‘Nicholson’s probably going to kick,’ Norton said quietly. ‘He’ll say you’re conflicted.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Not enjoying your octopus, then?’
‘I’m not hungry.’
Norton sighed. ‘You know we can let this one go if you want, Sev. Tsai’s guys don’t want us here anyway, and RimSec would just love the chance to flex its secessional muscle. If this guy didn’t drown in the Pacific, he’s on their land now. Added to which, the fact he’s a thirteen pretty much makes it a UNGLA matter. Why don’t we just step back and let the UN and the Rim fight it out for jurisdiction?’
‘No fucking way.’ Sevgi tossed her chopsticks onto the plate. She sat back. ‘I didn’t join COLIN for an easy ride, Tom. I needed the money is all. And this is as good a way to earn it as busting black market Marstech or chasing cultists away from the racks. Did you fucking see what he did to those bodies? Helena Larsen had a fucking life waiting for her when she got home. This is the first worthwhile thing I’ve done in over two years. This is ours.’
Norton looked at her in silence for a moment. Nodded. ‘All right. I’ll have Tsai upload the CSI files to COLIN New York. That should take the ambiguity out of the situation. What do you want to do about Coyle and Rovayo?’
‘Retain them. Joint taskforce, indispensable local law enforcement support.’ She found energy for a grin. ‘Should play well with the Rim media. COLIN fucks up and spills one of their transports into the Pacific, West Coast cops ride to the rescue. It’ll open some doors for us.’
‘And save us some legwork.’
‘Well, there’s that. You know the Bay area pretty well, right? Got a sister here?’
Norton sipped at his wine. ‘Sister-in-law. Brother moved over here about fifteen years ago, he’s a special asylums co-ordinator with the Human Cost foundation. You know, screening, social integration programme. But it’s probably her you heard me talking about. Megan. We uh, we get on pretty well.’
‘You going to see them while we’re here?’
‘Maybe.’ Norton frowned into his drink. ‘How much of this are we going to let the media have?’
Sevgi yawned. ‘Don’t know. See how it goes. If you’re talking about the variant thirteen thing, I vote we keep a lid on it.’
‘If I’m talking about the variant thirteen thing? Gee, I don’t know, Sev. Do you think I could be? This is me, Sev. Do you think you could drop the say what casual act for a while?’
She stared off into the gloom of the restaurant. Her eye caught on an underlit motion ad from the fifties - some nanotech dream of change, a ripple of green and blue marches across Martian red to the horizon, a bright new sun rises in synchrony.
‘It’ll be enough to make him out a stowaway and a criminal,’ she said carefully. ‘Say that he murdered members of the crew, keep the details back to screen out all the crank calls we’re going to pull down. Bad enough that he’s back from Mars. Telling them he’s a thirteen as well is just asking for trouble. You saw the way Coyle reacted. Remember Sundersen last year? We don’t need another Abomination Amongst Us panic on our hands.’
‘You think they’d go that way again? After the spanking they all got from the Press Ethics commission?’
Sevgi shrugged. ‘The media likes panic. It boosts viewing.’
‘Are we going to give race type?’
‘If and when Organic Trace get it for us. Why?’
‘I’m wondering,’ Norton said softly, ‘if he’s Chinese.’
Sevgi thought about it for a moment. ‘Yeah. There’s that. Don’t want a replay of Zhang fever. That shit was fucking awful. Least with Sundersen, no one died.’
‘Apart from Sundersen.’
‘You know what I mean. You ever see that lynching footage? They made us watch it in school.’ Sevgi brushed fingertips to her temples. ‘I can still see it in here like it was fucking yesterday.’
‘Bad times.’
‘Yeah.’ She pushed her plate away and bridged her arms in the space it left. ‘Listen, Tom, maybe we should run silent on this whole thing. For the time being, anyway. Just tell the media everybody died in the crash, including this guy. It’s not like there’s a plausibility problem with that, after all. Shit, we still haven’t worked out how he survived.’
‘On the other hand, if we get a photo ID off the trace-’
‘Big if.’
‘-then broadcasting it’d be our best chance of nailing this guy.’
