Heaven is a Place on Earth

by Graham Storrs

  And then Chu appeared in the street. Ginny clutched the side of the truck and tried to melt herself into it. The man who had just tried to kill her was limping and trailing blood. His face was grey and his eyes burned. His gun hung at the end of his arm like a weight on a pendulum. He stopped when he saw Richards and must have realised from the man's behaviour that he was caught in the aug illusion. Chu himself was still clear of it. Ginny saw a grim smile spread across her would-be assassin's face.

  “Tagger!” he shouted. “She's mine!”

  Richards showed no sign of hearing him, deafened as he was by the jungle noises in his aug.

  Tagger? She remembered Chu himself explaining that taggers were police officers from the Department of Missing Persons. But if Chu thought Richards was a tagger, that meant he too had been taken in by Richards' cop impersonation.

  Chu raised his gun, slowly, as if it weighed a ton. Ginny noticed blood on the man's hand, blood that had run down from a would on his arm. The gun wavered but Chu was still smiling, taking his time with the shot. He raised his other hand to support the weight of the gun. But if Richards and Chu weren't on the same side...

  She pulled her gun and aimed it at Chu. If she shot Chu and Richards survived, might he be willing to help her? Might his own agenda, whatever it was, be to keep her safe from the Consortium? If she didn't shoot Chu, right now, Richards would be dead and she would never know. Without being aware that she had made the decision, she squeezed the trigger a the gun jumped in her grip.

  A chunk of brickwork exploded from the wall beyond where Chu stood.

  Her would-be victim flinched and ducked, but still had the presence of mind to swing his weapon around to point at her. I really need to learn how to shoot one of these things, she told herself and pulled back behind the robot truck. Now what? Now Chu knew just where she was and could see her. She had to get away, but how?

  She jumped as the truck's engine whined into life and then stood unbelieving as her only cover pulled away from the kerb and drove off down the street.

  “That was a clever trick, back there in the hotel,” Chu said. He seemed completely unconcerned that she might shoot him. She supposed he had made a realistic assessment of her skill with a handgun. “I'm going to look like a complete arsehole when I go back and report on all this.” His smile returned. “But at least I'll be able to tell them you're dead.”

  “Why are you doing this?” she said, her voice had a pleading, whining tone she didn't like to hear. “I don't know anything about the Consortium. Not really. I'm no threat to anybody.”

  “You keep poking your damned nose in our business though. And that has to stop.”

  They were a long way apart – twenty metres at least – each pointing their gun at the other. Could Chu really shoot her dead from that far away? Could he still hit her if she was moving? She could run past the hallucination device and keep going. Chu wouldn't be able to get past it. He'd have a receding target to aim at. It must give her a better chance than just standing there like a practice target.

  “You wanted to ask me some questions,” she said, stalling while she plucked up the nerve to run. “Why don't you ask them now and you'll see I don't know anything.”

  He laughed. “Like I give a fuck what you know. It won't matter a damn when your dead. All I care about is paying you back for what you just did.”

  “But the Consortium cares. Won't they be – ”

  Some small movement, some shift in his stance gave him away. Ginny threw herself into a flat-out sprint across the road, back towards the black box in the alley. She heard the crack of Chu's gun as he fired. Then she heard it again. Then three more shots in rapid succession. How could she still be alive? How could he miss her?

  She stole a quick glance over her shoulder and what she saw made her stumble and almost fall. Chu had dropped to the ground, flat on his back, arms and legs spread. And there was Dover Richards down on one knee, his own smoking gun in a two-handed grip, still aiming at the dead man. She staggered to a halt as Richards turned to face her. Her heart was knocking so hard in her chest she could feel it rocking her body.

  He could see her. The device had stopped working.

  Richards had her in his sights for a moment then he lifted the barrel up and away, took a long breath, and pushed the gun back into its shoulder holster.

  “Are there any more of them chasing you?” he asked, sauntering towards her as if nothing had happened.

  Ginny pointed her own gun at him, her hand shaking. “Stop. Don't come any closer. Who are you? I mean really. Who are you working for?”

  He didn't stop. He strolled right up to her, his handsome, cocky smile unwavering. “Do you have a license for that thing, Virginia?”

  “I said stop!” She shouted so loudly, it surprised even her.

  The smile fell away, replaced by an angry frown. “Put the gun away right now and we can talk. Otherwise, I'm going to take it off you and arrest you for discharging a weapon in a public place.”

  “So you really are a cop?” There seemed no other reason for him to keep on acting like one.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “That's what he said.” She waved her gun towards Chu's dead body.

  The instant she did so, Richards stepped up to her, grabbed the gun and wrenched it out of her hand. He put it in his pocket but didn't step back. “That's better,” he said.

  Ginny nursed her twisted fingers and scowled into his grinning face. “You can drop the act now, I suppose. Even if you are a cop, you're in somebody's pocket. Who else is interested in the outcome of the cyberterrorism vote? S10 maybe? No, you killed Tonia's brother, didn't you? Another terror group then. Or maybe you just sell your services day-by-day to the highest bidder.” She watched his face keenly for any tell-tale sign, but all his expression showed was bemusement.

