Nylon Angel

by Marianne de Pierres

  Daac must have spotted me rubbernecking out the door, because he called me to join them. I loathed him for stealing my kit, but I had no way to replace it, so his blackmail carried weight.

  As long as he didn't interfere with the actual job I was here to do, I'd agree to him coming for the ride. I figured he could watch all he wanted. He might even be useful. But once I'd downloaded the files Lang wanted, Daac wouldn't see me for dust.

  I hiked my skirt impatiently around my waist, tucking it into my string. The clock was ticking on Lang's deadline, and the last thing I felt like was parading in this flimsy piece of repugnance in front of Daac's entourage.

  Sometimes, though, bluff can go a long way, and my curiosity was piqued about Daac's strange network outside The Tert. How did he know these people?

  Aside from Dr. Anna Schaum, Kiora Bass, Pat and Ibis were inconsequential, invisible people. No real money, no obvious influence…

  I strode out, feeling naked in the unfamiliar looseness of the dress. Modesty wasn't my problem, just image. I wasn't the girlie type—and I didn't want to be.

  Daac's stare didn't help matters. "It's meant to be worn long, Parrish," he muttered, eyes riveted to my thighs.

  Anna watched his reaction, her pale blue eyes cold as a wax dummy.

  "Darling. How divine… what legs," Pat trilled to fill the awkwardness.

  Pat had a high, girlish voice and a compact physique. I knew if he turned around his buns would be as tight as fists. A workout junkie—I bet—with a bright, mischievous face.

  I growled at him. If he hadn't fed me one helluva breakfast, I might have kicked his tightly toned butt.

  "Heavenly," agreed Ibis, stuffing sugar-coated doughnuts between his plump lips. Ibis had probably never seen the inside of a gym; his buns, I bet, would be soft and malleable like two lumps of rising dough. No doubt he easily absorbed the impact of Pat's dense muscle. I imagined them in bed together—the rippling of Ibis's loose skin as they came.

  Daac hadn't taken his eyes off me.

  Anna's were on Daac.

  "A frigging freak, more like," I snarled, completely ungrateful.

  "You look like everyone else around here," Daac said.

  He had a point. He was dressed in loose white pants and 3-D tie-dyed shirt. The spirals made me nauseous. Ibis wore a glittery disco jumpsuit and an outrageous red afro. Pat was in too-tight black with a swathe of gold chains. I'd heard Viva was in the grip of a major retrospective fashion groove—seeing it was something else.

  "I think she looks awful," said Schaum.

  "No offense, Anna darling, but what would you know about fashion?" said Ibis, wide-eyed and serious.

  Schaum flushed the color of her birthmarks and tried not to look down at her severe taupe suit. "No offense, Ibis, but you're not just a fashion victim. You're a fatality."

  The tension between them made me want to laugh.

  "Shall we test the water first, Loyl-me-Daac? How about brunch?" Pat intervened.

  "What's brunch?" I asked suspiciously.

  Schaum sniggered.

  Daac cast her an irritated glance. "Pat's suggesting we go out to eat, in public, test the climate."

  "What climate? What do you mean?" Who was I? The idiot no one remembered to tell things?

  "Your face is all over One-World, Parrish. First the 'Terro. Now your escape from the 'copters. Show her, Pat."

  Gravely Pat replayed the latest news on the shop screen.

  It was full of Razz Retribution's murder, the embargo on The Tert and me: an olio of inflammatory images concocting a dramatic tale about a crime of passion committed by a social misfit turned villain.

  One Parrish Plessis.

  I hardly recognized the photos of my old self minus the dreads, the bent nose and dinted cheekbone.

  "Amazing," muttered Daac.

  I wasn't quite sure which bit he was referring to.

  There was more: vid shots of my home and footage of Kat playing pro ball in Eurasia, interspersed with mugshots of Rene and Kevin. Kevin had plenty to say. Words like sociopath and nihilist that he must have practiced for days.

  My mouth fell open. Despite Anna Schaum's patronizing stare, I couldn't get it shut.

  "They're making me out to be Razz Retribution's murderer," I gasped. "Me and Sto."

