Best of British Science Fiction 2016

by Peter F. Hamilton

Finding three kids by the entrance didn’t come as a surprise. Their avatars did.

  A crouching scorpion flickered in and out of view around the lanky, skinny lad – tail raised to match his height, sting to the fore – that one was familiar. The Scorpions had been a major presence in Red since my time. The other two – a vortex of swirling wind that circled the swarthy girl and the menacing black-furred ape sported by the twitchy, stocky boy – were new to me. Gangs came and went in the Horsemen with such rapidity it was hard to keep track. The fun part when you don’t recognise gang affiliations is to allocate your own. Doubtless these two belonged to something relating to tornadoes and gorillas respectively, but I chose to think of them as Windy and Baboon.

  The surprise lay in the variety. Entrances were coveted as income generators. Security normally represented the gang in possession, and this had always been Scorpion territory. It wasn’t unheard of for gang members to intermingle socially, but at a gate?

  The girl took the lead, stepping out from the overhang she’d been sheltering under to confront me. The other two backed her up – Scorpion to the left, Baboon on the right.

  “You lost?” Rain dripped off the peak of her sodden cap. She didn’t look especially menacing despite her best attempt.

  “No,” I assured her. “Official business.” I activated my own avatar. I didn’t sport mine all the time – such things aren’t appropriate to the circles I tend to move in – but it was there when needed. Unlike theirs, mine was a seamless projection. It didn’t flicker on and off so that one moment you were staring at a stylized emblem, the next the person behind it. In my stead the kids would now be facing a solid-seeming white-cowled figure, face invisible within a deep hood, both hands gripping the pommel of a broadsword with its tip resting on the ground.

  “Saflik!” the girl hissed. It means ‘purity’. My employers were idealists and the name held significance for them that was lost on me. Its impact wasn’t. All three kids tensed, and I could swear the baboon actually shuffled backwards a step.

  I killed the avatar and smiled.

  It took a moment but the girl stepped aside. I didn’t doubt that somebody had instructed her to do so, whispering in her ear. Without another word I walked forward. Two to my left, one to my right, all three of them looked relieved to see me pass.

  There were no actual doors, just an archway. The Horsemen were never meant to be sealed communities, merely self-sufficient – the planners had no intention of either locking the world out or the inhabitants in.

  Now that I was here I dropped the act. No more skulking, no more deference. I belonged here. I owned this place. A man called Baxter was supposed to run the Scorpions these days – after my time and I hadn’t met him. He would already be aware of my presence. Maybe others were too. Still couldn’t get my head around the mixed nature of the reception committee. Things in Montpellier were clearly changing.

  A door slammed somewhere over to my left as I walked through the archway and into the open courtyard beyond. There was nobody in sight, nobody at all. The weather seemed wilder here, perhaps funnelled by the solid block of building that surrounded the exposed courtyard. Whipped by the wind, rain beat against the paving and the cobbles in a muffled tattoo, barely louder than a sigh but never letting up: nature’s drumroll heralding my arrival. I heard the laughter and shriek of young children at play from high above – the sound made flat and oddly muted by the rain – and a woman shouting at them to shut up, but these were isolated noises. Otherwise, there was just the rain. It was bizarre. This was a community, where was everybody? Had they fled, warned of my approach?

  Maybe they were simply staying inside to keep dry.

  I took the walkway on my right, impressed that the thing was still working – it hadn’t always been when I was a kid. There were no stairs or elevators in the Horsemen, just long sweeping paths and travellators like this, which carried the populace up or down at a gentle incline. Accessibility was king.

  The mural that adorned the wall beside me had been hijacked years ago. Originally it depicted an idealised pastoral scene in 3D relief – cornfields swaying in a gentle breeze, a stand of trees, birds flitting around a hedgerow – with the light changing throughout the day to reflect the hour and prevailing weather conditions. Doubtless meant to lighten our spirits, it had been completely irrelevant to everyone here. Currently my trip upwards was accompanied by a scene of bumbling erotica in painstaking close-up. Not sure if this was intended to be comical, but that’s how it came across. Giant buttocks heaving as I passed. In an hour or so there would be something different, depending on the hackers’ whim.

