Jack Four

by Neal Asher

  There it was: love and betrayal.

  ‘You erased him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You erased his backup personality,’ I stated.

  ‘Yes – the personality but not the knowledge, which I thought might be useful.’

  ‘Then you should have known I couldn’t be him.’

  ‘I could never be sure – quantum storage is … complicated.’

  ‘What did you do with the living man?’

  ‘I disposed of him.’

  There was much more she wasn’t telling me, and I should have been surprised by how much she’d now revealed. But I wasn’t. Right from when she’d contacted me aboard Vrasan’s ship she had been more forthcoming than entirely necessary, considering the circumstances. And now I was beginning to understand why.

  ‘But then you made clones from his DNA …’

  ‘Yes, and in one of the clones I embedded what I could recover of the quantum storage, wishing then that I’d not been so hasty in erasing his recorded consciousness. It was a kind of vengeance that went beyond merely disposing of him.’ She looked at me very directly. ‘Only with events proceeding as they have did I realize it could be something else.’

  Now I understood my presence here perfectly. She had loved a man who’d betrayed her, and getting rid of him should have been the end of it. Instead, in extending her vengeance beyond his death, she had created me. At first I’d just been an asset, as she said, but she’d now started to see me as Jack reborn, without the history that made him a Polity agent. I could be Jack the way she wanted him: her lover returned without the training of an agent, or the inconvenient morality of the man. I considered what I’d said to her the last time from down on the planet and knew I couldn’t pretend to be as she wished. This too, apparently, came to her mind.

  ‘You said you don’t like what I do and hoped my negotiations with the prador would fail,’ she said.

  I thought hard and fast. ‘I was dying, and you seemed to have once again used me to locate the prador.’ I knew that wouldn’t be enough. ‘No, I don’t like what you do. I was one of the humans you traded and I saw what happened to the other clones aboard the King’s Ship.’

  ‘And morality?’ she asked.

  ‘Survival, as I’ve learned, is the only one.’

  ‘Convenient.’

  I met her gaze directly, and smiled. ‘You had to have been there. But coring and thralling? I’ve killed to survive and understand that the rules of the game in the Graveyard are not the same as those in the Polity, to which I have no reason or inclination for loyalty.’

  She made a dismissive gesture. ‘Coring and thralling is irrelevant now. That trade is coming to an end with the king cracking down on it. It’ll be about the hooders now.’

  ‘Trading in insentient beasts I have no problem with,’ I said, pretending to be offhand about it all. She’d made a concession to me regarding the previous trade because, I thought, she wanted to believe me. I’d heard the regret in her voice earlier about what she’d done to the original Jack. She was hoping for a second chance but would still be utterly wary and suspicious of me.

  ‘The coring trade is ending,’ she affirmed, staring at her hands like an addict sure to give up her favoured drug. She looked up. ‘It’s a time for new beginnings.’ Her response didn’t seem quite right, but I had to run with it.

  I reached out and took hold of her hand. ‘I hope you mean that.’

  She leaned forwards and I kissed her gently, noting that more than just Jack’s knowledge resided in my mind. It was as if he was there, coldly spectating and approving. I felt attraction to her, but also self-disgust, leavened by the need to survive, which meant, in the end, the need to manipulate her.

  We stood, mouth to mouth, and I tried to pull her in close, but her hands went down to the stick seam of my trousers. I reached in and tugged at her belt and it fell away, slid my hands up inside her top and squeezed her breasts. As I pushed her down to the floor, the passion didn’t feel false. She pulled off her trousers while I shed my clothes and there was no foreplay the first time. I just did what my body directed me, quite urgently, to do. She made little sound, just heavy breathing in my ear as she clung on with rib-crushing strength, then she shuddered and pushed up into my strokes, and I came, feeling the world draining out of me. As I lay there, with her legs wrapped round me, I wondered if, should it be necessary, I’d still be able to kill her.

