by Ian McDonald
‘I just want to drop something in; it’ll not take five minutes. It’s just down on Rua Tabatingüera; it’s not even really out of your way.’
‘I suppose I could, then.’
Marcelina took the steep concrete steps that rose almost sheer up the face of the morro a reckless two at a time. Love does that. Rain punished her. Good rain. Sweet rain. She pressed the PDA close to her chest, protecting it from water. Pools were already forming on Heitor’s gloomy garden patio, a lightless concrete rectangle between the rear of the apartment tower and the dripping raw rock. His light-and-love-starved climbing plants shed rain like sweat. Marcelina knew the key code by heart. Her finger stopped a millimeter above the chrome button.
The door was open a crack.
Marcelina slipped back from the door and pressed herself against the wall. She called up the live Canal Quatro newsfeed on her celular.
‘. . . and the police report that Maré and Parada de Lucas are quiet tonight, with armed incidents returning to normal levels,’ Fagner ‘Death-and-Destruction’ Meirelles reported Live! from a militar cordon. Hissing through her teeth, Marcelina thumbed the volume down. ‘And back to the studio.’ And there was Heitor standing in front of the giant green-screen map of Brazil. The only newsreader who has to worry about the color of his socks, he always said.
Marcelina sent him into darkness. In one G3 call elation turned to dread, to more fear than she imagined anyone could know and live. Every part of her ached. It would be very very good to be sick, even if it was only hot bile, cold coffee, and terreiro drugs. She could feel the multiverse flickering around her, a cloud of orixás and angels. Now. This was the time. She drew the blade, crouched into a fighting ginga stance. Slowly slowly she pushed the door open. Cat-careful, Marcelina advanced through the lobby of books. Stiff, so stiff, and no time to warm up. She would have to go from cold into explosive action. This was no jogo, no game.
No lights, but squatting in cocorinha by the side of the living room door Marcelina saw a silhouette cross the glittering panorama of the lagoa. The destruction was to be total: her career, her family, her friends, her lover. Then, one by one, Físico, Mestre Ginga, Barbosa the goalkeeper: the entire terreiro, any and all who knew the secret shape of the multiverse, and about the Order that protected it. And at some point, Marcelina Hoffman. That point was now. Malandros mestres corda vermelhas all you great fighters and dancers, give me malicia. She stood up, flicked on the main light, and cartwheeled into the room in a one-handed aú. Marcelina came up into ginga, blade ready.
She stood momentarily dazed in the light by the kitchen annex, black to Marcelina’s white. Of course. This was elemental battle. Her. More than any twin could ever be. Curupairá vision flickered around Marcelina, and for an instant she saw herself through her enemy’s eyes, loira angel, white capoeirista. We are each other. One mind shattered across a hundred billion universes. Then the anti-Marcelina came like a jaguar. Marcelina dropped under the blow in a simple resistencia, spun out in a wheeling S-dobrado kick. Her foot grazed her enemy’s head; then Marcelina rolled into a waist-bend, one hand on the floor, the other gripping the quantum blade for all love, and came up into the dancing, defensive ginga.
The anti-Marcelina advanced on her in a blinding weave of cuts that struck small lightnings from the air in the apartment. Marcelina ducked, rolled, dived, flipped away from the burning blade. One thing, one edge in malicia. Her enemy did not play capoeira. She did not know jeito.
A scything blow left the glass coffee table in two capsized halves. Marcelina backflipped over one of the leather sofas into ginga.
‘Say something, will you? Say my fucking name.’
Her enemy smiled and in three strokes reduced the sofa to hide and spring and stuffing. Now Marcelina realized that she had underestimated the power of her enemy’s weapon. She could run, she could dance but the anti-Marcelina would cut, cut, keep cutting through anything and everything, keep cutting, keep coming until she was too exhausted to play capoeira anymore. You have lost the initiative. Time to stop playing defensive. But I’m not a killer. Yes you are. Look.
Marcelina aimed an asfixiante punch at her enemy’s nose, then brought the blade in a scything sweep. The anti-Marcelina dodged the punch and brought her own blade cutting down onto the flat of Marcelina’s. There was a flash of light, a cry of reality maimed. Marcelina saw the severed blade of her knife flash up into the air, fall point first into the floor and vanish. She imagined it dropping through the apartments below, level by level. Even solid concrete and rock could not resist it. She hoped there was no one directly beneath.