  I stepped off at the third level, which provoked an unexpected wave of nostalgia – I’d grown up not far from here. Ahead, in a sheltered corridor, a man sat on an old wooden chair. The first person I’d seen since entering Montpellier. He was leaning forward, working on something. This too stimulated a welter of memories. I knew this man: Case. Sitting outside his home watching the world go by, just as he always had. As I drew closer I could see that he was whittling away at a piece of pale wood with a penknife. Too early to say what he was carving.

  He’d changed. His face had wrinkled into a cartographer’s dream, a canvas of deep crevices and mysterious contours. Still alert though, still savvy. Still Case. He looked up as I approached, sharp eyes peering like obsidian coals from his weathered visage. “Horner,” he said, his voice as strong as ever. “Welcome home.”

  The way he spoke you’d think I had just popped out for some groceries rather than been gone for the best part of a decade.

  “Case,” I acknowledged. “How’s things?”

  Case had been a big noise back in the day. Not gang affiliated, not beholden to any of the petty lords who came and went more frequently than a cat takes a piss, but somehow respected by all of them. Case didn’t need to move around much, the world came to him. He had women too. One in particular always used to give the adolescent me a hard on. Lizzie her name was. Not exactly a classic beauty but you knew she’d be worth the effort – dyed blonde hair, big boobs that seemed on the verge of bursting out from her tight leather jacket, and a smile that made you think you stood a chance even when deep down you knew that was bullshit. I wondered if Lizzie was still around, whether she was still with Case, and I pictured how she’d look now, her teeth yellowed from smokes and her big tits saggy and pendulous or shrivelled and wrinkled like prunes. One of her knowing smiles would probably still get my juices going, though.

  “Same old same old,” Case said. “You got business here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Saflik business?”

  How well connected was he, anyway? “Yes.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  He went back to his whittling. I walked on, wondering what that had been about. Sure as hell the encounter hadn’t happened by chance. Word must have reached him straight from the gate, and Case wanted to let me know that he knew why I was here, but to what purpose? To warn me, to warn me off, or simply to prepare me for something? And who did Case represent? One thing was certain: there was far more going on at Montpellier than anyone back at Saflik realised.

  I rounded a corner and a snarling demon leapt off the wall to attack me. I ignored it and kept walking. The graffiti was getting more sophisticated – this one had found a way around my blocks. It brought a small sense of pride. Good to know that ingenuity like this was still alive and kicking in Montpellier.

  First call on my list was one Eleanor ‘Ellie’ Drew, 73 Scarlet Walk. To get there I’d have to go out into the open again. Rain obscured the view across to the opposite buttress of apartments – part of Blue quadrant. The sun had now disappeared altogether, presumably writing the day off and determining to save its energy for tomorrow. Good move.

  I scrolled through Eleanor’s details, scant though they were: twenty-six years old, two kids – three and five – fathers unknown; busted three times for prostitution, the most recent two years ago; no apparent means of
financial support, no apparent reason to love reality. In short, ideal customer material.

  My employers had their fingers in many pies. One of the most lucrative was narcotics, e-drugs: no pills swallowed, no needles required. Chemical narcotics were as passé as dinosaurs. Every aspect of a deal now took place online, with e-hits sold in batches; data-squirts that, when triggered, delivered stimulation directly to specifically targeted areas of the brain. Swift, clean, no-nonsense transactions. The lowlifes in the Horsemen got the crude, straightforward shit, far less refined than the hits pedalled to lawyers and politicians, to business women and bureaucrats who formed our client base uptown – many of those hits were personalised, tailored to an individual’s genetic signature – but whatever the grade, the result was still as addictive as anything a chemist might cook up. And that was the clincher.

  To lose one client could be chalked up as bad luck – people died, got thrown in jail, or found the inspiration to try to kick the habit – but nine in the same place at the same time went way beyond coincidence. It meant something else. Competition. Somebody was muscling in on Saflik business.

