by Raya Jones
Angerford’s frown deepened. ‘The other possibility is unlikely.’
‘But you are considering it,’ Rinzler observed astutely.
Angerford nodded ever so slightly. ‘There are only two people who can infiltrate an andronet so deeply that I couldn’t detect it, and one of them is Wye Stan Pan. The other one is a ronin with no name and no master. I used to think that Wye Stan Pan invented him to scare us into being vigilant.’
‘Samurai Sunrise invents himself. He does private jobs for your president as well as someone very influential in OK. I don’t know whether he plays them against each other. I’m not sure I want to know. No,’ he corrected himself with passion, ‘I’m very sure I don’t want to know. But I have only 28 hours to save my life.’
Angerford nodded. ‘I don’t know if this helps, Rinzler. Someone has used April to infiltrate Jeremiah’s home. It was a harmless hoax as far as I could tell. It happened after the last time I met Mitzi. There’s a trail of footprints to April. It was left there as if deliberately for OK to find and to blame the hoax on us. It could be Samurai Sunrise playing the corporations against each other.’
Rinzler shook his head. ‘Not his style.’
‘What’s his style?’
‘The unexpected.’
‘He could unexpectedly do something that’s not his style.’
‘No. That would be expected of him.’
Chapter 33
After Angerford left, Rinzler fell asleep, and woke up a couple of hours nearer death. He washed, shaved, and then jaunted to Lex Ludovic’s fortress. They wouldn’t let him in. Markus came out to see him outside the locked gates. Rinzler told him, ‘I have what Free Spirit owed your boss. Will you leave me alone now?’
‘Sure,’ said Markus, ‘we have nothing against you. It’s just a business transaction. Why did you do him in?’
‘The miserable sod deserved to die for criminal stupidity.’
‘And the OK woman?’
Rinzler rolled his eyes. ‘You have no idea the grief that woman has caused me. Talking of women, how come you and your associate, businessmen of your calibre, took a jaunt when an unarmed woman said Stop?’
Markus shrugged. ‘There was no need for us to hang around anymore, you got the message.’
‘You didn’t even tell her to keep her nose out of your business.’
‘We didn’t want to say anything to her. She’s people.’ He meant the neo-tribe.
‘She’s essencist.’
‘She’s still people by blood.’
‘Do you know her?’ Rinzler asked, surprised to hear jealousy in his voice.
‘Not personally but she wore their immunity marker. Where’s Lex’s money?’
Rinzler knew some of the people tribe. Juke, the manager of the Breakfast Bar, was one. Most of them subsided on alternative economies. They didn’t shun technology, just couldn’t afford it unless it was salvaged or stolen. They were no threat to the gangsters. It was the other way around. ‘I still don’t get it, Markus. Why are you worried about the people? Or are you worried about Bin Abdullah’s powerful friends?’
Rinzler meant it sarcastically, but Markus glanced around and lowered his voice to a whisper, ‘How do you know about it?’
Rinzler whispered back, ‘I’m a detective.’
He led Markus to the abandoned warehouse nearby, where he first met Kendall. They walked through holographic signs that flashed ‘Danger! Unstable architecture!’ Ceiling lights came on in the hall, and the shadows made the motley decaying architecture seem alive. Rinzler reflected privately that the place ought to be securely boarded up for public safety. It was unusual for such a large space to remain vacant in P-7. The gangsters’ compound across the street probably deterred property developers.
Markus looked around. ‘You hid the money here?’
‘Of course not.’ Rinzler tentatively leaned against a pillar. It didn’t collapse. He folded his arms. ‘This is where we talk.’
‘Talk about what?’
Latifah, Rinzler silently replied. Aloud he said, ‘Bin Abdullah and what really happened. Your side of the story.’ He had no idea what the story was, but sensed that there was a story and that it was a sore point with the gang. He shouldn’t be wasting time gossiping, he knew, and yet couldn’t stop himself. Latifah doesn’t matter right now, he tried to persuade himself and failed.