  “Where did you get that augblaster?” he asked, ignoring her accusations.

  “That what?”

  “The device you used to bamboozle me a while ago. Who gave it to you? Where is it?”

  “It's a stupid device. It gives you away as much as hides you. And it has the battery life of a Nigerian housebot. You're welcome to it.” She glanced over to the alley where the little box was lying on the ground.

  “The battery's fine,” he said, sauntering over to pick it up. “I called in a little drone to hunt it down and zap it with a microwave pulse.” He wiggled the box between his long fingers. “These little buggers are a damned nuisance but they're easily disposed of once you get a drone onto them.” He slipped it into his pocket and held out a hand to her. “The other piece, please.”

  Ginny took the cylinder from her overall and passed it to him. He pocketed that too and went over to Chu's body. He frisked it quickly and expertly and came away with nothing but bloodied hands, which he wiped on Chu.

  “This fella's got two holes in him that I didn't make. Did you do that?”

  Ginny shook her head, turning away from the sight of Chu's bloody remains. “There are two more, in a hotel room back there. I didn't shoot them, either.” She felt a lightness in her head and chest, a giddiness that made it hard to stand. She walked over to the nearest building and leaned against it, bending forward as her stomach and throat tightened against the nausea.

  Richards was beside her in a moment. He put an arm around her back and held her firmly against him with a hand on her ribs. “I'm fine,” she said, but couldn't deny that she felt better to be supported. He was as strong as he looked and she knew he wouldn't let her fall.

  “Let's go find somewhere to sit down,” he said and led her back up the street.

  After a few paces, the nausea and giddiness began to ease and she squirmed free of him, regretting her lapse into weakness. “Just keep your hands to yourself,” she said, pulling away.

  He grinned at her but said nothing. From the icons in her aug, she could see he was talking to someone on the phone. Whoever it might be could well be a matter of life or death to her, but, for t
he moment, the fight had gone out of her. She was tired and her mind was empty. She would have given anything to be back in her unit in Brisbane, to take a long shower and curl up in bed.

  “Here we go,” Richards said and steered her towards a concrete staircase outside an old brick building. She sat down and he sat nearby. She could still see Chu's body from where they were.

  “I wish I could get a cup of coffee,” she said.

  “That's the trouble with reality. It's so primitive.”

  She glanced at him to see if he was mocking her. Of course, he was. He was a man with just two modes, mocking and bullying.

  “Feeling better?” he asked, and even his concern had a taunting edge to it. She didn't bother to reply. “Good. Now tell me where a nice, law-abiding citizen like you got a gun and an augblaster.”

  “I found them?”

  “OK,” he said in a tone that said let's play games then. “Where?”

  “In Cal Copplin's unit. I stayed there a couple of days.”

  “I know. We searched that unit when he went missing and didn't find anything.”

  “You obviously didn't search very carefully.”

  He considered that for a moment. “What else did you find?”

  “Some papers.” What harm could it do to tell him?

  “Papers?”

  “Yeah. Real paper, with ink on.”

  “Where are these papers now?”

  “Rafe Morgan has them. He was going to make them public but he bottled out. Rafe said they were software specs. Stuff like that. They didn't mean anything to me but they were to do with security in the Parliament worldlet.”

  Two police vehicles came hurrying into the street, the robot delivery vans scuttling out of the way to let them pass. They pulled up beside Chu's body and a small fleet of drones lifted off the roof while several uniformed police officers got out.

  “Excuse me,” said Richards and sauntered off towards them. It took Ginny several seconds to realise she was free to run if she wanted to, but it seemed pointless. Even if she could get away, where was there to run to? She watched Richards talking to one of the uniform cops. After a while, he held out Ginny's gun and a small bot came from one of the police cars and took it off him, dropping it into the evidence bin in its chest. Then he handed the bot the augblaster and the cylinder. He pointed down the street towards Ginny and a couple of drones left whatever they were doing at the crime scene to buzz over and scan her. Eventually, Richards sauntered her way again. More police cars and an ambulance had arrived before he got back to her.

  “That should look after itself for a while,” he said. As he spoke, another vehicle came from up the street and rolled to a stop beside them. Richards opened the door and invited her in. “Why don't we go and get that coffee?”

  -oOo-

  They went to a café by the harbour called Reality Bites and found a table outside. The Opera House shone in the bright sunlight, looking smaller in real life than Ginny remembered it from VR. The Sydney Harbour Bridge, blue-grey and freshly painted, turned a dirty, rust covered brown when she minimised her aug. The sky, however, remained just as blue and the water sparkled just as brightly, even though the ferries and the pretty sailboats disappeared.

  She looked around at the clientèle of the little café and didn't much like what she saw. Perhaps Dover Richards saw the grimace she made because he said, “The only people who come to real cafés these days are weirdoes who don't like aug, bored rich people who want to try something different, and cops and crims who need to meet where no-one's monitoring them.”