  13

  We stayed in bed for a time that might have been night or day. My naivety seemed to give credence to her belief that I was different to Jack Zero, and that I’d had a change of heart. Meanwhile, as we talked and I told her of my adventures, I felt again that her need for a new Jack, fitting her own specifications, was making her credulous. Or perhaps I was the credulous one. I wasn’t completely cold and the idea of vengeance, of finally taking the life of someone who had sold me and other clones to the prador, became much more confused and diluted in my mind. Could I still hate her, after this? I knew I couldn’t stay here and be her lover, though. Despite the vulnerability she had revealed to me, I couldn’t forgive the things she had done, nor countenance her selling ancient war machine biomechs to the prador. On a fundamental level I did not, and could not, agree with her moral code. Did this mean I was the old Jack reborn, getting close to her to betray her? No, I was something else, and would find my own way.

  Finally, because of my exhaustion and not hers, the lovemaking came to an end. I fell asleep cuddled up to her, woke briefly as she turned over and thrust her backside against my groin and wriggled it. When I couldn’t respond she said, ‘You need some alterations.’

  I agreed sleepily and drifted off again, then woke with my stomach growling. Food stayed off the menu for a while, though. When we were finally done, she gave me a robe from the wall wardrobe in her messy bedroom. I noted other men’s clothing in there which, I suspected, would fit me exactly.

  ‘I think you’re hungry,’ she said, looking down at me with an expression I can only describe as possessive.

  ‘That would be an understatement.’

  ‘Then we will eat.’ She stepped through a door and a moment later a shower started up. I lay there calculating. Should I follow her in and have sex with her again? Would she expect that with our newly discovered ‘passion’? No, I felt drained and could put that down to not being ‘adjusted’. I lay there examining my feelings and how they’d changed during lovemaking. I knew plenty about sexual bonding and all its hormonal aspects and recognized it in myself. When my body, driven by that old urge to pass on its DNA, wanted sex, I had stopped focusing on the idea of her as my enemy. Now, sexually replete, the thought had come back. I found myself thinking not only about her immoral actions, but also the kind of people she had around her. Like Brack.

  His threat that I’d be ‘his again’ made me wonder if Suzeal often had brief and fiery affairs she didn’t maintain, and which always ended in disappointment if not disaster. I needed to plan my escape, after I’d first ensured my freedom of action. I had to turn myself into a character Suzeal would trust, and be utterly alert to my behaviour. I thought again about joining her in the shower but my refractory period, brief as it was, had yet to pass. I also ached from head to foot, my torso feeling especially sore. Sex, I knew, was not the answer. A physical, animal thing, sex could sit apart from the intellect and I surmised how people could make love passionately while hating each other. I needed to do things and behave in a manner that suggested intellectual acceptance of her morality.

  She returned a moment later, naked and drying herself with a towel. She glanced at me and frowned, slid her fingers between her legs and started playing with herself. I pulled myself wearily from the bed and sat on the edge of it.

  ‘Tempting,’ I said, ‘but I’m merely human. You may also recollect that it’s not been long since Bronodec had me opened up and spread all around his surgery.’

  She took her fingers away. ‘You need that upgrade, and a nanosuite, and s
ome hardware.’ Her hand wandered to the aug behind her ear, then away again as if that wasn’t the right choice. ‘I want you up to speed with me.’

  And so it seemed she already wanted to change me – standard behaviour in any relationship and almost obligatory in a possessive one. Of course my earlier self had known this too. As well as how to manipulate people.

  I went into the shower and washed, dialling up the heat to drive away some of the aches. The tooth-cleaning bot sat in a sanitizer so I used it, noting the spotless cleanliness of the bathroom overall. I put this down to the resident of a hole in the bottom of the wall, who stuck out his sensory head as soon as I stepped to the door. Why she didn’t use cleaning bots in her apartment I couldn’t fathom. Perhaps she didn’t trust them wandering about while she slept.

