Queen of Nowhere

by Jaine Fenn

  The Angels accelerated hard. In the relatively clear water beside the tubeway, Bez glimpsed a turn and flash of scarlet-and-gold, like a living string of lights, there then gone. A glowstinger, probably. She tried not to think of the infinite sky above and the deep ocean below. At least the repulsion fields on the undersides of the tiles and tubeways deterred the larger and more vicious sealife.

  Halfway across, the Angels jinked to the left, making a subtle but firm course change. Given neither had spoken, Bez drew the obvious, unpleasant conclusion as to how they coordinated their actions. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing the flight to be over.

  A few moments later she opened them again; they were descend-ing, coming down to land in the mouth of an alleyway just inside Central’s outer wall. Bez exhaled as her feet touched the ground.

  The Angels stepped back to let her stand. Her legs hardly shook at all. The alley walls were stacked with shadowy shapes: bins, trolleys and other maintenance equipment.

  Taro said, ‘Can you do the hack from here?’

  ‘It’s as good a place as any, provided no one disturbs us.’

  Nual said, ‘No one will.’

  Bez decided not to consider the implications of that assertion.

  Instead she tuned out of the real.

  Most hubs sexed up their virtualities, adding colour and flash both to help in navigation and to further glamorise the alternate reality. In the heart of Port Viridian, the glamour was already there, notwithstanding their immediate surroundings. The crystal towers were somewhat brighter and more translucent, but other than that the change was seamless. Her experience of going virtual in Port Viridian was limited: she had still been too young for full implants when she left, and her youthful exploration of the infoscape had been on outer tiles.

  Now, with two decades of databreaking experience, Bez knew the right path almost instinctively. She took her awareness down, as she had on Xantier. This time she was not looking for secure transactions but basic ones, the unseen parallels to the grubby alley where she was physically located. A brief memory intruded: aged fourteen, she had considered the very hack she was about to perform; then it had been an act of rebellion, a daydream of vengeance against the uncaring world. Not something she would ever have dared actually to do. Whereas now it was a prelude to far more drastic action.

  The system was simple enough; there was protection, but nothing compared to the sort she habitually defeated on financial systems in the hubs. She bypassed the security, found the correct virtual switch, and flicked it.

  Blinking herself back into the real, she heard a faint rising tone singing through the air.

  ‘I’m hopin’ you did that,’ said Taro.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And they’ll definitely believe it’s the real deal?’ Taro’s face was indistinct in the twilight but he sounded young and uncertain.

  She resisted the temptation to snap back that she would never have suggested this plan otherwise, and instead said, ‘If a pod of megafins did get through the under-shields then chewed their way up through the weed and decided to have a go at your tile, you’d want to be in the core shelter.’ A wildlife invasion was only one possible emergency, but faking a storm - the most common cause of an alert - was not feasible. There were also other reasons for alerts that rarely made the news: civil unrest, lone loonies and violent protests. And right now there were a lot of paranoid people in ThreeCs. ‘Noone takes chances with a shelter warning,’ she concluded.

  Taro took her arm and N ual came round to her other side. As they got into position Bez asked the boy, ‘You’re clear on where we need to go?’

  ‘Got it netted,’ he said. ‘Here, mind ifl tuck this in? Help keep us out of sight.’ He pulled the edge of his cloak round, stuffing it down between her arms and her chest. Bez endured the intimacy, reminding herself that it was a necessary precaution.

  They took to the air.

  FAR FROM DEFENCELESS

  They rose up the outside of the nearest tower. Although shelter warnings were rare, the possibility of such excitement in this superficially tame and boring environment had perversely delighted Bez when she was a child. Whenever her tile held its annual shelter drill, she had experienced a secret thrill at this tiny bit of - ultimately safe - uncertainty and adventure.

  They needed to get further in, which involved flying directly past the homes and offices of some of the most powerful people in ThreeCs. She reminded herself that it was dark, that they were camouflaged with stealth technology and that, with an alert in progress, no one should be looking out of windows anyway. She saw signs of movement - figures inside apartments, lights going off - but no sign of panic. People might assume it was a drill but they would still head for the core, or face a fine from the city authorities.

