Black Glass

by John Shirley

  And the face was looking behind him ...

  Targer turned just in time to see a big man rushing at him, leering—and bringing something metal-bright crashing down on Targer’s gun hand.

  Bones shattered, pain lanced, the gun flew from his grip.

  Targer ground his teeth in pain, stepping back, thinking to use the flashlight as a club—but Benson smashed the fingers of that hand with what Targer saw now was a ball peen hammer. The flashlight was struck from his grip—it went out and the only light came from the projector on the floor behind him. The colors of the big projected face swirling over Benson’s grimacing face; over the random machinery in the background.

  Targer clutched his agonized hands to his middle, and tried to set himself to kick—but there was an oily spot on the concrete and he slipped. He staggered backwards, got his balance, and decided he had to run for it. He turned and bolted, running right at that big face—a face that seemed to be watching raptly, smiling unevenly—and then right through it, through the face, through a blinding wash of light and into pitch darkness ...

  To smack into a metallic barrier: a big metal tank, that boomed echoingly within itself like a bell.

  “Shit fucking son of a bitch–”

  He turned, and saw Benson, stepping through the face—almost as if he were coming out of its giant holographic mouth—and coming at him, ball peen hammer raised.

  Targer tried to run but he was dazed and afraid of running into something else. After a moment Benson caught up with him, and Targer hardly felt the blow, just a sickening thud at the back of his head, and ...

  Nothing else.

  “Is he quite dead, Pup?” the Multisemblant asked.

  “Yes, Destiny,” Pup said. The Multisemblant had started requiring him to call it Destiny, which was obscurely annoying, but Pup didn’t really care.

  Pup was still looking down at Targer’s body but his peripheral vision caught the Multisemblant’s holographic image glowing from the big cone of light. Pup cleared his throat. He was breathing hard, and there was sweat stinging his eyes but he felt strangely good. A mite nauseated, but good.

  “For sure he’s dead,” Pup said. “The back of his head is all stoved in and there’s brains showin’. I don’t see how he could be alive.” He made himself bend over and check Targer’s throat for a pulse. Nothing. Flaccid. No pulse. Dead meat under his fingers, though still warm. He drew his hand hastily back when blood flowed over the tips of his fingers. It was running down Targer’s neck from the cracked skull. “He’s dead alright.”

  “You did have access to a gun. Why the hammer, Pup?” the Multisemblant asked. It didn’t sound disapproving.

  “Dark in here. I’m not that good a shot. Could ricochet with all this metal. Quieter too. And also ...”

  “Also you like to get up close and personal.”

  “I guess.” It surprised Pup, but it seemed to be true. His stomach lurched and he looked away from Targer’s body.

  “That’s ironically similar, analogous to Grist, you know. He’s the same way. You’re developing a taste for killing now, aren’t you, Pup.”

  “Uh ...” He was afraid it might be true.

  “Sure you are. Look.”

  He didn’t want to look, but he didn’t want to defy “Destiny.” So he looked at the Multisemblant; its image was suddenly replaced with an image of him and Targer; his own leering, contorted face, as he raised the ball peen hammer to strike. The Multisemblant had recorded the whole attack and was playing it back for Pup ...

  And he could see the lust to kill right there, in his own face, digitally recorded ... frozen in the air in holographic magnification. . .

  He looked away. “Maybe so.”

  “Don’t imagine that you might give me the slip, the ex, vanishing act, Pup,” said the Multisemblant cheerfully. “I have this recording of the murder—if you try to walk out on me or do anything inappropriate with my hardware, it’ll be sent automatically to the authorities in less time than it takes to blink an eye. There is no way out for you—and I don’t know why you’d want to leave. There’s always the girl you have come to cherish, to adore. The girl that I provide for you. She could become your full-time mistress. There’s the money too—and after you’ve done the other little jobs I have for you, you’ll have much more freedom.”

  “Yuh. So with all that, why’d I ex out on you?” Benson dutifully responded, glancing again at the image of his own murderous face. And again looking away. “I’d better clean up here.”