  Daac looked guilty. "You were with Sto when the 'Terro came calling. Somehow the media's jumped on the idea you masterminded the murder and Stolowski was your accomplice. Your bike-bust out of The Tert across the waste seems to have fueled the idea."

  "But I didn't do it!" I shouted, indignant.

  "I'm sorry, Parrish. I didn't realize this would happen. That you'd get so involved."

  My voice got louder. "I'm not involved, it's a stupid media beat-up." I sounded pathetic, even to myself.

  You see, there wasn't really such a thing as a media "beat-up." A "beat-up" implied the possibility that you would be delivered, in the end, from the lies; that viewers might question what they saw.

  But they wouldn't.

  If One-World decided you were the perp, then you were. The truth wasn't relevant. Reality wasn't worth a canrat's teste.

  I turned my anger on Daac. "Listen to me. I've got a job. How am I going to do it with the whole damn networld peeping up my caftan?"

  He shrugged—a casual movement that belied his cunning. "Why don't you tell me what you're doing? Maybe I can help."

  "Why would you want to?"

  "Let's say it could be advantageous to us both."

  He had me in a corner. Accept his help or no kit.

  Maybe he didn't understand that being cornered made me do crazy things.

  I lunged at Anna, jerking her toward me, catching her around the neck. She was so light I lifted her clean off her feet, using her as a shield.

  Ibis clucked unhappily and tugged Pat away from me.

  "Get my kit-or the medic will need some of her own help."

  "Parrish!" Daac snarled a warning.

  "Trash!" Anna Schaum spat over her shoulder at me.

  I snapped her neck around as hard as I could without breaking it—though it wouldn't take much.

  She wailed like a kid.

  Ibis hid behind Pat, though he was half a head bigger. Pat stared at me with curiosity and, I guessed, only mild concern for the woman I was hurting.

  Only Daac reacted in her defense. "Don't be stupid, Parrish. Let her go. You need us, right now."

  "Need you?" The contempt in my voice was real. How could I possibly need two lava-lamp salesmen, an insecure scientist and the world's biggest jerk?

  Daac kept talking, in his flat, measured, dismantling-the-bomb tone. I wondered if he saved it especially for me.

  "Pat and Ibis can get you anywhere you need to go in Viva. Anna can treat any damage you do to yourself, and augment you with anything you need. I can protect you—"

  "Protect! There you go again. Can't you get it through your head? I don't need protecting. Get off my case! Stay out of my life!"

  "Loyl, please," Schaum gasped.

  Daac eased a sleek, matt pistol from a holster under the flap of his shirt and raised it level with my head. "Parrish, let Anna go. There is no need to hurt her."

  "No. There isn't. Just get me my kit and I'll be gone."

  I could see the indecision in his face and I preyed on it. "I'll break her neck, Daac. You wouldn't want that, would you? And if you shoot, you might hit her first. You wouldn't want that either. It might affect your precious research."

  My last threat was right on target. Whatever Anna was doing for him was important enough to let me go.

  He lowered his pistol in disgust.

  At himself? Or me?

  "Pat, get her kit."

  Pat nodded and disappeared.

  "You're making a mistake, Parrish," he said softly. "You'll never get what Lang wants and survive." $ Pat returned and handed my kit bag to Daac.

  "Slide it over." I bent my knees, lowering Schaum closer to the floor. "Pick it
up," I told her. "Slowly." I never took my eyes off Daac.

  His expression was surly. Pissed off. A boy wonder doesn't get his own way look. He gripped the pistol tightly but I knew he wouldn't use it. Not while I had his precious science geek.

  I nodded briefly to Pat and Ibis. "Thanks for breakfast. Nothing personal, dig?"

  Pat stared with interest, his eyes bright and alert. Over Pat's shoulder Ibis blew me a kiss. Some men are just born flirts!

  I edged Anna slowly toward the door and double flicked the pressure lock so that it would take an extra few seconds to open when Daac tried to follow me.

  Then I grabbed my bag and hurled Anna straight at him so that he had to drop his pistol to catch her. He recovered, but I was out the door and running.

