The statics are CdC’s high-speed transport facility, a system of parallel underground channels close to the outer wall. Most of the channels are reserved for moving materials but there are passenger routes circumnavigating the wheels too. The cars are known as statics as a joke, suggesting that they don’t move around the wheel—the wheel moves around them. This isn’t true, of course, otherwise you’d have to go most of the way around the wheel if you wanted to travel one stop anti-spin, but like many terms on Seedee, once it stuck, it stuck.
It’s the fastest way to get around, but Nikki knows they might still be too late. If the Hermia landed at Dock Nine around when it was scheduled to arrive at Dock Eleven, then they’re screwed. Just need to hope the rerouting and the congestion due to the all-stop on W2 has bought them some time. Even then, the best-case scenario is going to involve a fight.
She discreetly checks her kit. Tug and Kobra notice and reflexively check theirs too, stone faces hiding anxiety.
Yoram has someone on the payroll at Agritek. That gets them the cargo manifest entries they need and the clearance to be able to turn up to the dock and take delivery. It’s merely one end of a chain stretching all the way back to Earth, and there are people taking coin at every link: at Heinlein, at Ocean Terminal, at the maritime shipping lines, right back to Exo-Chem in San Francisco, where the exports originate. The payloads are sealed under official witness, to prevent precisely this kind of abuse, which means that guy needs paying off too.
It is a phenomenally complex and delicate operation, employing the world’s most advanced transport technology and spanning literally astronomical distances. Yet sometimes its success and survival still comes down to knocking somebody on his ass.
That’s the nature of the business, though. The end-point consumer might be in space, but bootlegging works on the same principles it always did since the Industrial Revolution. And even after factoring in such a mess of overheads and logistics, not to mention Yoram’s profit margins, it’s still cheaper for the bar owners than going through official channels.
The Quadriga’s official line is that it wouldn’t waste valuable freight space on something as frivolous and enduringly disapproved-of as booze. Not when it has the technology to brew its own shitty beer on-site. It is named Estrella, after the Arca Estrella, but on Seedee they call it Qola: Quadriga’s Officially Licensed Ale. It sells well on Earth, where it is an expensive aspirational brand—the beer they drink in space. Which they do, but only if they can’t get hold of anything better.
The Quadriga does import a certain quantity of luxury lines for the high-end hotels and restaurants, but they’re way out of the ordinary workforce’s price range, even on Seedee where wages are famously far higher than down below.
In other words, they were pretty much asking for this shit to happen. It’s not only alcohol, either. The shipment they’re chasing right now also contains a pallet packed with spices like they used to pack heroin and cocaine in centuries gone by. In a world of largely synthesised and fabricated foodstuffs, you’d be amazed what a packet of genuine chilli powder changes hands for.
There’s a whole alternative economy on Seedee, and the received wisdom is that if it wasn’t the Quadriga’s intention, then they probably wish it was, because it’s a raging success story. The only real opposition comes from moral zealots in both the FNG and within the four-headed consortium. True-believer types who keep going on about how CdC should be clean and pure because it’s the birthplace of mankind’s future.
The Quadriga wins both ways out of this, though. They get to placate the crusaders with a bit of posturing, meanwhile they’re jacking up the rent and franchise prices for the bars on Mullane. And it is merely posturing. That’s why they’re happy to turn a blind eye, or more accurately are happy for officials to take a cut to turn a blind eye, when there’s bottles on open display that they know nobody ever sanctioned for import.
Damn straight they’re aware this stuff goes on. They always knew it would happen once the Arca project advanced from being the preserve of an elite crew of pioneering experts working in conditions that hadn’t changed since the era of Skylab and the International Space Station. You got a massive construction site and a resident population, people living here for a year at a time minimum.
The noble theory is that folks should come here to knuckle down and think about the future: play their part then come home with a great résumé, stories to tell and a big wedge saved to build a better life down below. Problem is, though the money is good, the trick is not spending it all in the time between your shifts: another thing that ain’t changed since the Industrial Revolution. Besides, after a few years it became clear that a certain type of person comes to Seedee because they don’t want to go home. They don’t want the life they had down below, they ain’t saving up for anything and they sure as shit ain’t thinking about the future.
Bottom line is that on Seedee, somebody’s always looking for a good time, and there is a lot of competition to meet those needs.
It’s clear something is going down as soon as they turn the corner out of Resnik. On the concourse in front of the main entrance to Dock Nine, there are dozens of people milling around, not only couriers and logistics managers there to collect materials, but the dock’s freight handlers too. Moving close, Nikki can see that the doors are closed, a guard standing in front. She’s never seen that at a dock before, didn’t know there even were doors.
“The place is in lockdown,” someone says. “Seguridad showed up and cleared everybody out.”
“Why?”
“Heard it’s some biohazard threat they need to contain before they can open things up again. Total clusterfuck. My consignment is already delayed because of the all-stop on W2.”
Some people are looking pissed, but nonetheless resigned to waiting it out. People are like that here. They do as they’re told.