  “Yes. And as for developing a ‘taste’ for it—all the better. You’ll need that enthusiasm. For what’s to come. Now—we’re going to do something with Targer’s body that will make Grist angry. And that will cause him to act impulsively—and make mistakes. Did you bring the rest of the tools?”

  IT’S ALL SURE TO SHIFT BETWEEN HERE AND THE END OF

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Sykes, Hoffman found, was still alive, that sunny morning. And somewhat responsive.

  Hoffman had to bribe an orderly a surprising amount of WD to get into the hospital room, what with “Bruno” along, but if he got significant information from Sykes it’d be worth it. Perhaps he should have used Lisha instead of Bruno. But when it came to a man in a hospital bed, vulnerable and trembling on the edge of a relapse, fear was more reliable.

  Bruno was a big dark-skinned man, steroid-puffed, in a Raiders football jersey.

  The fat man had lost a little weight, his face sagging, but he was still quite a bed-filling hospital patient; his right hand trembling as he used a remote to click through channels, on the sheet of mediaglass hanging from the ceiling above the foot of his bed. He stopped on a channel showing pretty girls with bare, muscular thighs romping across a football field, performing fantastic dances and gymnastics in honor of the muscle-swollen, steroid-styled, metal-jointed players coming out of the locker room, pumping their fists for the roaring crowd.

  Watching television through drug-slitted eyes, Sykes barely glanced up at Hoffman, perhaps taking him for a doctor.

  But Bruno got his attention—when he snatched the slim little controller from Sykes’ hand.

  “Hey!” Sykes protested weakly. “What ... whatcha ...” His voice trailed off as he took Bruno in. “Who you?”

  Bruno changed the channel, quite decisively, to a Hispanic reality show. “These men are condemned to death!” declared the English subtitles. The show originated in Mexico. “They have one chance—if they fight to the death for charity they get their sentences commuted ... If they lose their nerve, we will see them executed ... for this is, FIGHT OR DIE!”

  “Might be a message there for ya, bud,” said Bruno heavily, his voice rumbling. “You watch that show and talk to Mr... .”

  Bruno glanced at Hoffman, who shook his head.

  “... talk to this gentleman and tell him what he wants to know. Or ... well, no I won’t shove this controller up your ass, not as it is. First ...” He broke the controller in sharp plastic pieces on the bedframe. “First we get it all nice and sharp and jaggy like. Then we shove it up your ass.”

  Sykes stared—then looked at Hoffman. “You’re on the board. I know exactly who you are. So if ... if you ...”

  “Come, Mr. Sykes–” Hoffman said, genially. “We’ll simply arrange for you to bleed to death, internally, while we’re here ... and we’ll say you shoved that thing up your bum on your own,”

  Bruno reached out, his hand hovered over Sykes’ eyes. “I could just push one of them eyes out. That’d still leave him one to wanna, like, preserve, Mr. H. You just say the word ...”

  Sykes made a squeaking sound and flapped his hand toward the button to call the nurse.

  Bruno grabbed Sykes’ hand. Held it fast. “If I crush your hands you won’t be calling for anyone with ’em ...”

  “I ... I’m not ... I won’t ...”

  “Oh do let him go, Bruno,” Hoffman said, smiling gently. “He’ll cooperate. I cannot blame Mr. Sykes. He’s under pressure not t
o talk to anyone—perhaps me in particular. But you’re in a very vulnerable position here, Mr. Sykes. And Bruno here has an amateur’s interest in anatomy. I’ve always wondered, if you were really literally spineless, as Grist suggested you were ...”

  “What? He said that?”

  “Of course he did. Now, if you tell me what I need to know, Grist won’t find out where I got the information—I’ll see he thinks it was from somewhere else, I give you my word. Shall we get on with it? Someone I know told me that Grist had a special project with you ... . and then something went wrong. Do tell us what.”

  He leaned intimately close.

  Sykes licked his lips—and looked at Bruno. Who was toying with the sharp bits of the controller.

  And then Sykes told Hoffman everything he knew.

  Outside, afterwards, in his limo, Hoffman paid Bruno off. “A brilliant performance.”