  * * * *

  By the time my lungs burned and my legs turned to jelly, I was hopelessly lost. My shoulders and ribs ached like torture, but I had my kit back, and despite the fact that the whole world seemed to have a warrant for my arrest, a weight had lifted.

  It occurred that maybe I should forget Lang and Jamon, and just disappear here in Viva? Not so easy! I couldn't get work or claim benefits. I'd starve. The supercity was not an option for me anymore, but I daydreamed for a while as I wandered the wide leafy streets and used the glow-walks like everyone else.

  Viva was an exquisite, neat, expensive carpet of humanity. You needed a minimum annual income of over thirty million credits to live there—and they were the poor types. Itinerants and visitors were welcome, but temporary lodging was heavily monitored and squatting a capital offense—as was vagrancy, homelessness, drugs—certain types anyway—and loitering. Viva was a safe city if you were a safe person. It was deadly if you weren't.

  I was born in the 'burbs, just inside the rural sweep of the supercity; a place where you never saw your own earnings, and the bank put you through school, attended to your daily living needs and paid your taxes. In the 'burbs you were little better than a drone in a hive, serving the banking royalty of Viva and the media for the safe way of life.

  Kevin, my stepdad, tried to addict me to romance, the way he had with Rene, jacking me in when I was asleep or drunk. But something deep inside me had resisted the notions. Maybe I was pragmatic by nature. Or maybe I saw too clearly what it had done to Rene. When that didn't work Kevin tried a more direct approach. Attempted rape in front of my mother, while she lay stoked up on happily-ever-afters.

  I left before I killed him.

  But not before he broke my face.

  I told myself I didn't care about getting it fixed. But in truth I didn't want it fixed. I didn't ever want to forget.

  The Tertiary—Tert—sector had been a kind of rebirth for me. No menu-planning twelve weeks in ad-vance, no accounting for every single credit, no slick, greedy Kevin. In The Tert junkies were called junkies—not NE-reliant.

  Tert people had an honesty about them—the sort you get when you've got nothing to lose.

  But the grubbier side of The Tert inevitably ensnared me. I figured a place like that would mean freedom. Choices.

  Not even vaguely. When Jamon came along, my options narrowed back to nothing.

  But I couldn't return to the 'burbs, now. A misfit like me would be quarantined and rehabbed. No matter how bad things were, I could never live here again.

  Yet if I wanted any sort of life in The Tert, then I had to cut Jamon out of it. I'd learned a lot of things in the last year or so.

  Right now I was learning what I could do, when I had to.

  A few years ago I might have fallen heavily for someone like Daac, joined his devotional, stood in the queue. Now I was learning to be my own fallback, my best resource.

  * * * *

  I found a café with several entrances on a busy street, and sat at a table near one of them. Then I ordered a sparkling water and studied the city map on the back of the menu.

  I paid the waitress with some fake ID cred courtesy of a stall in Plastique. I'd bartered half a year of hap-kido training and a throwing knife to the stall owner for it.

  The address Lang had given me was in the inner gyro of the city where most of the streets were on closed circuit. Worse than that, it was in a sparkling little marina called M'Grey Island—a tough place to B and E even for a seasoned larcenist.

  Right now I would have given anything for Lang's ability to change appearance, or for one of Doll's twelve-hour reconstruction jobs. Somehow a lumpy velveteen cap and a see-through dress thrown over my tank top didn't feel the same.

  I gnawed the tip of my finger and plotted several routes on the back of the serviette. Each angle I drew ended up back at the same place. There was only one way in. I tried not to think about Daac's comment that I wouldn't survive Lang's job.

  Sighing into the bottom of my water, I stretched and tested my shoulder and ribs. They felt a little better and so did I, helped by the breakfast Pat had given me and the fact that it probably contained the first fresh nutrients I'd eaten in years.

  I stared through the stained-glass windows of the cafe at the people on the street. Viva never seemed to be crowded. Not like The Tert. It smelled clean and good and I wondered if somehow they'd 'gineered some type of giant fragrance filtering system.