The anti-Marcelina smiled sweetly, held up her own intact blade. Then she beckoned. Finish it.
Marcelina Hoffman ran. Jeito. Street smart. The true malandro knows when and where to fight. A gashed sofa, a bisected coffee table - these Heitor could explain on an insurance claim. A corpse that looked like your lover and disgraced TV producer: that was a career killer.
Marcelina knocked off the lights (these silly tricks worked, but that was the essence of malandragem, the pant-pull boca de calça that had felled arrogant Jair - the stupid and obvious was the last-seen) and ducked out the elevator lobby door. The slam would betray her, but the few seconds it took for the anti-Marcelina to cut through the lock would give her time and space. Marcelina pelted up the emergency stairs. Two flights up she heard the door crash onto concrete. I’m a dancer not a runner, she shouted at herself. Footsteps slapping on bare concrete. Up up up. But Jesus and Mary the curupairá had taken it out of her. The curupairá and every other torment and mystery and threat and revelation of the past two weeks. From Blue Sky Friday to Fight-for-your Life Sunday. She fell through the door onto the roof. Room to move. Space to fight. Heitor had brought her up here with champagne and coke when she won the commission for UFO Hunt: Live! By night, in the rain, it was moltenly beautiful, strips and clouds of soft light, the flow of head- and taillights along the lagoon road, the soft shurr of tires in the wet, and beyond all, above all, the dark loom of the morros.
The door crashed open. Her enemy was here. Marcelina rolled into a defensive stance. The anti-Marcelina hefted her blade to a killing grip. Back and forth they fought, strike and counterstrike, across the puddled rooftop, slipping on the loose gravel, tripping on the satellite cables and water pipes. Feint by feint Marcelina drew her assassin to the sheer face of the morro, pressing to within centimeters of the parapet. Above her concrete pillars rose like organ pipes, stabilizing the rock face. There were service ways up to those piers. She hopped on to the edge and leaped across the gap on to the hill itself. Her enemy followed but Marcelina was already up on to the service path, a precipitous ledge with only a chain for handrail. A sudden tug almost pulled her from the path; Marcelina reeled back hard against the wet rock. The chain that had almost dragged her down fell away into the dark between the flat roofs of the apartment blocks below. Her enemy looked up into her face. With the last of her strength Marcelina ran up the steps onto the top of the morro. Rio lay beneath her, the lagoon an oval of darkness, a jet jewel set in gold. Leblon, Gávea, the shining spill of Rocinha; Ipanema a line of light interrupted by dark hills, beyond it the glowing scimitar of the Barra da Tijuca. To her left the lights of the Copacabana were a golden necklace between the shouldering morros.
The anti-Marcelina appeared over the top of the steps, panting.
‘Let’s have it out,’ Marcelina said. ‘Here. No more running or clever stuff. Let’s do it here.’
The anti-Marcelina shook her head. Rain flew from her golden hair. Marcelina was shivering, wet to the bone, but it would end here, far from the eyes of the world, high above Rio de Janeiro. The enemy launched at her. She was good, but she had no jeito, no malandragem. Marcelina dropped into a banda, caught her enemy’s legs between her own, and twisted. The anti-Marcelina went sprawling. Marcelina followed with a down-and-dirty kick to the side of the head. The anti-Marcelina howled but rolled into a knife-fighting crouch. She menaced, jabbing, feinting with t
he quantum-blade. You picked the wrong martial art, Marcelina thought, floating in ginga, coiled like a jaguarundi. The true capoeirista will always appreciate a good dodge more than a good blow.
‘You know,’ she said, ‘that you don’t give a damn about anything that gets in your way, the casual cruelty, I can understand. I’ve done that myself. But what I can never, ever ever forgive is that part of me wants to be a fucking cop.’
The anti-Marcelina struck. The tip of the Q-blade grazed the inside of Marcelina’s forearm. There was no pain, no shock; then Marcelina saw blood well from the long, shallow line. The anti-Marcelina reversed her grip, came in again. Marcelina ducked into a defensive cocorinha and saw it. It was simple, it was beautiful, it was malandragem. She grabbed the cuffs of the anti-Marcelina’s pants and pulled up. With a cry the anti-Marcelina went back over the edge of the morro.