  Despite his assurances that he knew where he was going, Bez was following Taro’s chosen course on her headware. At one point he took what she thought of as a wrong turn. She bit back a comment; a few seconds later he corrected their course. Bez concentrated on staying silent and not looking down. The Tethisyn indulged the human foible of equating height with power, and some of the structures on Central reached up for over half a klick.

  They were coming up on TargetZero’s apartment. There were lights on but the shades were drawn. Every window was closed, as were the sliding doors leading on to the balcony.

  In Bez’s ear, Taro muttered, ‘All locked up. Bollocks.’

  ‘It was always a risk,’ whispered Nual, presumably for her benefit. ‘Bez, we’re going to put you down on that balcony to your left while we break in.’

  Bez blinked for data on the apartment the Sidhe had indicated, but her information was too sketchy. ‘Wait-‘

  ‘It will only be for a few seconds. I can’t use the gun while I am holding on to you.’

  Bez swallowed. ‘All right.’

  The balcony Nual had chosen was dark, the door open a crack.

  Bez was so busy trying to work out if anyone was inside that she failed to see the plant stand in the corner. She ran into it as she stumbled out of the Angels’ grasp; the pot of foliage rocked then fell with a crash.

  ‘Shit!’ muttered Taro. Nual had already flown off.

  Taro put himself between Bez and the door, facing the apartment: covering her. Despite expecting the light to come on and someone to rush out at any moment, Bez’s gaze was drawn to where Nual must be. The Angel showed as a patch of uncertain shadow in the night, hovering outside TargetZero’s balcony. A thin rod emerged from the shadowy form. Bez thought she heard a faint sound over her racing heart, something between a sizzle and a hiss. There was nothing to see: the gun fired coherent light beyond the visible spectrum. Then the gun-barrel disappeared again, and the shadow rippled, coming towards her.

  The apartment behind remained dark. This time when the Angels gathered her up Bez all but threw herself into their grasp.

  They ferried her across to TargetZero’s balcony. As they landed Bez was careful to watch where she put her feet.

  Nual’s gun had cut an inverted U-shape into the glass of the balcony door. The cut itself was barely visible but it was picked out by damage to the hanging blinds behind, which had a neat arch cut out of them.

  Taro stepped up to push the glass in, just as Nual hissed, ‘Wait!’

  They paused. Nual frowned and muttered, ‘There are two people in there.’

  Taro turned to her and whispered, ‘People as in … ?’

  ‘Just humans.’

  ‘Can you show me where?’

  Nual nodded. Taro put out a hand, which she caught in hers.

  Both Angels went silent and still.

  Bez had almost got used to working with the Sidhe, but the easy intimacy she showed with Taro turned her stomach.

  A moment later Nual let go of Taro’s hand. ‘They’re in the office,’ he whispered.

  ‘Can you tell what they’re up to?’ Bez asked, doing her best to remain calm.

  ‘Not from here,’ said Nual. ‘
If I had to guess I would say our target has her suspicions about this alarm and has left a couple of expendable staff behind just in case.’

  Bez had to accede to Nual’s knowledge of Sidhe psychology.

  ‘You said they were in the office. Given.she doesn’t have any headware, might they be copying or even deleting incriminating data from her deskcomp?’

  ‘That is a possibility.’ She turned to Taro. ‘Can you deal with the opposition so Bez can get to the data?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Taro laconically.

  Bez could see Nual’s logic: ifBez had to choose one of the assassins to stay with her, it wouldn’t be the Sidhe.

  ‘Then I’ll hit Markeck alone.’

  ‘How you gonna find her? I got the plans.’ Taro tapped his head.

  ‘Show me what I need to know.’ Nual stepped close again, this time taking both his hands. Bez counted ten frantic heartbeats before the Sid he stepped back. They paused for a moment more, hands still clasped. Then Nual turned and leaped into the night.