“Let’s try another way inside,” Felicia suggests.
She leads the group away from the main entrance and around the side, where a ramp climbs towards the lower-gravity receiving points on the platforms overlooking the shuttle dock.
As the ramp flattens out approaching the entrance to the lower platform, they are met by a uniformed Seguridad officer barring their progress.
“Sorry, the receiving decks are closed right now. I need to ask you all to return to the concourse until the situation is contained and we have the all-clear.”
They stop in their tracks a few yards from the guard. Kobra sighs with exasperation.
“The shuttle we’re waiting for gets diverted, and when we get here the doors are barred and the place is in lockdown? This is bullshit. We’re being jacked, man. I ain’t having it.”
Sensing the aggression, the guard draws his sidearm, a resin gun.
“Do not approach any closer. Once again, I need you all to return to the concourse and wait. I realise it’s inconvenient but the sooner everybody cooperates, the sooner we can get operations back to normal.”
His voice remains calm but Nikki can see that he has engaged the target-finder. She sees the sensor dance back and forth, reading and logging their shapes and positions. It’s a defensive weapon, designed to immobilise rather than injure. It fires a splatter-charge of liquid plastic that dries hard in less than a second, freezing you in its grip. It’s a bitch to get off. They need to take you to a specialised facility and bathe you for hours in a chemical solution.
There’s a comparatively slow reload mechanism when you’re firing cartridges of that stuff, but the flatfoot would be able to tag at least two, maybe even three of them at this distance, even if they were all to rush him at once. Which they are not going to do.
“We’re just leaving, officer,” she says.
He watches them back away, lowering the barrel as they retreat.
“What, we’re giving up?” Kobra asks.
“We’re not going to be much use if we all get tagged with cum-shots,” Nikki replies as they descend the ramp.
“We’re not walking away. We’re just taking the scenic route.”
Nikki takes them back out past the still-busy concourse and down a fire-sheet. It’s a narrow lane between buildings barely wide enough for people to pass, as that isn’t its purpose. There isn’t the space on Seedee to have fire gaps wide enough to be worth the name, so instead there are these channels that can be filled with rapidly expanding flame-retardant foam to prevent a blaze spreading.
She takes an auto-adjusting ratchet from her kit-belt and unscrews a panel in the floor.
“Where’s this taking us?” Tug asks, looking in particular need of convincing as his frame is going to be the hardest one to squeeze down the resulting hole.
“Mag-line. There’s a dedicated conveyor channel that takes smaller packages to the despatch centre about a block that way. We can crawl along it to the rear of the sorting depot.”
The mag-line is a low-energy electro-magnetic repulsion hover system for moving supplies around a vast network of sub-surface conduits. It’s fully automated and computer controlled, crates having their details scanned and analysed at every junction and exchange so that traffic can be managed and in some cases prioritised. The network is so extensive that if you know how to hack a crate and programme the code for your destination, you can in theory post yourself anywhere on the wheel. In fact, she is aware that that certain establishments on Mullane have been known to use it as a high-tech version of the bum’s rush if a drunk client gets out of line.
“How’s that gonna work? We’ll all get squashed flat by a moving crate.”
“Everything’s on lockdown, genius. Nothing is moving.”
“So what happens if it starts up again?”
“Then you get a free ride to the despatch centre where they slap an ‘oversize goods’ label on your fat ass.”
The overhead clearance is only about three feet. It’s slow going, interrupted by having to push cargo out of the way or, when it proves too heavy, squeeze themselves past it. Eventually they reach the rear of the sorting depot, the side even the freight-handlers never see unless something gets stuck. With the elevators offline, they need to climb maintenance ladders to reach the back of the lower-gravity platforms, though it’s only the first twenty feet or so that’s taxing. After that it just keeps getting easier.
Nikki emerges on to the lower of the platforms, where the receiving areas have transparent safety barriers keeping people back from the drop. The four of them peer cautiously down into the dock. Nikki has never seen or heard one so quiet.
There are only four people there, all male. They are standing around a large plastic slab that is sitting on a hydraulic trolley, waiting to be rolled out.
“Doesn’t look like Julio’s people,” Felicia whispers.
“I don’t care who they are,” Kobra replies. “That’s our fucking stuff.”
They don’t look like dock management. They aren’t Seguridad either: no uniforms and no badges. Nikki doesn’t know who these people are, but they’ve got the place in lockdown and are calling the shots.
“I don’t like it,” Nikki cautions.
“What’s to like? We’ve got the drop on them and they’re about to walk out of here with our shit.”
Kobra draws a weapon and raises himself into a kneeling position. The shift of his bulk causes the slightest creak to issue from the platform’s support stanchions.
It’s enough.
A fraction of a second later the air fills with plastic flechettes, fired in controlled volleys from each of the figures below. Their responses were instantaneous, a drilled combination of reflex and discipline.
Nikki’s reactions aren’t what they once were, but the height and the distance give her enough time to drag Felicia down with her, behind the glass barrier. Tug takes two in his upper arm, turning quick enough to protect his head, while Kobra’s tessellar shirt, which the darts can’t penetrate, does nothing to prevent four of the plastic missiles tearing into his face and neck.