  “I've got a client who still likes to have face-to-face meetings,” she said, although it probably wasn't true any more that UnReality was her client. “Couple of weird kids. Give me the creeps.”

  Richards gave a negligent shrug. “It's an acquired taste.”

  “See any fellow cops here? Or any fellow crims?”

  He smiled. “A few.”

  “Look,” she said, annoyed at his deliberate ambiguity. “I need to talk to you about – ” He stopped her with a gesture as a little robot rolled up to the table and he gave it their order. She pursed her lips and waited. “About Della,” she said when the bot trundled away.

  “What about her?”

  “I need to know she's safe.”

  He gave her a look full of disdain. “You don't mess around with what you're mixed up in without putting yourself in danger. You should at least know that by now.”

  “That's why I want to be sure she's safe. I'll cooperate. I'll do whatever you like. Just promise me she'll be OK.”

  He seemed amused. “You're bargaining now?”

  “You're supposed to be a bloody cop. Why don't you just do your job and protect her?”

  He gave her a long, steady look. “Tell me more about these papers that Rafe Morgan has.”

  “I'm not saying anything until you give me some kind of assur – ”

  “Oh for God's sake! Your friend's safe. No-one is the least bit interested in your friend. Can we just get on with this?”

  People at nearby tables glanced over at them hearing Richards' raised voice, then quickly looked away. Ginny felt her heart skip. Maybe Richards was a cop – he must be, she supposed, having seen him working the crime scene near the hotel – but that didn't mean he wasn't also a hired killer in the pay of the Consortium, or, more likely, some other group. She reminded herself that he was armed and she was, effectively, his prisoner. All the same...

  “And what about Sorenssen? What's happened to him?”

  “The geek's dead. We didn't get to him in time.”

  “Dead?” He was just a kid, a stupid kid who liked to play games. And now he was dead? Dead because Ginny had asked him to help her? Because she had pushed him into it?

  The robot rattled up to the table and deposited various cups and plates in front of her. She watched it, unable to grapple with the massive, unwieldy fact that she had caused Sorenssen's death. I didn't even like him, she thought and the idea seemed to accuse her.

  When the robot left again, Richard's said, “So tell me about the papers.”

  How could he expect her to talk about papers? “Ask Rafe. He's got them all. I'm sure he'll give them to you.”

  “Rafe's disappeared.”

  “What?”

  “Tag went offline about the same time you were burgling Chastity Mining. Tagger who went to find him says it looks like he was snatched.”

  “Snatched? You mean, like, kidnapped?”

  “Yeah, kidnapped. Or he ran off and fixed it to look like that. And no-one found any paper documents at his unit or anywhere else he might have been.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “So you didn't know anything about that?”

  “Me? How would I know he'd been kidnapped?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Wait. I just remembered. His office. He had whiteboards full of stuff he'd copied from the documents, plus all kinds of timelines and ideas and stuff from analysing them. Everything from the papers is on those whiteboards.”

  Richards made a call, communicating silently with someone while Ginny waited. When he hung up, he shook his head. “They found whiteboards, all right, lots of them. But they'd all been scrubbed. Forensics is going to take a look at his office systems to see whether they can reconstruct anything. The thing is, that will take time, and we don't have much time left, do we?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean this is all connected to the vote, isn't it? September 10, the Consortium, whoever else might be involved, they're all fixated on this bloody cyberterrorism bill.”

  “Have they said when the vote will be?”

  “You haven't heard?”

  Ginny didn't like his tone. It suggested he thought she was pretending to be ignorant. And that scared her. Until that moment, she had thought Richards at least trusted her. Now it seemed he saw her as complicit with one of the parties in this business. He couldn't think she worked for the Consortium, s
urely. They'd just tried to kill her. But maybe killing one of your own was common among gangsters. So he must think she was S10, a terrorist. Her heart sank. It was just what Rafe had warned her about.

  “I haven't had much time for watching the news,” she said, her voice weak.

  “Tomorrow.” He watched her face as he said it. “Tomorrow morning at ten AM.”

  Ginny knew nothing about parliamentary procedure but at the very least it seemed like indecent haste. A question tickled at her mind. “I can see why S10 wants to stop this bill, but what's in it for the Rice Consortium? They seem to be trying to stop S10 from stopping the vote. But they're crooks, organised crime, surely the government can use the new laws against them too. They should be working with S10, not against them.”

  Richards leaned back in his chair and took a sip of coffee, still watching her as if trying to understand the game she was playing. “We don't even know what S10 is planning.”

  “They're going to break through the security of the Parliament worldlet. That's all I know. Once they're in, what can they do? Trash the place? Paint slogans? Make a public statement?”

  In an instant, Richards' cynical expression vanished. He sat forward and put down his coffee, slopping it into the saucer. “How about kill every single Member of Parliament? It's the perfect time. They'll all be there. No-one will be allowed not to attend for a vote like that.”