Paradigm

by Helen Stringer

  “There!” he whispered to Nathan. “That’ll do.”

  “But—”

  Nathan began to protest as a couple of new customers came in through the door, pushed past them and made their way to the bar. He waited until they were out of earshot.

  “But what are you going to use for money?”

  Sam smiled and held up a slim blue stick.

  “What? Where’d you get…?”

  One of the men at the bar was going through his pockets and looking around. His friend slapped him on the back and paid for their drinks.

  “You picked that guy’s pocket?” hissed Nathan. “But you can’t…I mean, they’re linked to the owner’s subcut—you won’t be able to use it!”

  “I won’t have to use it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ll win. Then I can use cash and we can give the nice man his stick back. No one will be the wiser.”

  “What d’you mean, you’ll win? You can’t know that!”

  Sam handed Nathan the box.

  “Watch and learn.”

  Nathan hung back by the door as Sam strode confidently through the crowds of people and up to the table. He wasn’t actually as confident as he’d tried to sound—it had been years since he’d done this and while he nearly always won, it tended to irritate the other players. The best plan was to go in, play a couple of high-stakes hands and leave before anyone noticed that the laws of probability were being shattered before their eyes.

  “Hi,” he said, cheerily. “Space for another?”

  The people at the table looked him up and down, then a grizzled man with his back to the wall nodded once. Sam sat down and pulled his chair in. No sooner had he done so than it started again—the sibilant sounds of whispering and the piercing headache. He took out his pillbox and threw another green pill into his mouth with a shaking hand. When he looked up everyone was staring. The grizzled man didn’t seem pleased, but a few of the others smirked at each other. Obviously the kid was going to be an easy mark.

  “You okay now?” growled the grizzled man.

  “Yes, thanks.” Sam smiled and leaned forward in a way that he hoped made everyone think he had never done this before.

  “Ante up.”

  The grizzled man pushed a small box toward him. There were already three credit sticks inserted so he added his newly acquired blue one and pushed it back. The grizzled man perched a pair of impossibly small wire spectacles onto the end of his nose and peered at the tiny screen.

  “Jeb,” he read. “Jeb Belloq. That how you pronounce that?”

  “Yep.”

  “Now you understand house rules says that we don’t charge your card until you lose a hand. You win a hand, you’re free to take your stick back and play on with cash. Right?”

  Sam nodded. It was the same everywhere. Most people didn’t want their gambling history all over the net and wouldn’t even sit down if they thought they’d only be able to use a credit card. Plenty of people had been booted into the outlands for less, particularly in the more self-righteous cities. Of course, once they did sit down and play a hand, they were usually there for the night.

  The grizzled man loaded the cards into the randomizer with a careless familiarity that Sam guessed meant the machine was his, then placed it in the middle of the table and hit the button on the top. There was a brief pause before the machine suddenly sprang to life, spinning and spitting cards at each of the players.

  For a moment Sam thought that maybe it had gone. That he wouldn’t be able to do it any more, but it turned out that it was just a matter of getting back into the swing and soon he knew every card even before it left the deal chute. He won the first hand easily, retrieved the credit stick, and continued to play with the much-sought after Century City Primos, deliberately losing the second hand (no point being too good) then winning the next two. By this time a few of the players were beginning to look unhappy so Sam lost another hand and called Nathan over under the pretence of asking him to get a drink.

  “Here,” he whispered, handing him a wad of cash. “Bring me a drink and tell the guy what you found on the floor.”

  Nathan looked confused but quickly caught on when he felt the credit stick in between the paper notes. Sam watched him make his way to the bar and tap the stick owner on the shoulder. At first the guy looked hostile, but Nathan was all wide-eyed innocence, pointing towards the floor near the door and gesticulating wildly. Eventually the guy nodded, then smiled and took the card back. The next time Sam glanced over, he had his arm around Nathan and seemed to be insisting on buying him a drink.

  “This should be interesting…”

  “What?” said the woman to his left.

  “Sorry. Just looking at my friend, there. He told me he doesn’t drink alcohol.”

  The woman looked over to the bar, where Nathan knocked back his drink and was quickly encouraged to have another.

  “Well, he was lying. Are we playing or not?”

  Sam nodded and threw some notes into the pot. If Nathan was going to get drunk, it would probably be best to get out of there sooner rather than later. Nathan tended to be a bit blunt when he was stone cold sober, Sam shuddered to think what he’d be like once he had a few in him.

  The grizzled man dealt once more, but just as Sam picked up his cards there was a loud bang and silence briefly fell as everyone turned to look at the source of the noise. It was the door, which had opened and closed with barely a sound all evening, but this time the person coming in wanted to make an impression.