Marcelina watched her own face, eyes wide, drop through the spears of rain. There was no cry, no scream, but the quantum-blade cut a line of blue light through the air. She watched her other self strike the edge of a rooftop and bounce, spinning into the greater darkness beneath.
Marcelina stood a long time in the hammering rain, counting breaths. Breathing was good, count them, slow the heart. Count the breaths one two three. Don’t think about what you did. Don’t think about the look in your eyes as you fell down into the dark between the apartment blocks. You died there. You lost. You won; but in winning, you lost. The multiverse pulled a final malicioso move on you. That’s your body down there. Even now she could hear the police sirens, see the flashing lights coming around the dark lagoon. Marcelina Hoffman, the controversial Canal Quatro producer who recently gained national notoriety when she proposed putting disgraced goalkeeper Moaçir Barbosa on trial, was found dead at the foot of Morro dos Cabritos on Sunday night. Police are continuing their investigations, but suicide has not been ruled out. Adriano Russo, director of programming at Canal Quatro, said that Senhora Hoffman had been under a lot of strain recently, at work and in her domestic life, and had been acting erratically. She imagined Heitor looking into the autocue. He would be professional. He was always professional. He would mourn later. Her family would bury something. The police would keep the quantum-blade and wonder among themselves for decades just how a dead television producer came to be in possession of a knife that could cut through anything.
Marcelina looked down into the darkness where her enemy lay. She lost, but she beat you. You are dead too.
Footsteps on wet rock.
Marcelina spun into defense. A man in loose dark clothing, formless against the night. A thumbnail of white at his throat; priest’s vestments?
‘If you want me you can have me, I’m dead anyway.’ She stood upright, opened her arms.
‘You can never win against yourself.’ A big man, white-skinned, dark hair, hollow-cheeked; gaunt, she thought, with more than age. His Portuguese was strangely accented, stiffly archaic.
‘So, who are you? Order or player?’
‘I was an admonitory,’ the man said. ‘Now I am a visitor. A traveler. An explorer. A recruiter, perhaps.’
‘Explorer of what?’
The man smiled. Marcelina could make out that he had the palest blue eyes.
‘You know that.’
The sirens were close now.
‘Recruiter ?’
‘What does one recruit for, if not a war?’
The sirens had shut down.
‘Come with me,’ the priest said. ‘Here. Now. This is the one chance you’ll get. It will mean leaving everything you’ve ever hoped for and loved behind, but you’ve lost those anyway, and there are ways back. There are always ways back. There is a war, but it’s bigger than you ever thought. It’s bigger than you can think. It’s your chance to make a universe. You are a maker. Come and make reality.’
Marcelina felt the multiverse open around her like wings, each feather a universe. The priest turned away; a billion doors opened before him.
‘Who are you?’ Marcelina shouted.
‘Does it matter?’
What was there? The Girl Who Came Back from the Dead would be a hell of a program, but no producer should ever be the star of her own show. The husband, the beautiful children, the babies, the stellar career - they would never happen. One thing she could do.
‘I’m not a cop.’
‘Oh no,’ the priest said. ‘Never that.’
‘That’s all right, then,’ Marcelina Hoffman said, and stepped after him out among the universes.
APRIL 18, 2033
The ball hangs motionless at the top of its arc. Freeze-framed behind it, perfect sky perfect sunset perfect perfect sea. A hand reaches up and smashes it hard over the net. The girl in the red baseball cap and matching tanga dives, meets the ball with her two fists, a beautiful block. Her partner follows the volley, times her jump and is there to spike it down on to the enemy sand. Thigh muscles belly muscles upper arms are in perfect definition. Asses in mathematically curved precision. The breasts are high and firm and big, but they move like real flesh. Cheekbones knife-sharp. Noses flattened, kissy-kissy pert lippies.
