by Tim Scott
He opened a drawer and pulled out an old Handheld Feed Reader. Then he plugged in to the feed on my neck, but after ten minutes he shook his head.
“This thing is too old. You’ll have to stick with who you are and take your chances,” he said, pulling out the plug and sending a shiver through my spine.
And somehow, that seemed appropriate.
chapter
THIRTY
Sergeant Maddox was alone.
He stood at the gates of the park, feeling the wind whip his hair.
It was cold. He leaned against the fence rail and stared up at the giant steel and glass buildings.
He felt his heart jump. The man in black was suddenly there next to him.
“We had the fridge,” said Maddox, “but it was taken from the Cold Compound. I didn’t find out about it until it was too late. Now I have the FDs searching, but I have to be careful.”
The wind cut through his shirt and he shivered.
“I don’t know who would have taken it, unless it was the couple from the Halcyon,” he added.
“Find that fridge. We must put an end to this.”
“Sure. I’ll—”
But the man had gone.
chapter
THIRTY-ONE
We tried to hail a drongle.
Gabe had given me a gun. It sat in my left inside pocket, and it felt like some kind of clumsy metaphor for a heavy heart.
The harsh morning light made the search for this woman seem almost childishly stupid.
More drongles. Most were full, and others were feral. Disposing of the wild ones wasn’t easy, and City Maintenance preferred to leave them bumbling around on their own in the traffic until they broke down or exploded. The burned-out carcasses were not uncommon.
After ten minutes, one ground to a halt in a scuff of wheels and scattering sparks from the electrics. I shouted the address into the horn at least three times and eventually the light flickered on.
Inside, the screens plagued us with Health and Safety announcements as we nosed our way through the early morning traffic. They were mostly related to the dangers inherent in falling over, and there was another plea by the mayor to call the slightly-on-edge help line if you felt scared, but he still rounded it off by imploring us not to die for no reason.
“Is this what I came back for?” I shouted above the whine of the engine. “To listen to this mayor and his inane philosophy?”
“Take it easy, Huck. It’s just the way things are.”
I shook my head and tried to tune it all into the background, but that slogan was gnawing away at me.
Outside the smart and bizarrely dressed people on the early morning commute were struggling down the packed sidewalk. The city was squeezing these pedestrians in so tightly that, at some point, physics dictated they had to collectively implode. And if that happened, I wondered whether it would rain designer couture for ten days solid.
“There’s a warehouse this way where we can store the fridges. They’ll be safer there than in my apartment.”
“Yeah?” I said. “Okay.”
“We’ll have to wait until after dark. It’ll be quiet by about 2 a.m.”
“It never used to be this busy.”
“Yeah, the city wall is meant to cut congestion on the central sidewalks by 50 percent, but there are stories that the drones building it have been hacked into and that the whole wall is riddled with tunnels and rooms that aren’t in the official plans.”
“And you don’t think that’s a myth?” I said.
“I don’t think so,” said Gabe. “Health and Safety wields a lot of power, but it’s not well organized.”
“It’s a shambles,” I said as we eased our way through the hopeless muddle of traffic. Outside hawkers, brokers, and beggars mixed in a panorama of chaos under the flat, dark sky. The bedlam made me uneasy.
“You nervous about this?” said Gabe.
“Busting in on the Halcyon? Yeah, it’s been awhile.”
“But you never forget.”
“No, you don’t,” I said. “Even if you want to.”
Now we slowed to a stuttering crawl. And then stopped. None of the drongles showed any sign of moving.
Outside, a highly manicured woman with a small dog perched within a hat on her head walked past. She was with a man who had an identical dog in a hat on his head. I wanted to get out and give them a hard time about it for so many reasons I could have produced a small pamphlet on the subject.
Possibly a novella.
A group of nuns, clad neatly in wimples, were carrying clear plastic riot shields to protect the mother superior, and were causing a big commotion as they crossed the highway.