‘He can change his face, Tom. Any backstreet salon in the Bay area’ll do it for a couple of hundred bucks. By the time we get a face out to the media, he’ll have peeled it and gone underground. Gene trace is the only thing that’s going to work here.’
‘If the gene code is Chinese, and that gets out, then you’re up against the same problem.’
‘But it’ll be a specific code we’re looking for.’
‘It was a specific face they were looking for with Zhang. I don’t recall it making much difference. Hell, Sevgi -’ Out of nowhere, Norton burlesqued Nicholson for her. ‘You know those damn people all look alike anyway.’
Sevgi smeared a smile. ‘I don’t think it’s like that out here. This isn’t Jesusland.’
‘You got idiocy everywhere, Sev. The Republic isn’t running the only franchise. Look at Nicholson - New York born and bred. Where does he get it from?’
‘I don’t know. Faith Satellite channel?’
‘Hall-e-lu-jah! Praise the Lord, Jesus gonna come and cut my taxes.’
They both smirked a little more, but the laughter wouldn’t come. The bodies from the virtual still hung around them in the gloom. Presently, a busboy came and asked if they were done. Sevgi nodded, Norton asked to see the desserts. The busboy gathered the plates and headed off. It dawned slowly on Sevgi that he was peculiarly gaunt for his age, and that his speech had been oddly patterned, as if it hurt him to talk. His features looked northern Chinese, but his skin was very dark. The realisation hit her liquidly in the stomach. She stared after the retreating figure.
‘Think that’s one of your brother’s success stories then?’ she asked.
‘Hmm.’ Norton followed her gaze. ‘Oh. Doubt it. Statistically, I mean. Jeff told me they get a couple of thousand new black lab escapees a year, minimum. And he’s mostly in management anyway, trying to keep the whole thing together. They got nearly a hundred counsellors working, on and off, and they’re still swamped.’
‘Human Cost’s a charity, right?’
‘Yeah. The Rim gives them a budget, but it’s not what you’d call generous.’ A sudden animation flooded her partner’s voice. ‘And then, you know, it’s tough work. Kind of thing that wears you down. Some of the stories he’s told me about what comes out of those black labs, I don’t think I could do it. I don’t really understand how Jeff can. It’s weird. When we were younger, it always looked like I was going to be the one with the justice vocation. He was the power and influence man, not me. And then,’ Norton gestured with his wine glass, ‘somehow he’s out here doing charity work and I end up with the big job at COLIN.’
‘People change.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Maybe it’s Megan.’
He looked up sharply. ‘What is?’
‘Maybe that was what changed him. When he met Megan.’
Norton grunted. A waiter came by with the dessert trolley, but nothing appealed. They settled for gene-enhanced coffees, for which the place was apparently famous, and the bill. Sevgi found herself staring at the antique Mars motion ad again.
‘You know,’ she said slowly, because they’d both been skating around it all evening. ‘The real issue isn’t who this guy is. The real issue is who helped him get home.’
‘Ah. That.’
‘Trick out the fucking ship’s djinn? If he was capped and the capsule thawed him, that should have triggered some kind of alarm all by itself. Before he even woke up, let alone had time to start hacking the systems. And if he wasn’t capped, if he did stow away, the
n the n-djinn wouldn’t have allowed the launch in the first place.’
‘You think Coyle and Rovayo spotted that? I tried to steer past it.’
‘Yeah. That’s happened before on the Mars run, we just don’t like to publicise the fact. Sometimes they just die. Nice shot.’
Norton grinned. ‘True as far as it goes, Sev.’
‘Yeah. Maybe a dozen times in sixty odd years of traffic. And for my money, you’re talking hardware-based failures every time.’
‘You don’t think they’ll bite?’
‘What, the secret flaws of the n-djinn AI?’ Sevgi pulled a face. ‘I don’t know, it’s got appeal. Machine no match for a human, and all that shit. And everyone likes to be let in on a secret. Sell people a conspiracy, their whole fucking brain will freeze up if you’re lucky. Baby-eating secret sects, a centuries-old plot to enslave mankind. Black helicopters, flying eggs. Shit like that plays to packed houses. Critical faculties out the lock.’