  Bruno blushed, and looked inordinately pleased—more by the praise than the considerable fee. “Thanks!” His voice was an octave higher now and his whole manner was different. “Man, I’m glad he bought into that character. I couldn’t actually hurt someone.” He looked at a thumbnail watch. “Whoa. Gonna be late for class. We’ve got a brilliant method acting teacher coming in. You know, I’m having a showcase at the theater on Sunset if you’d like to come–”

  “Ah—I may not make it. But I wish you luck. You’re a fine actor. Very convincing. You almost had me concerned for the poor man. A great performance. I’ll drop you off at your acting class.”

  “You have my agent’s number if you need me again, Mr. Hoffman.”

  Eager to be gone from here, Hoffman signaled the limo driver—an actual human driver—and they started down the boulevard. Hoffman was thinking about the Multisemblant.

  And wondering who his real enemy was.

  The sun had brought a heavy, sticky humidity to the city, but the added light was a relief, Grist found, after the gray days of rain and drizzle and murk. He was almost cheerful as he walked up to the lab building, flanked by a stocky, dark bodyguard from Tonga, with swirling facial tattoos—he was a taciturn broad-shouldered man in a running suit named Aho—and Merle Damon, Slakon’s balding, wide-mouthed, thick-bodied East Coast chief of security; always wearing a company security division jumpsuit. Targer seemed to think it was “show-offy” of Damon to wear a uniform, but Grist found it reassuring. Damon was second to Targer, out here to double check perimeters—as he called them—and to act as a failsafe, really, should Targer not cover every hazard possibility. Alert to the new security risks, several loose cannons rolling about on deck now, Damon was carrying a light assault rifle.

  Grist checking his messages as they entered the building where the Multisemblant had been. He was wondering why Targer hadn’t returned his call—there’d just been that one rather distorted audio message on his phone from Targer, asking to meet him here.

  There was a worrying call from Wincolm, in International Accounting. Indications of money being siphoned off. To accounts that were empty by the time you traced them; accounts with fake names and identity codes attached to them. Not quite three quarters of a billion WD so far ...

  They strode down the hallway inside, to the lab—and found that the door to the lab itself was open.

  “Bad security, that door open,” Damon grumbled. “Let me go first, sir.” He stepped ahead of Grist, went through the door, and swore softly to himself.

  Curiosity drew Grist, against his better judgment, into the room after Damon.

  He saw it almost immediately. A human head. No body, just the head. It was propped up on the table. Just in the place the Multisemblant’s own holographic “head” had been. Its staring face so slack and ghastly blue-blotchy it was almost unfamiliar, though Grist knew who it was. The body was nowhere to be seen.

  It was Targer’s severed head. Cut off just below the chin.

  Aho sucked in his breath and said, “Holy fucking shit. Sir. Uh ...” He looked around. “You think they’re still, ya know—here? Whoever did that?”

  Damon shook his head. “Not very likely. Looks like it’s been here half the night. I’m no expert but—that thing ... Not fresh. I can smell it. My God. I had drinks with that man two weeks ago. Targer!”

  “Jesus and Mary!” Aho said. “That is Mr. Targer! I didn’t recognize him ...”

  All this time, Grist was returning the severed head’s stare. Feeling trapped in it. Then he looked away, gagging. “Call ... someone to take it away. Tell the cops. And Damon. You ... . you take Targer’s place out here, now. You’re moving here till I tell you differently ... I don’t have time to look for anyone more qualified—and there probably isn’t anyone. Just ...”

  “Mr. Grist—you don’t have to tell me. This is a challenge to all of us. This is ... I’ll give it my all, Mr. Grist. Aho, you take Mr. Grist out of here, I’ll deal with this. Call a full security escort team to meet you in the hall, just inside the front door—don’t go out till they get here. He’s going to have people all around him, twenty-four/seven. You understand?”

  “Sure ... If I see anyone ...”

  “Then tell me. But you won’t, I expect. We got suspects for this, Mr. Grist?”

  “Maybe. Brief you later. Got to get out of this room ...” He hurried with Aho to the hall, Aho calling for an escort team.