  I knocked.

  She was tall, thin to the point of being gaunt, eyes as blank as her prospects, resigned to whatever crap life threw at her.

  “Ellie Drew? My name’s Horner. I’m from Saflik.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been expecting you.”

  Evidently. She wasn’t alone, as I discovered when she took me through to the sitting room. A man lounged on the sofa. She didn’t introduce him, may not even have known his name. Black, built like a compact car. His left arm rested along the back of the settee, stretching from one end to the other. The can of beer he clutched in his right hand was dwarfed by his fist. A mean-looking bastard, for all that he was trying to appear relaxed.

  The image of a scorpion flickered on and off around him.

  Her two kids were nowhere in sight.

  The decks had been cleared in anticipation of a fight.

  No point in delaying. I already knew how this was going to pan out, but I had my part to play. “We’ve been worried about you, Ellie,” I said. “You haven’t renewed and we’re concerned that something may have…”

  “She don’t need any more o’ your shit,” the big man said without looking at me. He was staring straight ahead, as if absorbed in VR, but he wasn’t wearing a visor and I couldn’t detect any lenses.

  “If it’s been a tough month and you can’t meet the payment,” I said, ignoring him and addressing her, “that’s not a problem, we can work something out.”

  “It ain’t,” Big Man said. “She just don’t want what you’re sellin’.” He still refused to look at me.

  Could I take him? Probably, but it wouldn’t be quick or easy.

  I glanced at Ellie and saw the first hint of animation in her eyes: desperation. She didn’t want to see her place trashed. She was scared of me, maybe of him, and certainly of what we were likely to do between us.

  I took pity. I didn’t doubt now that all nine of my errant customers would have chaperones and I didn’t doubt that there was a fight brewing somewhere down the line, but it didn’t have to be here. Ellie was no different from my mom, rest her soul, or from thousands of others like her throughout the Horsemen. Just trying to get by. She didn’t need this.

  “Think about what I said, Ellie. I’ll call back later.”

  As I left the big man said something. I didn’t catch the words but I didn’t need to. The tone said more than enough: something scornful, something derogatory, something about me being a coward. That almost did it, almost had me tossing all my good intentions aside and turning around to smash his smug face in… But I kept walking.

  Outside, six doors down, were two kids: a Scorpion and a Wildcat – another of the long-established gangs dating back to my day. Remember what I said about loitering? They were doing that.

  I was about to turn right, towards the next address on my list, but changed my mind. Instead I headed left, towards them. If there was going to be a confrontation, might as well be out here in the open rather than in someone’s home. The space was narrow if it came to a fight, with a sheer drop on one side and a brick wall on the other, but what the hell?

  The Scorp was a scrawny girl, the Cat a tall lad who hadn’t quite grown into his frame yet but still looked the greater threat. I bore down on them before they could do much more than stop loitering.

  “Take me to see Baxter or whoever the fuck is running things nowadays,” I said.

  The Cat attempted a sneer. It looked comical. “Why would Baxter want…?”

  I hit him. He went down in a heap, out for the count with one punch. I figured with him out the way the girl would be easy. My mistake. She kicked me. Nothing behind it – she was too slight to do real damage – but well-directed and delivered like a pro: swivel, kick, spin away, bouncing on her toes, ready for the next strike. I feinted towards her and she was at it again, a roundhouse kick that caught me on the hip before she danced back out of reach. That one hurt. Shit! I knew what this was: Kix – a hybrid martial art that had evolved in downtown, marrying together elements from various classic disciplines – and she knew her stuff.

  I got lucky, though. As I feinted again and she kicked again I guessed right and caught her foot, fastening on to her ankle and refusing to let go. Like I said, there was nothing of her. Before she could twist free I had both hands locked on, swinging her around to slam against the wall. She struck the brickwork hard but that didn’t stop her cursing and bucking and kicking out at me with the other foot. I tugged and heaved and swung her into the wall again. The second time did the trick.