‘And meantime-’
‘Meantime,’ Sevgi leant across the table, all humour erased from her face. ‘We both know that someone else on Mars with some serious machine intrusion skills had a hand in this. Our mystery cannibal was capped along with the others which means heavy-duty identity fraud, and then he was wired to wake up early which-’
Norton shook his head. ‘Thing I don’t get. Why wake him up so early he’s got to eat everybody else to survive? Why not just trigger the cap a couple of weeks out from Earth.’
Sevgi rolled another shrug. ‘My guess? It was a glitch. Whoever took down the n-djinn wasn’t so hot with cryocap specifics. Guy wakes up two weeks out from the wrong planet, journey’s start, not journey’s end. Maybe that shorts out the cryocap so he can’t get back in and refreeze, maybe it doesn’t but he stays out anyway because he can’t afford to arrive still capped and go through quarantine. But however you look at it, glitch or no glitch, he had some heavy-duty help. We’re not talking about a jail break here, Tom. This guy was sent. And that means whoever sent him had a specific purpose in mind.’
Norton grimaced. ‘Well, there’s a limited number of reasons you’d hire a variant thirteen.’
‘Yeah.’
They were both quiet for a while. Finally, Sevgi looked up at her partner and offered a thin smile.
‘We’d better find this guy fast, Tom.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
He caught the last ferry across the bay to Tiburon, hooked an autocab at the other end and rode out to Mill Valley with the windows cranked down. Warm, green-scented air poured in, brought him a sharp memory of walking under redwood canopies with Megan in Muir Woods. He put it away again with great care, handling the image at the edges like an antique photo he might smudge or a fragment of broken mirror. He watched the soft glow from passing street lamps and the lights in wood-frame homes built back from the roads, shrouded in foliage. It was as distant from Horkan’s Pride and her cargo of carnage as he was currently from home. You looked at the well-kept, scenic-sculpted roadways, all that quiet and residential greenery, and you didn’t want to believe that the man who’d crashed into the ocean that morning with only the corpses he’d mutilated for company could be out there under the same night sky.
Sevgi Ertekin’s words drifted back through his mind. The wan intensity on her face as she spoke.
We’d better find this guy fast, Tom.
The cab found the address and coasted gently to a halt under the nearest street lamp. Idling there, it made scarcely more noise than the breeze through the trees, but still he saw downstairs lights spring up in the house and the front door opened. Jeff stood there framed by the light, waved hesitantly. Must have been waiting at the window. No sign of Megan at his side.
Norton walked up the steep curve of the driveway, suddenly feeling the hours and the distance from New York. Cicadas whirred in the bushes and trees planted on either side, water splashed in the stone bowl fountain at the top. The house stood across the slope in rambling, porch-fronted spaciousness. His brother came down the steps to greet him, clapped him awkwardly on the shoulder.
‘You remembered where to find us okay?’
‘Took a taxi.’
‘Uh, yeah. Right.’
They went in together.
‘Megan not about?’ he asked casually.
‘No, she’s over at Hilary’s with the kids.’
‘Hilary?’
‘Oh, right. Haven’t seen you since, uh. Hilary, she’s our new legal adviser at the foundation. Got twins the same age as Jack. They’re having a sleepover.’ Jeff Norton gestured towards the living room. ‘Come and sit down. Get you a drink?’
The room was much the same as Norton remembered it - battered cloth armchairs facing a fire-effect screen set in a raw brick facing, northwest native art and family photos crowding the walls. Polished wood floors and middle-eastern rugs. Jeff served them vintage Indonesian arrack from a drinks cabinet made of reclaimed driftwood. Low-level glow from the screen flames and the Japanese-style wall sconces lit his profile as he worked. Norton watched him.
‘So, I guess you saw we made the feeds?’
Jeff nodded, pouring. ‘Yeah, just been looking at it. COLIN death ship in mystery plunge. That’s why you’re out this way?’
‘Got it in one. It’s a genuine class one nightmare.’
‘Well, I guess you had to start earning that big salary you pull down sooner or later.’ A brief, sidelong grin to show it wasn’t meant. Yeah, but somehow, Jeff, it always is, isn’t it? ‘How are things over at Jefferson Park these days? They treating you well?’