  And maybe that’s what made Grist the maddest, having to hustle from the room like a scared little kid in front of these two professional tough guys.

  Was it Benson—and the Multisemblant? Were they behind this? Was it Candle? Whoever it was ...

  It was going to take a long time, after he found the sons of bitches, to think of a way to punish them that was ... enough.

  A way that took long enough; a way that hurt enough. It was going to call for something exquisitely imaginative. He would take some time and think it over.

  The same sun shone up north of L.A., just outside Clive’s Hive. The air wasn’t so sticky here. Wasn’t so heavy.

  But Candle felt like he was about three miles underground, in a sunless cavern.

  He kept his face impassive, so impassive that Zilia glanced worriedly at him as they walked up to Clive’s front door. For Candle, it was still as if he was walking a tightrope.

  “It wasn’t your fault, Rick,” Zilia said, for the third time in the last twelve hours.

  He nodded. “Sure. I know that.”

  She shook her head. “Yeah right.”

  The door to the immense metal roofed building opened— they’d been under surveillance. Clive looked almost happy to see them. The soft look on his face vanished, though, when he looked at Candle.

  “Everything okay?” Clive looked past them, peering searchingly at the sky. “Anything I should know?”

  “Danny Candle died,” Zilia explained, in a small voice.

  “Oh. Oh yes, I see. Come on in.”

  Inside, Candle and Zilia found the same almost infinite line of humming refurbished junkyard computers—but at the near end there was a new station, where Brinny and Pell Mell and Rina worked at modern computers, the monitors just sheets of nanoglass that responded to the globe controllers and hand passes; but these new controllers were interfaced with the banks of old ones. Brinny glanced up, glowered, shrugged; Pell Mell nodded and went back to work; Rina smiled, stared at Zilia, muttered something, then swore to herself. “Shit, now you make me fuck it up, have to delete that entry ...”

  “It’s already up and running?” Candle asked, a little surprised.

  “Just two hours ago,” Clive said. He gestured dismissively. “I don’t sleep much. I got your semnblant detection ‘ware tested too ... come over here.”

  He led them to an old style computer monitor, with a keyboard. His hands flew over the keys, flicked a mouse, he muttered a voice-activation cue, and a window appeared showing a news-stream. The talking head was Gadgy Goodnell, the tanned, golden-haired news icon—cut from the same mold, Candle supposed, that’d been used for news anchors for generat
ions except that this one was a seamless, modelesque blend of Asian, Hispanic and Causasian. He was nattering smoothly away, alternating looks of solemnity with arch whimsicality.

  “The Sixth Pacific Black Wind cell missed the Hawaiian Islands today by a hundred miles to the north and is trending East but is expected to dissipate ... and sh-sh-shatter. Are they breathing easier in Honolulu! Except maybe for Dolphin Melinda who was arraigned this morning in Honolulu for giving controlled substances to children under the age of sixteen. ‘Just wanted my kids to sleep’, she said—but the jury was wide awake when she came in wearing a transparent halter top.” A shot of Dolphin Melinda in her transparent top outside the courtroom, dodging the little birdlike flying cameras of paparazzi. “The judge said, ‘No, we don’t play dat!’”

  Back to Gadgy who was chuckling and pretending to shuffle papers as he shifted to a report on a fascinating new low-allergen biochip. Zilia snorted and said, “That biochip just happens to be manufactured by the same company that owns this channel. . .”

  Clive chuckled, and said, “Now—I’m gonna apply the semblant identification software to Gadgy here ...”

  Clive clicked and tapped, and the image changed. An outline of Gadgy Goodnell appeared, a kind of digital skeleton of his face and upper body, moving and speaking. “There’s your basic back buffer for this computer animation—very sophisticated polygonic animation, photorealistic in its textural rendering, when we see it optimally; way beyond keyframing ...” Then words appeared on the screen under the digital skeleton:

  SEMBLANT CONFIRMED

  Followed by a blur-fast series of Boolean computations and pseudocode, polygonic imagery and fixities, in a box under the semblant image ... . and a location map. Buildings seen from above. With an arrow pointing to a building.