  Taro grinned at Bez. ‘Knew I shoulda borrowed Jarek’s needle-pistol.’

  ‘You haven’t got a gun?’

  “Fraid not. The more shit we tried to smuggle in, the harder it’d’ve been for Nual to make sure no one rumbled us. Don’t worry: I’ll improvise.’

  Bez reminded herself that, even without visible weaponry, Angels were far from defenceless.

  ‘Ready?’ said Taro. When Bez nodded he pushed gently at the cut section of glass. It fell neatly onto the carpet on the far side. Taro went first, cloak pulled tight, stepping to the side as he entered.

  ‘All clear.’ Bez jumped at his voice in her head, then reminded herself that, along with the map, she’d given him her preferred com channel.

  ‘Coming,’ she sub-vocced, and followed him in. She noted in passing how thick the glass was: only the best and most secure for those living at this elevation.

  ‘Stay behind me,’ murmured Taro, unnecessarily. This room was the lounge; as Bez expected, Taro moved through the open arch into the dining room. Then, assuming her plans were correct, there was a short corridor leading to the apartment’s on-site office.

  She tensed as Taro opened the door, but the space beyond was empty. He stopped just inside the corridor, and pointed to a spiral shell on a stand; soft light emanated from the shell’s pink mouth.

  ‘That ain’t gonna bite me, is it?’

  ‘Er, no,’ said Bez, bemused. Her mind was trying, irrelevantly, to identify the species of sea creature that had been so tastefully converted to a lamp.

  ‘Good.’ Taro picked up the shell, hefting it to judge its weight.

  He paused outside the office door. Then, in one movement, he opened the door and bowled the shell in, low and fast. Thanks to his cloak, all Bez saw were his feet and the shell appearing from nowhere.

  Then even the feet disappeared as he drew them up and took flight. He pushed the door wide and flew in, no more than a faint disturbance in the air.

  There was a swish-thwack sound. A woman shrieked, the sound cut off with awful suddenness.

  A thud, then a grunt. Was that Taro? What if he needed her help? Bez looked around frantically, as though lethal and easy-to-use weaponry might suddenly materialise next to her.

  Someone laughed - that was Taro - and she heard another swish. Something fell heavily. There was a burbling squeal.

  ‘All clear,’ came over the com. Taro sounded surprisingly calm.

  Although Bez expected the aftermath of violence, the scene in the office still shocked her. Taro was leaning over a figure lying face down beside the desk in a pool of blood. He was wiping his blade on the figure’s back. A man sat up against the wall, hands pressed to the gaping hole in his neck. His eyes were open and his legs were twitching. Blood welled out from between his fingers; from the look of the impressive spray across the pale carpet, he wouldn’t be alive for much longer.

  Taro looked up, silver blade snicking back into his forearm.

  ‘Sorry ‘bout the mess.’

  ‘I just need … to get to the desk.’ Being so close to violent death was making her guts heave.

  ‘Sure, I’ll er…’ He looked at the body at his feet, his expression mirroring some of Bez’s disgust, then bent down and pushed it out of the way. It was a woman, and like the man she wore a dark uniform, somewhere between that of guard and servant. Bez was glad of the colour; it didn’t show the blood. When Taro rolled the body over, the mixed stench of urine, faeces and warm blood grew stronger. Death really did have a smell all of its own. Bez pressed her hand over her mouth.

  The desk had all the functionality any top exec would require, but as Bez had expected, the indentation for TargetZero’s personal slate was empty. She would have that with her.

  ‘Least we got a gun now.’ Bez looked over at Taro, who had picked up a small pistol, presumably from the hand of the other guard who had, mercifully, stopped kicking and gurgling.

  She lowered her hand. ‘You take it. I…’ She gestured at the desk.

  ‘Yeah. Sorry.’