Norton shrugged. ‘Same as it ever was. Can’t complain. Got a new partner, hired out of NYPD homicide. She’s a couple of years younger than me, keeps me on my toes.’
‘Attractive?’
‘Not that it makes any difference, but yeah, she is.’
Jeff came across with the two glasses, handed him one. He grinned. ‘Always makes a difference, little brother. Think you’ll nail her?’
‘Jeff, for Christ’s sake.’ No real anger, he was too travel-worn and weary for it. ‘Do you really have to act like such a throwback all the time?’
‘Oh, what? Girl’s attractive, you don’t do the math, add up your chances?’ Still standing, his brother knocked back a chunk of the arrack, grinned down at him. ‘Come on, I can see it in your eyes. This one, you want.’
Norton pressed thumb and forefinger to his eyelids. ‘You know what, Jeff, maybe I do, and maybe I don’t. But it isn’t my primary concern right now. You think we could talk about something that matters for a change.’
He didn’t see the way the expression on his brother’s face shifted, the way the grin faded out, gave way to a watchful tension. Jeff backed up and dropped into the opposing armchair, thrust his legs out in front of him. When Norton looked at him, he met his gaze and gestured.
‘Okay, Tom, you got it. Whatever I can do. But it’s a long time since I had much pull in New York. I mean, I can maybe make some calls if they’re on your back, but-’
‘No, it’s nothing like that.’
‘It’s not?’
‘No, we’ve got pretty much an open brief on this one. Word down from on high, do what you want but clean up the mess.’
‘And what mess would that be, exactly? Feeds say everyone aboard is dead.’
‘Yeah. Since when did you trust what you see on the feeds? Truth is, we’ve got a live one, and he made it off the ship. This is confidential information I’m giving you, Jeff. Can’t go any further than this room, this conversation. Not even Megan.’
Jeff spread his hands. Slow smile. ‘Hey, since when did I ever tell Megan everything? You know me, Tom.’
‘Yeah, well.’ He held down the anger, old and accustomed like the kick he got out of the Cadillac when he downshifted without the brake.
‘So, come on. What’s the big secret?’
‘Big secret is that this guy is a variant thirteen.’
There was a small satisfaction in watching the w
ay Jeff reacted. Eyes widened, mouth dropping to frame a response he didn’t have. Norton thought it came off a little phoney, but he’d grown used to that aspect of Jeff over the years, the actorly, slightly larger-than-life way he deployed himself for whatever audience there was. He’d always tried to see it, charitably, as the price of admission into the charmed power circle his brother had inhabited with such aplomb when they were both younger men - but now, now that his brother had apparently become charitable himself without losing any of that mannered polish, Norton was forced to consider that maybe Jeff had always been that way, always playing himself for the cheap seats.
‘You deal with this kind of thing on a daily basis, Jeff,’ he said simply. ‘I need some advice here.’
‘Did you call UNGLA?’
‘Not yet. Way things are, it’s not likely we will.’
‘You want my advice? Call ’em.’
‘Come on, Jeff. COLIN wouldn’t even sign up to the Accords at Munich. You think they’re going to want the UN walking all over their stuff with big international treaty boots?’
Jeff Norton set his drink aside on a tall driftwood table, distant cousin to the cabinet. He rubbed hands over his face.
‘How much do you know about variant thirteen, Tom?’
Norton shrugged. ‘What everyone knows.’
‘What everyone knows is bullshit hype and moral panic for the feeds. What do you actually know?’
‘Uh, they’re sociopaths. Some kind of throwback to when we were all still hunter-gatherers, right?’
‘Some kind of, yeah. Truth is, Tom, it’s like the bonobos and the hibernoids and every other misbegotten premature poke at re-engineering last century’s idiot optimist pioneers saddled us with. Guesswork and bad intentions. Nobody ever built a human variant because they thought they were giving it a better shot at life, liberty and the pursuit of fucking happiness. They were products, all of them, agenda-targeted. Spaceflight programmes wanted the hibernoids, the bonobos were patriarchal authority’s wet dream of womanhood-’
The Complete SF Collection Page 214