It was a business misunderstanding, Markus told him. Lex Ludovic offered to continue her protection of the tribe at a higher tax. Bin Abdullah didn’t appreciate her offer. The people tried to resist the tax collectors. Someone got killed. That was months ago. Then, a couple of weeks ago, the Ludovic gang suddenly suffered a total blackout of their electronic existence. For two days the gangsters couldn’t teleport, couldn’t access Spectrum, couldn’t even log into their own pads. Gangs are not without technological expertise, but nobody could figure out the technique used by whoever had put the blackout curse on them. Lex was losing business and fast losing control of her empire.
On the third day a stranger turned up at the gate. He claimed responsibility for the blackout and promised to lift it if Lex left the tribe alone. He explained that since he was in Proxima only for a few days, he created an automated protocol that would come into effect if the people sent him a distress signal anytime in the future. He didn’t create a protocol to remove the blackout. He could do it now in person, since he was here, he said, but he won’t be around to undo the automatic blackout if it’s activated in the future.
When Lex agreed to leave the tribe alone, the stranger spread his XT-Pro mat on the floor, and removed the blackout right there and then. As soon as he started to pack up his gear, Lex gave the nod to one of her lieutenants to pull out a gun and kill him on the spot. The stranger looked Lex in the eye and said, ‘I forgot to mention that the blackout will reactivate itself in three days’ time if I don’t live to cancel it.’ They let him leave and never saw him again.
Rinzler inquired, ‘Was he a short middle-aged guy?’
‘Yes.’
‘Wearing black?’
‘Yes, how do you know?’
‘I’m a detective. He wasn’t Japanese by any chance, was he?’
‘That’s the one, Yojimbo. Do you know him?’
‘I might know something about him.’
‘If you know where we can find him without him seeing us coming…’
‘Fat chance of that. He sees everything,’ said Rinzler with passion. ‘If it’s in cyberspace, he sees it. You might be able to sneak up on him in the physical, but he’s not in Proxima anymore. This I’m telling you for free. Maybe I could tell you more about him, but what’s in it for me?’
‘If you have useful information you can keep my commission for collecting Kendall’s debt.’
‘It’s a pleasure doing business with you, Markus. Will it be useful for you to know that Yojimbo TS runs a ronin outfit based in the solar system?’
‘Could be. What does TS stand for?’
‘That will cost you extra,’ Rinzler replied. He gave Markus the code to collect the cash from Kendall’s account, telling him to keep his commission. One day he might want to call a favour.
For no particular reason, like taking a walk down memory lane on impulse, Rinzler left the warehouse the way that he had first entered it weeks earlier. He lowered himself through the emergency exit to the tunnel-like alley. He felt strangely safe there. If all else fails, I can come and live here with the rats, and when I die nobody will collect my corpse, he thought.
Unbearable stench wafted from the recess of the alley. Perhaps someone had died there. Rinzler activated the oxygen mask of his biosuit to block off the smell, and leaned against a wall to think. He conversed with his inner Schmidt, ‘If nothing better turns up, I can always betray Angerford. It’s not as if I owe anything to Cyboratics, is it?’
Samurai Sunrise responded, his eyes narrowing in disapproval, ‘Angerford has taken a great risk for you. He can lose his job, even his citizenship, for
breaching client confidentiality.’
It didn’t seem odd to Rinzler that the small middle-aged man was there in the dark alley, silhouetted against the dim light of an exit a short distance away. They stood face to face as if suspended in timeless void. ‘The key is the technology, Rinzler. I’m proud of you.’
‘But…’
‘Success doesn’t always manifest in obvious ways.’
‘But…’
‘Face the technology!’
Rinzler woke up.
Rats squeaked and scurried in the dark. The dream image was gone, but for a moment the overwhelming Schmidt presence lingered. ‘Face the technology? It’s the slimy son-of-a-bitch Jeremiah Cordova who’s my problem,’ he thought at him.
Then he was fully awake. Schmidt was never there. People don’t just pop up out of thin air.
But they do. We have the technology to do that.