“Hail Mary, mother of grace!” said one, shoulder-charging a businessman out the way with her shield on the word grace. The shield glanced off the man and clattered across the drongle hood.
That kind of thing hadn’t happened in Saratoga. There was something unhinged about this city. Maybe being right on the border of the country had finally gotten to the people here, and suddenly they felt like they were eternally on the edge of something, teetering on the cusp, ready to fall into the abyss. Maybe that’s why they made such a big thing about pointing out their existence, just to reassure themselves they were all still here.
And perhaps that was why they were so concerned about health and safety, because they secretly knew they were doomed but they didn’t know why, or how to deal with it.
The drongle stumbled along for another ten minutes. Then it hobbled up onto the curb, partially blocking the sidewalk. “This is the Halcyon motel,” it said. “Please leave the drongle now. Your lucky color is green. Your lucky mausoleum is one with a nice plinth. Your receipt is being printed on re—” But the voice cut off as it spurted out a long sheaf of blank paper.
We were still three or four blocks north. Maybe more. “It’s at least four more blocks,” I said and banged on one of the panels.
“This is the Halcyon motel,” repeated the tinny voice. “Please leave the vehicle now. Your lucky number today is seven. Your lucky famous engineer with strange first names is Isambard Kingdom Brunel.”
“Four. More. Blocks,” I repeated.
“Your receipt is being printed on material that may contain traces of nuts.” And the thing spurted out more and more paper. “This is the Halcyon motel. If you are allergic to nuts, please wear the protective gloves,” it squeaked, as the paper spewing out began to rise above our feet and a pair of gloves dropped through a slot.
“New Seattle Health and Safety” sang a jingle. “New Seattle Health and Safety. Stay safe. Watch out! Stay safe! Watch out! Stay safe! Watch out for that—”
There was a long, excruciating sound effect of a crash, and then the voice went dead. Someone on the sidewalk banged against the domed roof and the drongle rocked.
“Looks like we’re getting out here,” said Gabe, gathering the paper.
“Yeah,” I said, and I made a mental note that if I ever met anyone from City Maintenance, I would give him such a massively long lecture about the state of these things that he would need warm clothing and food to see him through the conversation.
“Who maintains these drongles?” I said, yanking back the goose-wing door. “Someone brought up by bears?”
Gabe crumpled the armfuls of paper from the receipt into a bundle and eased himself out into the street. A gaggle of street kids dressed in dark denim clothes flocked up to him.
“Take your receipt away for a dime,” they cried, converging on us. Gabe bundled the receipt into the nearest kid’s open arms, pressed a coin into his open palm, and watched as he ran off with the others trailing after him, amid cries and shouts.
“The warehouse is a block this way.”
“Okay,” I said. The crowd around us was alive with hawkers selling strange bits of meat on a stick and glazed fruits of colors so vibrant they were almost blinding. A particularly truculent beggar attached himself to me and wanted fifty dollars to tell my fo
rtune by punching me in the face.
“The face knows all,” he said. “How a man’s face reacts to the primeval force of being punched is revealing to those who can read pain.”
“Maybe, but no thanks,” I said.
“But think about it,” he said, skipping after me. “It’s an ancient technique. It was used by the British royalty. Have you never been confused as to why Henry IV had a wonky nose?”
“Actually, no,” I said, virtually tripping over the guy as I forced my way past him.
We turned off down an alley and through some derelict lots and passed a tenement block abandoned to graffiti. Ahead was the warehouse.
The double doors were firmly shut, but Gabe took me to the side entrance and forced it open. We stepped into a tiny office cramped by years of papers and unopened mail. There were boxes of old smoke canisters hastily piled in one corner. And on the wall hung an out-of-date calendar from a company calling itself the Mighty Wump-Wump Engine Company. A shamble of wrenches and oiled-smeared paper was strewn across the desk.
There was a door to the back.
It led to a vast hangar, full of old cop drongles.