  He needn’t have bothered slamming the door. Sam was reasonably sure that this guy made an impression wherever he went. He was tall, taller than Sam, and much bigger, a fact that was made even more obvious by the patchwork of leather and body armor that comprised his clothing. The man was pretty much patchwork too, covered in scars, with what looked like a titanium arm as well as an imager where his right eye ought to have been. The imager looked like it had been tweaked and improved over many years and bit into the flesh around his eye socket like an invasive disease.

  The man walked towards the bar and Sam felt himself tense up. But he strode right past Nathan and the box and was greeted by three only slightly less scary looking companions. All the men were armed to the teeth and, in spite of a notice behind the bar pointing out that weapons were to be surrendered while drinking, no one suggested that they hand over their not inconsiderable arsenals to the bartender.

  Sam turned back to the game, just in time to see the grizzled man quickly switch out some of his cards. So that was why he used the randomizer—he had a duplicate deck. It was a bit risky, though. The duplicates would get soiled and used-looking, whereas the ones from the machine always looked new. Plus, he’d have to switch them back at the end of the hand. Sam doubted it could really be worth it. It would only be worth the risk once a night at most, and you’d have to make sure the pot was big enough. The grizzled man glanced at Sam with that mixture of shame and aggression that almost always comes when people are caught doing something they know they shouldn’t.

  Sam just smiled as if he hadn’t noticed anything.

  “Who’s the robot?” he asked.

  “His name’s Setzen,” growled the grizzled man. “He works for that Bast woman.”

  “Bast woman?”

  “Carolyn Bast,” said the woman to his left, turning back to the game and picking up her cards. “She runs that company. Deth. Practically runs the city. Don’t know how she gets away with it.”

  “Death?” said Sam, grinning. “You’re joking. She actually has a company called Death?”

  “Devastation Engineering and Tactical Havoc,” explained a small skinny man on the opposite side of the table.

  “Inc.,” added the grizzled man.

  “Apparently,” the woman leaned forward, her voice suddenly conspiratorial, “Someone got into their offices today—”

  “Offices!” snorted a one-armed man on Sam’s right. “More like a fortress!”

&
nbsp; “—and stole something.”

  “Must’ve had a death wish,” said the skinny man.

  “That’s the thing, though,” continued the woman. “They killed him. Over by the old town. Killed him dead. But he didn’t have it any more.”

  “Have what?” asked Sam, all wide eyed innocence.

  “The thing. Whatever it was he stole. And I gotta tell you, whatever it is she wants it back real bad. She’s got troops tearing through the whole city, even right by City Hall. Like the mayor was nobody.”

  “The mayor is nobody,” said the one-armed man.

  “Yeah, well, if they don’t find it today, they’ll find it tomorrow,” said the grizzled man. “This town’s too small for secrets. And when they do, whoever’s got it ain’t going to be long for this world at all. I was talking to Anton earlier. He works for her too, and he said she’s got herself some stone cold killer. Some kind of assassin. Arrived today.”

  “An assassin?” said the woman. “What for?”

  “Killing people, of course! Don’t ask such fool questions.”

  “It ain’t a fool question. Seems to me she’s got nothing but stone cold killers on the payroll.”

  “Yeah, well. Seems this one’s different. Doesn’t do no soldiering. Just killing.”

  Sam looked from one to the other, then at the men at the bar. This all sounded really bad.

  “Are we playing cards, or what?” he asked, hoping that his voice didn’t betray the fact that he just wanted to win his money, hide until morning, and then get out of town as fast as the old car would go.

  The grizzled man nodded, knocked back his drink and threw some money into the pot. This time Sam didn’t hold anything back. The knowledge that the grizzled man was a cheat was a gift—it meant he expected to win, so he’d let the pot go as high as he could, confident that it would all be his.

  But, of course, it wasn’t. As Sam showed his hand, the grizzled man’s face revealed disbelief, then anger, followed by the realization that he couldn’t do anything, immediately followed by anger again. Sam smiled nicely and gathered up the money.

  “Well, I’d like to thank you people for a really nice evening.”

  “You’re leaving?” spluttered the grizzled man. “You can’t take all our money and not give us a chance to win it back! That ain’t how it’s done, kid.”

  “Sorry. Way past my bed time.”

  He shoved the notes into his pockets and hurried over to the bar where Nathan was having an absolutely marvelous time.

  “Come on,” he said. “Time to go.”

  “Just one more…”

  “Nope.” He scooped up the box.

  “Who is this?” asked the real Jeb Belloq, his too-loud voice betraying his alcohol intake.

  “This is my friend, Sam,” slurred Nathan. “He has a very pretty car.”

  “A car? What kind of a car?”

  “A red one.”

  “Can we go for a ride?”

  “Can we go for a ride, Sam? Jeb would like to go for a—”

  Sam just rolled his eyes, gripped Nathan’s arm and hauled him out of the bar.

  “What did you do that for? Ohhhh…”

  Nathan turned a weird shade of green as soon as the cold night air hit him.

  “I thought you didn’t drink?”