Kobra collapses painfully to the floor a few metres ahead, like a puppet whose strings have been cut, arms and legs alike suddenly useless. Nikki hears a horrible crunch and sees broken teeth scatter on the ground amidst a spray of blood, Kobra taking no measures to cushion his fall.
The last time Nikki saw someone go down like that, it was in LA more than twenty years ago, and the victim was dead before he hit the floor.
WARNINGS FROM ON HIGH
Alice is still spinning from Boutsikari’s intervention when she feels as much as hears this deep, grinding crunch. It is like that moment just before a train or a bus comes to a stop, when she can still sense the forward momentum. Except that when the wheel stops, that momentum is multiplied by a hundred, and there’s no gravity to stop her after the jolt.
The ground stops and Alice simply doesn’t. She is pitched forward, pinballing off other bodies, but slowing enough that she thinks she can grab a railing coming up ahead. As she reaches for it, someone else barrels helplessly into her, and a moment later she is shooting up towards the canopy with disproportionate velocity.
It wasn’t the collision, she realises, but a vent. The bump knocked her into its path, only for a moment, but without gravity to retard her progress, the air resistance is no match for a fan-driven current. It sends her rising at speed, like a leaf on the wind.
She braces for contact with the canopy, reassuring herself it only looks like glass, and somehow manages to flip herself so that it is her feet that hit the transparent barrier between the wheel and open space. The impact is felt mostly in her knees, and once again seems disproportionate, this time in a kinder way, reminding her that her legs are only absorbing the force of an air vent, after all.
She rebounds with considerably reduced energy, floating very slowly downwards into open space above the plaza. Below her she can see dozens of people, all still somehow on the ground. Looking closer she observes that they are now tethered to fixed objects or to each other, from lines clipped to their waists or wrists. Among the crowds, if they even noticed the shooter, he will have been forgotten in what happened next.
Not so hard to spot the new girl, she thinks, which is when she realises that if she was the shooter’s intended victim, then she is now presenting a very easy target. She thinks of the man who was staring at her. The shooter was wearing a mask but it had to be him. He was standing in roughly the same spot.
She looks at her arm and sees blood drift from it in tiny red balls.
The wound is not what she was expecting. There is a plastic dart sticking from her forearm. It is about half the length of her thumb, and only embedded in the top half-centimetre of skin. Best not pull it out though, she reasons, but she knows nobody is going to kill her with one of these. Down on the terrace, she can see that the people around Gonçalves have relaxed their state of alertness, some even laughing with relief. With the gravity off, there is no option for anybody to go chasing down the gunman, even if they had noted what he looked like, but from their subsequent reactions she discerns that whatever just happened, it wasn’t an assassination attempt.
Then as she reaches a height of around fifty or sixty feet, she hears another shudder that confirms how being shot again with a dart gun is not the biggest danger facing her right now. If the wheel could stop without notice, then it could restart at any second too.
Her heart is racing but she is resistant to the idea of calling for help. She doesn’t want the first thing anybody knows about her to be the fact that she had to be rescued while everybody who was used to the place dealt calmly with the emergency. She was totally unprepared, however. Not only did they equip themselves with retractable tethers, but as she looks down she can see several people using compressed air canisters as propulsion devices. A handful are employing them to guide themselves back to ground where they can find anchor, but the majority are engaged in a pre-emptive clean-up operation. Hotel and restaurant staff are
expertly directing themselves into position to retrieve glasses and crockery, while using suction devices to trap balls of fluid.
“It’s so they don’t short anything,” says a woman’s voice. It comes from behind Alice, but she can’t immediately see where.
“When the wheel turns again and it all goes splat,” she continues, “you’d be amazed where fluids can end up.”
Alice gets a fix on the source. She is rising gently from beneath and to her right, expertly discharging blasts of air from a cylinder the size of a marker pen. It is the woman Hoffman led away. Her expression doesn’t look quite so severe now, but perhaps this is merely because Alice is grateful for her approach.
Upon the woman’s invitation, Alice offers a hand, expecting it to be gripped. Instead she extends a tether from a wristband and attaches it to a belt-loop on Alice’s waist.
“Thank you,” Alice says meekly.
“Didn’t they give you one of these?” the woman asks.
Alice is not sure whether she means the wrist utility or the air cylinder. She is about to say no when she flashes back to a welcome pack that was waiting for her on the bed in her hotel room. She must have flaked out last night, meaning to open it in the morning, but she hurried out without doing so.
“I’m Helen, by the way,” she says in an accent suggesting she just got here from the Deep South. “Helen Petitjean.”
Alice is about to introduce herself but remembers it would be redundant. She decides to do so anyway. Some archive inside her head just relayed the notion that Southerners traditionally place a premium on politeness, so she opts to go with it.
“Alice Blake. Pleased to meet you, and many thanks for going to this trouble.”
“My pleasure.”
Places in the Darkness Page 7