montgomery would serve Jacques Barnard's purposes better than a dead Dirk Montgomery.

  Why? Who the frag knew. Maybe Barnard expected me to draw off the yakuza's resources, to lead the yak soldiers on a merry chase while . .. While what? I didn't like the logic behind this train of thought. The way Barnard figured things, leaving me alive would only benefit him. Leaving me on the street with a grudge to settle didn't represent a significant threat to him or to his plans. (Not the most complimentary estimate of my capabilities, neh?) No, the way he figured things, I'd help him . . . without realizing it, of course. And—here was the most disturbing part—for the life of me (literally) I couldn't figure out how ...

  Frag! Just fragging wonderful, better and better, oh boy.

  Now wait, hold it just a tick here, there was something I was missing. Something that just didn't ring true. I slowed down and let the biker who'd been tailgating me on his gyro-stabilized crotch-rocket scream by, flipping me the finger as he passed.

  It was the belly-bomb, wasn't it? That's what was hanging me up. Call me hopelessly naive (I've been called much worse, trust me), but I'd always associated belly-bombs and suicide missions with ideologically driven fanatics—in other words, with slogan-chanting wackos. Not with corporate hard-men. I'd always classed corporate assassins as the cold and logical types, the slots who plan everything down to the minutest detail and won't take a job unless there's a 99.99% chance that they'll walk away from it. Hell, corporators—whether they're managers or killers—are driven by the personal profit motive, aren't they? I've never really thought loyalty unto death was part of the corporate world. You do your job because you're paid for it—paid very well, in many cases—not because you truly believe in what the corp's doing. Who in their right mind would die for the Just and Righteous Cause of Yamatetsu Corporation?

  Yet apparently that's just what Scott did. Where was the profit motive in his actions? It's pretty hard to enjoy the fruits of your labors when a kilo of C12 in your abdominal cavity has splattered your body hither and yon. Was I missing something here? Was there more to Scott's actions than the obvious?

  Or—now here was a nasty little thought—had bruddah Scott even known he was packing a belly-bomb or that it would be detonated when it was? Maybe he hadn't known he was on a suicide mission. Maybe he'd really expected that he'd be fighting his way out .. . possibly with me in tow.

  Yes, now that made a nasty kind of sense. I could easily imagine some Yamatetsu covert op monitoring events—maybe through some kind of bug on Scott's person—waiting for the right moment to press the little red button on the transmitter beside him. Bang goes Scott, taking with him all evidence that could be used to trace the responsible party. (Part of that evidence, of course, was one Dirk Montgomery ...) That could be why Scotty let me go: because he expected that we'd both be getting out of there in one piece. The only reason I was alive to think this through now was that the covert op was asleep at the switch, a few seconds slow on the button.

  Oh joy. Now that made things really tight, didn't it? If my line of reasoning was anywhere near correct, I was a walking, breathing piece of evidence that could connect the oyabun's assassination directly with Jacques Barnard. So now, not only did I have yakuza payback teams to worry about, I also had my theoretical Yamatetsu covert ops looking to tie up the loose ends in their operation. Oh, and just for good measure, toss in the Hawai'i National Police Force as well. Presumably murder is against the law in the Kingdom, and they might have some interest in the matter. Suddenly, I was very popular, wasn't I?

  So what the frag was I supposed to do now? I pulled the C-N Buddy over to the side of the road, and I stared out over the Pacific as despair rolled over me like a dark and cold wave. Where the frag was I supposed to go?

  I was hooped—well and truly hooped.

  Options—let's work through them one at a time. I could go back to the Diamond Head Hotel—null! Suicide, basically. Yamatetsu would be waiting for me there, as would the yaks if they had any brains at all. My only hope of surviving the experience would be if the yaks and the corps were too busy geeking each other to geek me. Not an attractive bet.

  I could hightail it for Awalani Airport and grab a suborbital the frag out of here. Hell, I still had my open corp ticket, didn't I? Sure, I could jump aboard a plane and leave all my grief behind me—null! I knew from experience just how much security surrounded those birds. There was no fragging way in hell that Barnard, or the yaks either, for that matter, wouldn't know I was hopping a plane out. At Awalani, in the middle of the flight, or at whichever airport I chose as my destination, there'd be that gentle tap on the shoulder that's more shocking than a punch in the teeth. I'd be dragged away, and then there'd be the bullet in the back of the head. Or who knows, maybe I'd be turned to stone and get to join the statues I saw in the background during Barnard's telecom call.

  The more I thought about it, the more hooped I was. I hadn't really paid attention when Scotty had told me why there were so few wannabes in the Hawai'i shadows—no running room if things go for drek. Now I was learning from personal experience that he was right, and I didn't like the feeling at all.

  What options did I have? Was there any other way off the islands? Not that I knew about, on the spur of the moment. Was there anywhere I could hole up until t
his all blew over? Not that I knew about, on the spur of the moment. Was there anyone who had contacts and resources that could help me out? Not that I knew about, on the spur ...

  Wait a tick. Maybe there was one. It was a long shot, but when things get desperate "risk amelioration" isn't much of an option.

  "Kia ora!" I practiced as I pulled the Buddy back onto the road, trying to get just the right tone of bellicosity into my voice. "Kia ora!"

  9

  But before I paid my respects to bruddah Te Purewa—ne Mark Harrop—at Cheeseburger in Paradise, there were a couple of other things I needed to take care of. Like, hooking up with any and all resources that might prove useful even if they weren't in the islands.

  That morning, when I'd gotten ready to cruise out to the meet in Scott's limo, I'd debated whether or not to bother bringing my pocket 'puter. Hell, I'd reasoned if I needed communications or data retrieval or whatever, the rig in the back of the Rolls would put my personal 'puter to shame. Out of habit, though—and a sense of cussedness, perhaps—I'd brought the scratched little unit along in my pocket.

  Thank the Spirits for habit and cussedness. At a little village called Kaaawa, I pulled over and used a public phone booth outside a ramshackle grocery/ice-cream/tourist-foo-foo store. First order of biz—after polarizing the transpex so no one could see in—was to disable the vid pickup, which I did in the most efficient way by smacking it a good one with the butt of the Browning I'd inherited. Second was to haul out my trusty 'puter, jack it into the phone's data port, and trigger the sophisticated—and hideously illegal—smoke and mirrors program that my old chummer Quincy (how long since I'd seen that slag?) had once blown into the little unit's EPROM chips. Phone and 'puter clicked and hummed for a few seconds while Quincy's code seduced the LTG system. Finally, with a beep that was the electronic equivalent of, "Take me, stud, but be gentle," the phone succumbed to the 'puter's entreaties and I had the run of a very small corner of the PA/HI RTG.