“Cop drongles?” I said. “Is this safe?”
They were jammed in and propped up against the walls in any way they could be squeezed in. Most looked ancient and wrecked, with their bodies full of gaping holes, disgorging wires. Dried blue liquid dribbled everywhere across the floor. A few had painted red stripes, but most of the others had the old police colors.
“It’s abandoned. I used to do security here sometimes after I left the force, but they don’t bother with it anymore. You think we can get the fridges here tonight?”
“Sure,” I said. “Why not? They’d like it here.”
We made our way back out through the office and onto the street.
I tried to hail another drongle but they were all full, or just unhelpfully grouchy, so we walked a block back to Main Street.
“Dan Berber,” said a small man suddenly walking alongside me, leaning into my line of vision.
“No thanks, Dan. Whatever it is.”
“I look like a regular pedestrian to you, right? But I’m not. Here’s my card. Health and Safety. Undercover. And my badge. And I have some photos of me graduating from walking classes. You want to see them? No? No problem-o. My mother has one on her wall. She shows everyone.” He had a tiny mustache that seemed uncertain of itself. “But I just want to give you a few safety tips on walking this morning, if you don’t mind, sir.”
“I do mind,” I said. We were shoved sideways across the sidewalk.
“Okay, but you did some below-par walking back there. Your steps were disjointed, you were a menace to other sidewalk users, and that’s why I’m on hand to intervene. I can get your walking up to the standard required for New Seattle in only a few lessons, just like that.” He clicked his fingers with only partial success. “A few tips, a bit of practice. Maybe you should come to one of my weekend retreats. You’d end up with better walking skills than most of the people here.”
“Honestly, I know how to walk. I’m doing it now.”
“No, you just think you are. Everyone thinks they can walk, but they can’t. You should be thankful to have someone like me on hand. You don’t get this kind of service in Chicago. They have a safety squirrel as a mascot, too, but boy, are they a bunch of losers.”
“Look, thanks, but no. I need to catch my friend.”
“You’re in a hurry, so let me give you just a taster. Keep your ankles in line and concentrate on posture. Chin is forward and up,” he said, grasping my head. I came to a halt.
“I know how to walk,” I said. “I’ve been doing it since I was two. Now go away!”
“Hey! I spent a year qualifying as an H and S walking advisor, and I passed with special merit in two of the six classes. I think I know more about walking than you, all right? I also did a class on skipping, if you were interested in branching out.”
“No, I don’t want to do any skipping.”
“You might have just slept with the girl of your dreams. Then you’d want to skip.”
“I don’t want to skip. And I don’t need any advice on walking, okay? I can walk fine. It’s easy.”
“Okay. Your choice. But let me give you this. This is a leaflet specifically aimed at people with your problem.”
“I have to go.”
“Take the leaflet. It’s on basic walking.” His mustache seemed to vibrate, then he grabbed my arm as I tried to move off and stared into my eyes.
“Take the leaflet, sir. That way we’ll all be safer. For Mother New Seattle. You do love Mother New Seattle, don’t you?”
I took it.
He nodded, saluted, and slipped off sideways into the crowd at a huge speed, swerving neatly around someone carrying a chicken.
I threaded my way through the crowd as fast as I could to catch up to Gabe. But I couldn’t see him. How could a man with a limp walk so fast?
After fifteen minutes of being pummeled and heckled by enough street hawkers for a lifetime, I took a left and noticed that the streets were run-down.
Another block and I saw the motel ahead.
In the harsh light of day, the place looked even more apologetic, the walls grimy with neglect, the lot strewn with wind-scattered rubbish. A fern tree someone had planted in a fit of enthusiasm now billowed out of control, and even the birds eyed it with suspicion.
This whole chase seemed more and more childish the longer it went on.
Why the hell was I going after this woman anyway? What did I expect from her? Answers to why my life had gone astray?