Face the technology, face the technology. Walking towards the backdoor with the dim light, the phrase kept repeating itself like a mantra. It wasn’t something that Schmidt was likely to say. He’d say, use the technology.
Rinzler slipped on something slimy that squelched. He steadied itself, and stepped on something soft that screeched. His boot kicked something hard that rolled away tinkling. He remembered how he had been thrown out of this café. ‘“Face the technology” be damned,’ he muttered audibly, realising that if he went through the door he might have to confront Thursday, the thuggish face of android technology. He took out his pert, but had no urge to go anywhere.
Face the technology, face technology… phase technology!
It was something Cerise had told him. Spare Lives ‘phase’ your teleport pattern to create the new you. ‘Imagine that!’ she said, and Rinzler imagined someone jaunting away from a confidential location and materialising somewhere else looking like Kendall, Angerford, Rinzler, anyone. ‘At least anyone that teleports,’ he told Latifah in his head. ‘You die a molecular death every time, only your essence remains.
What is the essence of a person?
No time for philosophy. He had to find out whether phase technology was advanced enough for shape-shifting.
According to Cerise, the process was lengthy. It could take weeks to restore a body to health. Only Spare Lives had the legal rights to carry out the procedure. It was patented by someone of the Teletek clan, Yang. Wye Stan Pan’s wife was a Yang. The CSG discouraged corporations from diversifying, but what could they do when Wye Stan buys a medical firm because his wife asks him to help her cousin?
Rinzler put away the pert.
Somehow he had to crack hidden vaults of secret militaries and find a memo saying, ‘Hey fellow spooks, aren’t we lucky to have phase technology so advanced that we can rewrite you to look like anyone else in next to no time?’ It didn’t require hacking to figure out that if such technology existed, Cyboratics now owned it. And if Cyboratics had it, OK wanted it.
Rinzler pushed open the backdoor in front of him.
It opened into a storeroom cluttered with discarded and broken hardware, just as he remembered it, and he remembered thinking about reporting the cybercafé for safety violations. By now even more junk obstructed the access to the emergency exit. But as soon as he stepped inside, he knew it wasn’t the same place. Loud rhythmic music reverberated from the room where cubicles used to be. The storeroom’s inner door opened to a dance floor. The music was deafening, and disco lighting throbbed, making the place feel more crowded than it actually was.
Rinzler crossed the floor to the front entrance. ‘What happened to your cybercafé?’ he asked the proprietor, who stood there.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ the man said, displeased. ‘What do you think happened? Someone reported us to the CSG on safety violations. Was it you?’
‘No. I was sorely tempted but then I got preoccupied with other things.’ Rinzler moved aside to let in people who arrived at the entrance. ‘So, you’ve gutted the place to make room for a dance club.’ His eyes followed the new arrivals. They walked into the strobe light that made dancers appear like body fragments. ‘And you piled the workstations in front of the emergency exit. That’s asking for trouble!’
‘No, I got wise,’ the proprietor said smugly. ‘I don’t have a license for this business, so they can’t revoke it. You came in from the back alley, why?’
Rinzler opened his mouth to say the first thing that would pop into his head — and froze, seeing fragments of Latifah in the strobe light. Dancers around her moved like disjointed puppets and she vanished.
He suppressed the impulse to rush in there. ‘Can I have one of the decks from the storeroom?’
‘They are not operational anymore.’
‘If I find one that isn’t broken, can I buy it off you?’
‘You can buy the broken ones too.’
There was no sign of Latifah on the dance floor when he went to the storeroom or when he crossed the floor back to the entrance, carrying a deck that seemed the least damaged. Perhaps it was just his imagination, seeing her there. Rinzler settled the transaction with the proprietor, and teleported directly into the inn room.
He propped the deck on one of his boxes and set about getting it to work. Eventually it came to electronic life.
With seven hours left to Jeremiah’s deadline, he called Schmidt. The man responded in his usual manner with a blank placeholder, a silhouette of a man who wasn’t him, and waited for Rinzler to speak.