  ‘The clothing will fit.’ She gestured towards the wardrobe I’d seen her open earlier. I selected new underwear, black jeans, a high-collared white shirt and a combat jacket with numerous pockets – mainly because I might find something in them – as well as high-ankle training shoes with gecko function. Meanwhile, she dressed herself in a tight green bodysuit, white jacket and thigh-length white boots. I saw her watching me cautiously as she picked up a wide belt with a sidearm and other items attached to it, and strapped it on. I pretended nonchalance, but had noted her use a palm-coded lock on the cupboard she took them from. After her story of her encounter with the other Jack, I guessed that it had happened here and that the apartment concealed automatic weapons she doubtless controlled with her aug.

  ‘Let’s go,’ she said with a tight smile.

  We headed out, two guards falling in behind us as we left the apartment. They weren’t the ones who’d brought me here with Brack, and I wondered if she had guards at her apartment door constantly. We entered the dropshaft and dropped down twenty or more floors to step out into the park I’d seen from above.

  ‘There used to be a population of half a million here in the time before the war,’ she told me. ‘Now it’s below a hundred thousand. Many of the original inhabitants went to the Polity during the evacuation, and the population is mostly from the Graveyard now.’

  The green areas consisted of Earth grass, cropped down by dilapidated robot mowers in some places, but in most standing tall and scattered with weeds. Bubble grass grew low elsewhere but had spread across paths of crushed stone. Copses of trees, like those I’d seen below on the planet, had been planted evenly. Some of them had fallen, while others were standing dead. In one area a banyan had taken over and would, given time, occupy the entire park. I saw fountains overgrown with vines and vomiting out small quantities of oily water, broken-down robot gardeners frozen in the midst of some task, steadily being lost under the foliage. Animals lived here too. Groups of rabbits made a better job of keeping the grass down than the mowers and I watched them scatter as a creature like the louse-hunter in the prador ship flowed up out of a hole. Weird red flying monkeys screeched from a tree at a pure white lion squatting patiently below, with some sort of hardware attached to its head.

  ‘Anything dangerous here is controlled.’ She studied me with an expression I couldn’t read, and I could sense she was becoming distant again.

  ‘It all looks a bit rundown,’ I noted.

  ‘Simple economics,’ she replied shortly. ‘With a lower population and income, we can’t afford to keep everything going.’

  ‘That’s a shame.’

  As we crossed the park, she hooked an arm through mine and pointed out animals and plants that had once been part of the zoo. ‘No hooders or droons here, though we do have one siluroyne still in its compound. There are mud snakes too, but no bigger than Earth snakes and not a threat. Some like to believe that a gabbleduck occupies deserted levels of the station too.’

  The far wall came into sight and along its base were various shops, restaurants and cafes. People lounged or worked there but nowhere near enough to fill the number of concerns. Some I could see looked fairly normal, though I could hardly judge. Many wore black and white uniforms like the two guards with me, and others were types I could only describe as ‘mercenary’. They had the look of Brack and those others who’d delivered me to the King’s Ship: armoured or military-looking clothing in a variety of styles, envirosuits too, and all armed. I noticed a mixture amongst them too – some wore black and white or had Strato-GZ decals on their garments, some didn’t. We walked along beside these small businesses and, as we strolled, the SGZ gave salutes – a flat hand against the chest just below the throat – some even standing to salute and bow. I wondered again at Suzeal’s power here, and the strong loyalty and deference she seemed to have engendered in these people. I could only assume she’d established it over a long period.

  * * *

  She brought us finally to a place with circular stone tables out front, surrounded by chairs seemingly made of wrought iron but actually light composite. After bowing and saluting, the guards moved off to stand a short distance away, carefully surveying the crowd. Others looked over at us. I could see them sitting up straighter and wanting to respond in some way, but desisting and returning to their meals, drinks and conversation. A crab drone flew out and hovered over our table but Suzeal dismissed it with a peremptory wave, even as a human waiter hurried out.