  “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “Great,” muttered Sam. “The perfect end to a perfect day.”

  Chapter 6

  IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL ROOM. Deep cream carpets, really good imitation mahogany furniture and a huge bed the size of a small farm back in the Wilds. At the far end was a gently curving window leading onto a balcony that looked down onto the city twinkling far below…and to the left was a bathroom.

  Sam had only the vaguest memories of sleeping in a bed in an actual bedroom, but his recollection of a fully fitted bathroom was practically non-existent. He imagined that there must have been one in the San Francisco house, but he’d only been five when they’d had to run for the Wilds so he really wasn’t sure what was there. Only that it had been safe. Except that clearly it hadn’t.

  He took off his coat and hung it over the omnipresent Muthascreen and examined the room closely. He’d found five cameras in Nathan’s room when he’d left him there so there had to be at least as many here. He closed his eyes and listened.

  Six. He located each one and carefully smeared soap over each tiny lens.

  Then he had a shower.

  It took an hour. A whole hour of luxuriating in torrents of steaming hot water and foaming masses of actual honest-to-god soap. It was the single most decadent thing he’d ever done and it was fantastic. The heat and the steam penetrated every cell in his body and slowly eased out the tension, leaving him as relaxed as he’d ever been, breathing in the humid bathroom air and emerging into the bedroom, cocooned in the complimentary bathrobe and feeling like a kid again.

  He looked at his clothes, thrown over the back of a velvet wing backed chair. Now that he was clean, they looked even worse, and there was a stain on the left side of his vest where he’d failed to avoid the backsplash the last time Nathan threw up. The idea of putting them back on was kind of revolting. He walked back into the bathroom. There was a box-like thing with a sign that said it cleaned clothes. He’d been reluctant to use it at first, but now he grabbed everything off the back of the chair, opened the door, and flung them in.

  He helped himself to a cold drink out of the freezer and wandered out onto the balcony. The lights of the city reminded him of the stories of the stars. He looked up into the dark night sky and tried to picture it pinpointed with light. It had probably been beautiful.

  Down below, the lights started to go out. First one section of town, then another, then another. The hotel was one of the last. Sam turned and watched as the lights in his room winked out, leaving a single small lamp on the nightstand. He looked back down at the city, where now the only light came from the gas street lights, the misty yellow glow marking out the routes between the buildings and out to the far west where the flare above the oil refinery blazed in the distance.

  Sam watched it, fascinated. So that was where Century City got its wealth—oil. But not enough to keep the electricity running, apparently. He went back inside, closing the window and drawing the curtains. Now he was back in his temporary heaven, his toes sinking deep into the carpet and the warmth from the central heat wrapping itself around him. He clambered into the huge bed and nestled beneath the silk sheets and fine wool blankets, asleep almost as soon as his head hit the corpulent down pillows.

  The pounding began at around three in the morning. He listened to it for about fifteen minutes, then got out of bed, stalked across the carpet, and flung open the door.

  “What?”

  “What d’you mean, what?” Nathan stumbled into the room, his eyes bloodshot and his already pale face like a sheet of paper. “Where the hell are we!?”

  “The Hollywood Hotel,” said Sam closing the door.

  “The…why?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  Nathan just stared at him.

  “We had to get off the streets,” explained Sam, “and I thought they’d be checking all the flops first, so our best bet was to go somewhere nice. Plus, you were really, really drunk. They almost didn’t let us in. I had to give the night manager a pretty hefty encouragement.”

  Nathan was still just staring.

  “If you’re going to be sick again, I’d really appreciate it if you’d do it in the bathroom.”

  “I’m not going to be sick.”

  “Good.”

  “I just don’t remember anything after leaving the bar.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “And I’ve got the worst headache in the history of the universe. Can I have one of your pills?”

  “My what?”

  “Your pills. The little green pills you keep popping. You said they were for migraines.”

  “You’ve got a hangover.”
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  “It’s a really bad headache, Sam.”

  “You’ll feel better in the morning.”

  “Please…”

  “Nathan, you’ve got a beautiful room. There’s a shower, with hot water. Really hot water. It’ll make you feel better, honest.”

  “Hot water?”

  “Yeah. And soap. And a thing that’ll clean your clothes. I’d take advantage of that last one, if I were you.”

  “Soap?”

  “Get some sleep. We should get an early start.”

  Nathan nodded and dragged himself to the door. “Okay. ‘Night.”

  “’Night.”

  Sam locked the door again and scrambled back into bed. He slept fitfully for a couple of hours, then lay staring at the ceiling and thinking about the digivends and the buzzing in his head.

  His dad had told him that the headaches were probably caused by an environmental allergy. He’d said that some people had similar reactions to radio waves, certain frequencies of sound, and even synthetic materials. For Sam, it seemed to be the frequencies used by Mutha. It had sounded perfectly reasonable at the time, and for years afterwards. But as he got older he thought more about that last question.