  Just then, two men walked in the south entrance and up to the service counter holding hands. Pat and Ibis. I recognized their shapes instantly.

  Adrenaline skittled up the back of my legs. They were looking for me, no doubt, and luck had brought them to the right place.

  Folding the menu into my pocket, I picked up my kit and left quietly through one of the other entrances.

  * * * *

  Out in the streets the crowds had built. People appeared from their businesses to lunch at the cafes and piazzas. Palms shaded the pavement and neatly trimmed bougainvilleas squeezed between them creating a beachside air.

  The sun glinted on the reflective trims of apartment blocks. Each one seemed to blend seamlessly with the next and the next. After the cheap patchwork and filth of The Tert, Viva shone.

  In the tourist shops you could buy replicas of Viva under miniature glass geodesies. When you pressed the button the sun rose and sparkled on the tops of its buildings, gradually casting a rose tint as it set.

  It reminded me of those old movies that were so popular fifty years ago, where at the end of the story they all realized they weren't living on a planet but under a glass dome floating through space.

  If the whole of Viva woke up tomorrow and found out they were on a comet scooting through the Perseus Spur, I doubted they'd care. As long as the streets were clean, the cafes served cappuccino and One-World was in their bedrooms and living rooms to greet them when they woke, who'd give a rat's?

  Call me a cynic, but things were cushy in Viva.

  The live-to-air media hunts outside Viva might as well have been happening on another planet.

  That's why I knew I was already convicted of Razz Retribution's murder. The media had chosen me. The viewing public wouldn't ever know if I was an actor or the real thing. Which made for a clear conscience and a good night's sleep for them.

  Entertainment without responsibility.

  I'm all for it—if I'm not the main attraction.

  I watched an intracity train slide slowly by. A fashion billboard covered one entire side of the compartment, advertising the One-World news.

  Chills pimpled my body. I knew the face on the ad. A girl, young and gaunt, skin flawed, stance defensive. Not a Viva face.

  Bras. With arms.

  I wanted to run after the train and climb aboard to get a better look, but a police vehicle nosed past immediately behind it like an oversized centipede with as many eyes as legs. Automatically I bent down as if I'd dropped something and edged behind the cover of a public comm machine.

  Police 'pedes filmed the streets constantly, feeding their images through ID programs to siphon for people like me. It was a truly random method; that's what made it so dangerous.

  When it passed, I made a decis
ion. If I hung around here much longer, I'd either run into Daac and his mates or be picked up by a police 'pede, so I swung onto the next in-city train and headed uptown.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The map told me that Eighteen Circe Crescent, M'Grey Island, was in a marina a hundred klicks from the nearest sea or river. But land had been scooped out and the water piped in and artificially colored to sparkle like no other blue you've ever seen.

  The island contained maybe two hundred canals surrounded by a lake big enough for afternoon pleasure cruises and seeded fishing. The lake was for residents only and deliberately serrated retaining walls made it impossible to launch from the mainland perimeter. It gave the nervous rich the security they craved. Circe Crescent nestled in the center of the island where the canals got narrow and personal and very exxy.

  I jumped the train at an earlier stop and walked. Just in case someone was expecting me. So far I hadn't seen much heat, apart from the 'pedes. That made me nervous.

  Bras's face had appeared twice more on One-World ads on the ride uptown. Once on a floating billboard, the other time on the giant screen on the front of the Viva Bank building. Right alongside King Ban himself. I figured that meant she was still alive, but the whys and wheres made my head ache. Maybe she didn't need my help anymore, but as soon as I got Lang's info back to him I was going to find out.

  I walked along distractedly, like I really knew my way but was thinking about something else. In the inner gyro most people used private 'pedes. If you were strolling on the street then you were probably on candid camera.

  I sloped into a mobile newsstand, my head averted from the servitor's receptors. The stand was an expensive one, sporting a hundred or more screens. But then M'Grey was a ritzy area.

  "Which news do you require? One-World? Off-world? Common? Tabloid?" asked the servitor in a refined drawl. I wondered which famous newsreader they'd modeled it on.

  "Just browsing," I muttered, consciously changing the inflections of my voice in case the stand was bugged.