  The fight had mostly gone out of her as I dragged her upright, holding her by the throat. “Now, where can I find Baxter?”

  “Right here.” It was a woman’s voice, coming from behind me.

  I turned to see a dozen or more punks crowding the terrace. And they all looked eager for a piece of me. Scorpions, Wildcats, Dragons, Pirates, Baboons and more I didn’t recognise flickered in and out like spectres at a feast.

  As one, the front rank parted and a woman strode through. Hourglass figure, well-built and with a mass of blonde hair. Older than any of the others… and I knew her.

  “Lizzie?” No sagging tits, no yellowed teeth or pasty jowls. In fact, she looked fantastic.

  “You can call me Baxter,” and she grinned, clearly enjoying my surprise. “What, Horny Boy,” the name she’d always teased me with, “you expected someone with balls? Now put Asa down, will you? We need to talk.”

  With that she turned and walked away, the gang members shuffling aside as if she was some kind of royalty. I dropped Kicking Girl and followed.

  She led the way to an apartment, no different to any of the others, except that a Scorpion and a Lion stood sentry by the door.

  “Beer?” she asked once we were inside.

  Nobody else had come in, the motley escort that had followed us here stopping short at the threshold.

  “Sure.”

  The place was as ordinary as it had seemed on the outside. Nothing gaudy, nothing flash, nothing to suggest that here lived the ruling power in Montpellier. We sat on a sofa, angled towards each other, knees almost touching. Two old friends catching up. There was no hint of tension in her posture, no suggestion that she was anything other than relaxed and in control. Wish I could have said the same.

  Here was the woman I’d fantasised about as a kid, looking hotter than ever, and I was alone with her. At the same time, here was the person I had to deal with, make demands of and ensure she toed the line. I didn’t know where to start. Fortunately, she did.

  “I want your help, Horny Boy,” she said. “I’m doing things here, important things, but it takes time, and I need the space to operate without Saflik interfering. These e-drugs your employers are pushing, they’re screwing things up big time. They’re designed to be addictive, stimulating the brain to produce a surge of dopamine and controlling its interaction with ot
her neurotransmitters like glutamate. You know about dopamine? Impressive stuff, powerful stuff. It not only induces a sense of pleasure, of euphoria, but lays down the memory of that pleasure, in effect rewiring the brain to crave it again and again.

  “Saflik have hit on a goldmine. The only real outlay for these e-hits lies in the initial development and programming. Once you have that, you can produce and distribute to your heart’s content at the push of a button, which is why Saflik can afford to flood the market with cheap, low grade narc. It’s money for nothing. But what is the market here at the Horsemen really worth to them compared to what they get from the movers and shakers uptown?”

  Not much, but that wasn’t the point. Saflik wouldn’t view things that way. No matter how trivial the market it was their market, and they couldn’t afford to be seen as weak.

  “You know what life’s like here,” Lizzie continued. “Is it any wonder that our people seize on an affordable escape when it’s offered? By preying on their weakness Saflik are destroying this place! How can we make progress when everyone with a scrap of drive and imagination gets hooked on their shit? So I’m doing something about it.”

  “You’ve united the gangs,” I said. A bland statement that didn’t come close to conveying how impressed I was. I would have sworn blind that gang unity was impossible, the enmity and petty rivalries too deeply rooted. Yet, somehow, Lizzie had achieved it.

  “Eventually,” she said. “You’ve no idea how hard that was or how long it took. With Case’s help I’ve been working on this since before you left Montpellier. But that’s only the beginning. Now we want to move on, to really build something, to let the habitats shake off the shackles of being ‘The Four Horsemen’ and become what they were always meant to be. A place where people can thrive, not merely survive.

  “So our programmers have come up with a way to counter your e-drugs, to dampen the release of dopamine and rewire the brain so that it no longer recalls the hit as unbearably pleasurable but merely pleasant. Doesn’t mean that people can’t enjoy a high now and again, just that they don’t crave it.”