  ‘Madam,’ he said, with a bow.

  I noted the metalwork on the back of his neck. The flat object resembled the device I’d torn from my neck all that time ago in the King’s Ship. Suzeal clearly controlled more than animals here. She saw me looking and met my gaze with a blank expression.

  ‘Steak, I think, with the vegetable medley – we need to build you up.’

  I tipped my head and smiled acquiescence.

  ‘Also some sparkle with psychedelic ice,’ she added.

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked.

  ‘A relaxing and liberating drink,’ she informed me.

  I didn’t want it. Sparkle was a strong carbonated wine, while the ice contained a drug that diminished inhibitions more thoroughly than alcohol and could also bring about some lurid hallucinations. I needed to maintain my self-control here, with her. But if I refused it she’d probably suspect the truth behind my refusal.

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ I said.

  I could see she still didn’t trust me at all and wanted to trip me up. So I decided to go on the offensive, and nodded towards the departing waiter.

  ‘I take it some aren’t as well behaved as they should be.’

  ‘You mean?’

  ‘He has a thrall on the back of his neck – or rather some lesser iteration of a prador thrall. He doesn’t look as if he has the virus.’

  She sat back and waved her hands towards a table nearer to the restaurant front. Two of the mercenary types sat there, clutching tankards close and talking low and face to face. ‘Many of the people here aren’t the original inhabitants and haven’t necessarily been inducted into the SGZ. They’re an unruly bunch who have lived most of their lives outside any system of law. It’s necessary to be strict and sometimes harsh to maintain order.’

  ‘What did he do?’ I stabbed a thumb towards the restaurant.

  She tilted her head for a moment, obviously accessing her aug. ‘He assaulted two of the SGZ and both ended up being put back together by Bronodec.’ The statement was a challenge.

  ‘Better than many alternatives, I guess,’ I said, then continued as if dismissing the whole subject from my mind, ‘What is it with that Bronodec? Surely he could apply his skills to himself?’

  The drinks arrived on a floating vendor tray and we took them. In tall flutes, they bubbled steadily, the ice iridescent and packed in right to the bottom. I took a careful sip as she replied, ‘He’s an unusual man. He was born in the Graveyard on a moon colony descending into primitivism. Inbreeding, combined with high radiation due to a failing EMR shield, resulted in him and his brethren. We raided the moon for bodies before we got our cloning facility up and running and found him in charge of their medical tech, where he hel
d his position because of his unusual intelligence and facility with it. I kept him. He’s never said why he prefers to stay as he is.’ It was another challenge and again she was looking for the wrong response.

  ‘What happened to the rest of them?’

  ‘We infected them with the Spatterjay virus and cored and thralled them.’

  And again. I felt my anger rising, and had to quell it. ‘Did you have to offer a discount, if they were as fucked-up as him?’

  She smiled and nodded, taking a gulp of her drink.

  ‘Was he involved in that – the coring and thralling?’

  The drink was obviously already affecting me because I should’ve moved away from that topic to continue speculation on why he’d refused to change.

  ‘Not in our earlier trade, when we stuck wholly with prador technology on virus-infected humans. But he is a very clever and technically adept man. He developed the technology later to produce thralls which could be easily installed on uninfected humans – as you have seen.’ She gestured towards the restaurant. ‘And as you have experienced.’

  ‘He had no objection to it?’ I damned myself as soon as the words were out of my mouth.

  She gazed at me steadily. ‘He had no objection to it. Though he worked on the people of that moon, he was all but a slave there.’

  I wondered if he understood that he’d exchanged one form of slavery for another and saw the benefits of both acquiescence and making himself useful. I only just stopped myself asking that and realized the drink was having the very effect she required of it. Luckily the food arrived soon after, again on two floating trays, the waiter walking out behind them. The trays settled on the table and we took off the plates and cutlery to allow them to shoot away again.