  She wondered if the guards had had the opportunity to raise the alarm. It was unlikely. Even if they had, Markeck would be most of the way to the shelter by now. She blinked up an overlay image from the spotcam Nual wore on her collar. Bez hadn’t explained why she wanted to witness TargetZero meet her doom. Perhaps Nual had, through some combination of intuition and unholy talent, worked out that this was a matter of personal vengeance, but Bez no longer cared. She just needed to see Merice Markeck die.

  Nual was still flying through the residential district. Bez minimised the overlay.

  Rather than dive straight into the personal system of her ultimate Enemy, Bez did a visual check of what she had before her.

  The deskcomp appeared to be on standby, at least as far as an un-enhanced observer was concerned. Presumably the dead servant had been interfacing directly via headware. In theory, given Taro had surprised her, the system should still be wide open.

  Her minimised view of Nual’s progress showed a brightly lit, clear-walled passageway far below. Bez maxed the image. Every tile had evacuation channels like this one, sloping gently down-wards from multiple levels to allow residents to reach the shelter at the heart of the tile as quickly as possible. In Bez’s old home they had been crowded during drills, but on Central, with a permanent population of fewer than two thousand, the emergency passages were almost empty - this one entirely so. Nual turned, simultaneously losing height, checking back along the passage. There were figures there, and for a moment Bez’s heart leapt. But Nual was presumably able to see - or otherwise sense - that this was not her target, for she turned and flew further in, her course paralleling the passage.

  Bez attempted a low-level interface with the deskcomp. Her progress was blocked with the red access denied icon every databreaker knew all too well. Damn. TargetZero’s servant must have had time to lock the system. She would have to hack it.

  As she activated her full data breaking suite Bez kept half an eye on the feed from the spotcam. There was another group of figures in the tunnel ahead. A long way ahead: Nual needed to hurry.

  As though sensing Bez’s urgency (which, Bez decided firmly, she couldn’t), the viewpoint sped up.

  Bez’s virtual sortie failed. More than that, the icon remained constant in her vision. That was odd: she had the best tools available and even if they weren’t up to penetrating the system security, she expected enough feedback on the fail-points to allow her to hone her attack. Then again, the information on this system could bring down worlds. Naturally Markeck would have applied the best possible encryption.

  Bez devoted a few seconds to calling up some of her more mili-tant virtual weaponry, routines that mimicked truly destructive and virulent attacks. Once she unleashed them, she would need to watch carefully or she could end up trashing the very info she was trying to retrieve.

  She paused and changed focus: Nual was closing in on the flee-ing party, who had slowed to deal w
ith the shallow steps at the passageway’s steepest point. There were half a dozen uniformed figures clustered around a smartly dressed woman. From behind, her dark curls bobbed as she descended the stairway.

  To Bez’s frustration, Nual paused. Then a slender black barrel swung into sight, held loosely in front of the assassin. Nual carried on, hurrying to overtake the group below. Bez would have been happy for her to take the shot then and there, but she acknowledged that they had to be sure. Nual and Taro had both studied publicity shots of Merice Markeck, though Bez liked to think ThreeCs’ Director of Corporate Strategy would not be looking quite so suave now.

  Nual passed the group, getting a little ahead before she turned.

  Bez saw TargetZero’s face, distant but familiar.

  The viewpoint halted, the gun sweeping up into Nual’s eyeline in one smooth motion. Bez clenched her fists, waiting for the perfect, awful moment.

  N ual failed to take the shot.

  ‘Kill her! Kill her now!’ Bez was vaguely aware of speaking out loud.

  Nuallowered the gun.

  Bez howled. Nual hadn’t been able to do it, hadn’t been able to shoot one of her own! Damn her to the void, the Sidhe had betrayed them after all!

  ‘It’s not her!’

  Bez looked round wildly at Taro’s shout. ‘What?’

  ‘Nual says…’ He blinked hard, his expression simultaneously vacant and intense. ‘She reckons that’s some sort of double; she looks like Markeck, but she’s an ordinary human.’

  ‘But - where’s the real TargetZero?’

  ‘Nual thinks she’s still-‘

  The door burst open.

  ‘-here!’