Rinzler spoke. ‘Did you kill Indigo?’
‘No.’
‘Would you tell me if you did?’
‘I have no idea, Rinzler. I’ve never killed anyone in my life. Not physically,’ said the man who could annihilate people’s codes so thoroughly that they could never exist digitally again. For some, this is a fate worse than death. ‘Why are you still on the case?’
‘It has grown on me.’
‘Drop it.’
‘Gladly, but it wouldn’t drop me.’
Schmidt was silent.
‘I know you met her in the Galleria the day before she died.’ Rinzler spoke into the cyber-silence. ‘I also know it wasn’t you who made it look like Angerford. Someone came in after your locusts and replaced whatever image you put there.’
For a few long seconds, he wondered whether the unseen man was still there. The blank placeholder was immobile, empty. Then the voice returned. ‘How do you know it wasn’t me?’
‘It was you. I have an eyewitness,’ — and then he realised what Schmidt was saying. ‘I know it wasn’t you who’s fixed it to show Angerford. The tampering doesn’t have your signature on it.’
‘I don’t have a signature.’
‘Exactly. This one has.’
‘I could imitate someone’s technique.’
‘There was no technique. It has the signature of Things Don’t Make Sense. The trail ends with April.’ Rinzler was about to elaborate, to state the obvious — Angerford wouldn’t implicate himself and Jeremiah couldn’t work via April — but he sensed that the link was suspended again. He said into the void, ‘Is it top secret or none of my business, what you talked about with Indigo?’
The void answered: ‘I had to deliver a private message.’
‘You spoke with her for ten minutes.’
‘Small talk.’
‘Narayana physics? The poor woman!’
‘I had to improvise. It wasn’t the right moment for that message. I didn’t anticipate she’d be killed the next day. Rinzler, this ship is configuring into warp drive.’ It meant he’d be offline soon.
‘Where are you off to?’
‘Sol.’
‘Where you run Yojimbo TS?’
Rinzler fancied he heard a chuckle in the voice replying, ‘What does “TS” stand for?’
‘You tell me. You told Lex Ludovic that this is your name.’
‘I’m proud of you, Rinzler, how you find out things offline. But I didn’t tell them TS. In nihonjin tradition yōjinbō are ronin who were hired as bodyguards. So
metimes they were used as hired assassins.’
‘What a coincidence.’
‘Of course it isn’t. But some coincidences are real. Like our meeting in Clay Valley. I’m leaving something in the ghost site of Schmidt Investigations. It will open only when you’re really desperate.’
‘How will it know? Feelings can’t be digitised, you always say.’
‘It will know when Angerford’s trouble becomes unshootable.’
There was another brief lag. When Rinzler started to wonder whether the ship had gone into warp already, the man spoke again. ‘There’s nothing about Yojimbo TS before the first reference to it in OK Division.53. Remember to — .’ The signal was cut off.
He remembered to check the site.
A new link brought up an object looking like a small ornate chest, tagged ‘Fairweather’. The word didn’t mean anything to Rinzler. The box wouldn’t open. ‘If what I feel now is not really desperate, I hate to think what is,’ he told his inner Schmidt.
Chapter 34
Rinzler was relieved to find Indigo’s mother online. He had worried that his six hours would be up before she replied. But Jan was at work, and agreed to see him straightaway. Her office was a cubicle of hardware in the canyons of hardware that made up OK’s HQ. There was very little space for standing. She sat on the only chair, surrounded by consoles on all sides and overhead. Most of the displays were blanked out with corporate screensavers. ‘What took you so long?’ she snapped as soon as he appeared in front of her.
‘I came instantly,’ Rinzler pointed out. Checking the time, he saw that only a few seconds had elapsed since he jaunted out of the inn. Remembering his visit to Jeremiah’s office, he was glad to see that the teleport signal was on.
She said sharply, ‘My daughter was murdered thirteen days ago and you’re still nowhere near to finding the killer.’
No need to waste time offering condolences, he decided. ‘Are we being monitored?’