Because it was obvious all I was going to find here was trouble.
chapter
THIRTY-TWO
I made another ten yards before I was yanked into a doorway. It was Gabe.
“Cops might be staking it out,” he said. “The tall building across from the motel, second window along. You see?”
I peeked out from the doorway and down the street. At first I saw nothing. Then I just made out the glint of something in the early morning sun shining from a second-floor window. It might be nothing, but it might be someone with binoculars. There was no point risking it.
“Yeah,” I said. “I see it.”
We retraced our steps and then took a right.
We passed the carcass of an advertising balloon that lay in a pool of its own broken structure. “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be!” it said in gold letters on the side, but for what reason I had no idea. Another turn and we approached the motel from a back alley. It stank of rotting garbage.
People say that, in cities, you are never more than six yards from a rat. Right now, I sensed that figure was down to a few inches.
I took out the gun, and it sat uncomfortably in my hand. I had done this hundreds of times as a cop, but now the whole process felt foreign, and the memories seemed secondhand. It had been another me who had known how to do this—one who had given me a taste for perfectly made mojitos and a dislike of metal sculptures displayed in woodlands, but who had now gone and turned out the light.
The back door hung open. Gabe edged in and I followed. It was a kitchen.
The smell in here was as bad as in the alley, except it was mixed with cooking.
Remnants of breakfast were strewn across a table that was covered with a plastic tablecloth decorated with red roses and jelly. The linoleum floor was streaked with ruts riven by the legs of too many chairs, over too many years.
“Hey!” said the fridge, opening its door. “Fancy a piece of cheese?”
“No, thanks,” I said. “We’re just passing through.”
“What, my Edam not good enough for you, eh? Okay, how about some wonker? It’s like water, but not as good.”
“Sh,” I said. “Maybe later, okay?”
I heard the front door of the motel clack shut as someone left, and Gabe looked back. I nodded, leveled my gun, eased past him, and stepped into the dingy lobby. It was lit
with a small desk light that silhouetted a single figure.
“Nice and easy,” I said. “Step away from the desk and leave the shotgun under the counter.”
The guy turned. I could only partially see his face, because it was smudged by the shadows. He moved his shaking hands slightly out from his sides.
“I don’t want no trouble,” he said. “This isn’t my place.” There was a rough edge to his voice, as though his nerves were fraying the edges of his words.
I kept the gun on him.
“What’s your name?” I said.
“Buster.”
“Okay, Buster, we don’t want any trouble, either,” I said as Gabe sat the guy down in a chair and checked him for weapons. He was clean.
“But no one calls me that anymore,” he added.
“Okay. Well, it doesn’t matter. We just want to ask you a few questions,” I said.
“Do you want to know what they all call me now? Intercontinental Death Star officer, second lieutenant,” he said, and his voice suddenly had an excitable edge, as though the words were desperate to be out of his mouth. “You want to join my army?”
“No. We’re after some information about a girl,” I said.
“You should join my army. I could teach you stuff. You know what this sign means?” He tapped the top of his head with his hands, looking around excitedly at us.
“We don’t know. We just have some questions.”
“‘Everyone gather around me.’ You make that sign in the firefight, and everyone gathers around you. I’ve trained my dog to recognize it. He’s called Juniper, after the tree. I tried to train the cats as well, but they aren’t interested. They pretend to watch while you show them, but they don’t give a fucking damn. Self-centered bastards.”
“Listen, okay? A girl was in room fourteen yesterday and the cops came for her. You remember?”
“Yeah, of course I do. I saw her. Know what this sign means?” He touched his elbow excitedly.
“Did you talk to her?”
“Sure, I talked to her. ‘Enemy coming from around the corner.’ Just touch your elbow like that. No…or is it ‘helicopter landing zone is secure’? That one depends when you do it. It’s like Mandarin; one sign can mean lots of things, depending how you use it. This one I know for sure.” He shot his hands out quickly into the dark and I flinched.