They’re stupidly fabulous, but Edson’s not watching them. He follows the coconut boy sauntering over the sand with his machete and his wares slung around his shoulder. He’s in good shape, swimmer’s definition, muscles but not too many, natural not surgical. He sees Edson looking over as he drags past, catches his eye. A toss of the head. It’s on for tonight. Edson turns and leaves the sunset beach for the strip. Behind him robots scurry from scrapes to rake smooth the sand, erasing all trace of his presence. The glory-girls do not even glance away from their game.
Beaches, Edson has ruefully decided, are very overrated. Before him rises the titanium-and-glass cliff of Oceanus. One hundred and fifty vertical meters of inverted social order. Penthouses fringe the beach-strip, then the restaurants, sea-view bars, clubs, casinos, the high-marque specialist shops that consider themselves too exclusive for the cavernous rain-forest ravine of the Jungle! Jungle! shopping mall. Next up the apartments and hotels; higher still the office units and businesses; higher again the medical centers and manufacturing zones; and over all the airport occupies most of the kilometer-and-a-half run of the top deck, apart from that sector at the prow reserved for the golf course.
The great ship cruises just outside Brasilian territorial waters two hundred kilometers off Pernambuco, shadowing the coast of Brasil southward. Three hundred and fifty thousand citizens speak thirty tongues; Portuguese, the only one Edson understands, among the least and quaintest. Her twelve-million-ton deadweight can punch through hurricanes, cyclones, taifuns. The nuclear reactor at her core propels her at a lax, unceasing eight knots: a circumnavigation of the world’s continental shelves every three years; extraterritorial, beyond national jurisdictions, the ultimate free-trade port and corporate tax shelter. Category error. Oceanus is no ship: she’s an oceangoing city-state.
When the seguranças made him kneel hands clasped behind neck, head bowed, Edson had been certain he had seconds to live. Assault guns had stood over the raiders of the lost car-pound while the mercenary crew buckled a tautliner cover over Cook/Chill Meal Solutions. Two men in black had dragged Edson out of line across the scabby concrete, scraping the polish off the toes of his good shoes, and thrown him into the back of a black quiet car that said money more effectively than any hood ornament. Fia was already belted in, fidgety with apprehension.
‘I asked them to bring you,’ she whispered as car and truck accelerated out of the dead mall. ‘It’s not the Order; they won’t touch the guys, it’s just us they’re after. Me, I mean.’ Edson understood. The Order would have left nothing alive in the mall. There was a third player in the game.
By the third rodovia gantry Edson had worked out they were heading to the airport. The convoy swept past the militar guard to the air-freight terminal. Embraer bizjets stood on the apron with their variable-geometry wings folded like anhingas’. A woman in a very well-cut s
uit escorted Edson and Fia onto a bizjet. Her safety demonstration as the bizjet taxied was as much a declaration of her absolute power over her guests as instruction on what to do in the eventuality of landing on water. Edson barely noticed when the plane left the ground and he left the city of his birth and life for the first time. He was entranced by a single word on suit-woman’s lapel badge: Teixeira.
Every man of business has his saints. Edson’s are those who come from nothing: the favelado become futebol legend; the Minas Gerais boy who seduces the nation with his voice; the Paulistano who turns his kibe stand into a global franchise; Alcides Teixeira.
He was born one of the landless; that great Brasilian archetype, the drought-stricken peasant of the northeast sertão who, like so many before, embarked on the trek to the silver city. His legend began where all the others ended: at his first glimpse of the towers of Fortaleza, and the sprawling favelas around them like scabs. My face to the boot, my wife to the streets, he said, and he and his wife got straight back onto the bus. The driver didn’t charge them. No one had ever done a return trip before. Alcides Teixeira had taken a development loan from the MST, the Landless League, and planted five hundred hectares of dust-poor sertão with gene-modified rape seed. Within three years he was power farming three thousand hectares. Within five years, he signed output deals with Petrobras and Ipiranga and became EMBRAÇA. Twenty-six years later Alcides Teixeira’s land covered four continents with green soy and yellow rape and was stealthing down the cool cool hillsides upon the Fazenda Alvaranga. Such a man would be within that golden circle privy to the secret order of the multiverse. Such a man would dare use that information to his profit. Multiverse economic modeling had been Fia’s specialty in her world. Where there is a differential, a boundary, there is money to be made across it.