“Trust me,” van Liesvelt said, not even bothering to sound offended, and Trouble waved away her words.
“Sorry.” If van Liesvelt, who made it his business to know the off-line world as well as the nets, said he knew, he knew. “When’s a good time?”
Van Liesvelt looked at the carpet, checking the time. “Now’s as good as any. He’ll be there.”
“Good enough,” Trouble said. “Shall we take the trike?”
Van Liesvelt shook his head. “My runabout. I don’t want you driving off the grid.”
Trouble grinned—she had a reputation from the old days, not always deserved, as a reckless driver—but went back into the spare room for her jacket. When she emerged, van Liesvelt was checking the battery of a stunstick. She gave him a questioning look—most netwalkers, even from the shadows, didn’t risk running afoul of the strict weapons laws—and he shrugged.
“I don’t think we’re heading into trouble, but Fate’s got some heavy friends. I’d rather be careful.”
Trouble nodded, accepting the necessity, and followed van Liesvelt down the stairs into the darkness of the garage.
Traffic was heavy, as always, but van Liesvelt was patient, easing the runabout through the tangle of cargo haulers and passenger vehicles at a steady pace, until at last they emerged from the District and he could turn onto one of the major cross-town arteries. Here the traffic was just as heavy, but the lines of runabouts and bikes moved more quickly, and they made better time toward the neighborhood where van Liesvelt said Fate had his bolt-hole. It wasn’t a bad area, mostly row houses and the occasional corner storefront complex—groceries, liquor, drugs-and-sundries, a couple of cheap-electronics shacks—and Trouble relaxed against the battered seat cushions. Van Liesvelt found a parking place along the street, beneath a streetlamp, and Trouble climbed out while he fiddled with his security system. The air was cool, the few stunted trees in their iron cages in front of the houses already turning yellow. Trouble fed a couple of foils into the meter, and turned to van Liesvelt.
“So, where is it?”
“About two houses down,” he answered, and tilted his head toward a house at the middle of the block, where an adolescent—at this distance, it was hard to tell the gender through the hunched body and the spiked hair—sat on the low steps, staring at nothing.
“That’s his security?” Trouble murmured.
“Probably,” van Liesvelt said. “Kids are cheap.”
Trouble nodded, and followed him toward the house. The boy—at least, she was almost certain it was a boy—looked up as they started up the stairs, but said nothing. The main door was unlocked, but gave only onto a grim-looking lobby, all grey tile and a cluttered letterboard beside the barred door. It looked impressive enough at first glance, but Trouble couldn’t repress a grin. The first thing she’d learned when she’d moved to the city was how to jimmy those boards….
“You want to do the honors, or shall I?” van Liesvelt asked.
“Oh, go ahead,” Trouble answered, and van Liesvelt produced a credit-card-sized databoard from one pocket. Its reverse was scarred with the lines where new chips had been inserted into the minimal systems. He flourished it once, and inserted it into the keyreader. There was a brief pause, and Trouble, leaning past his shoulder, could just see lights flickering in the tiny display square as the machine searched for a matching code. To her surprise, the lights stayed orange for a long moment, and then a voice crackled from the speaker above the lock.
“Christ, van Liesvelt, is that you?”
Fate, van Liesvelt mouthed, and Trouble nodded. Fate had always been good.
“That’s right,” van Liesvelt said aloud, quite cheerfully, and there was a sigh from the speaker.
“Then I suppose you’d better come up before you break something.” The mechanism clicked loudly, and Trouble pushed the door open.
“Only your codes, Fate,” van Liesvelt said, and they went up the stairs.
Fate lived on the third floor, at the back, where the fire escape led directly into a side street. Trouble saw the ladder plunging past the landing window, and was reminded of the last apartment she had shared with Cerise. They had wanted the near-impossible, a decent kitchen, quiet bedroom, at least two entrances or a good way out, and as few cockroaches as possible…. She shook the memory away as van Liesvelt knocked on a rust-painted door, bracing herself for the meeting with Fate.
The door opened at once, but it was a stranger, blond and stocky in a cheap suit, who looked out at them. He grunted when he saw van Liesvelt, but scowled at Trouble. “What do you want?”
Van Liesvelt said, “Hey—”
Trouble smiled, said, in a voice soft enough to brook no argument, “We’re here to talk to Fate.”
The blond’s scowl deepened, and a second voice said, “Leave it, Phil. Let them in.”
Grudgingly, the blond stepped back, opening the door into a surprisingly pleasant apartment. The walls were painted dull cream to match the carpet, and there were a few pieces of good art scattered here and there. Fate was standing in the middle of the room, hands jammed into the pockets of his jeans, long hair caught back in an untidy ponytail. The scar on his face, running from cheek to chin, looked more prominent than before.
“Do you want me to stay?” Phil asked, and Fate shook his head, grimacing impatiently.
“No, I know them.”
“Do I search them?” Phil went on, and leered in Trouble’s direction. “I’d enjoy searching the double-dollie.”
“Go ahead,” Trouble said, with the smile she’d cultivated for just that insult, “and I’ll be in your records by morning. How’s your credit, straight boy?”
Phil flushed, and Fate said, “Don’t mess with the net, Phil.” His voice was flat, without emotion. “I told you, this was my business. I’ll deal with it. You can go.”
“Mr. Sinovsky’s going to hear about it,” Phil said, but turned toward the door.
“Fine,” Fate said, and waited. There was a little pause, and then Phil shouldered past, deliberately jostling van Liesvelt. The door slammed behind him.
“Didn’t know you were working for the mob these days, Fate,” van Liesvelt said.
Fate looked at Trouble. “I didn’t know you were back on line.”
Trouble nodded. “I hear you’ve been dealing—fencing for someone using my name. I’m not happy, Fate.”
“Your happiness,” Fate began, the southern accent suddenly strong again, “—ain’t my responsibility.”
“I’m making it your business,” Trouble said, and took a step closer to Fate. “Treasury made it mine.”
Fate stepped backward, maintaining the distance between them. “Treasury’s been down on me, too. That’s what goddamn Phil was here about.”
“Oh,” van Liesvelt murmured, “Sinovsky’s not going to be pleased about that.”
Fate darted an angry glance at him, but said nothing.
Trouble said, “I’m looking for this new Trouble, Fate. I want him, her, or it very badly, because I lost a damn good job because of it, and it’s going to pay. Now, you’re its fence, you can tell me where it works out of.”
Fate shook his head again. “I can’t do that, Trouble. I’m running a business now—”
“I don’t give a shit about your business,” Trouble said. “I’m prepared to bring it down, and you know I can.”
There was a little silence, Fate still unmoving, keeping three meters between them, and van Liesvelt said thoughtfully, “Sinovsky can’t be pleased by all this attention, not when he’s trying to keep a low profile after those shootings.”
Fate glanced at him again, grey eyes wary. Trouble said, “He really won’t be happy if I have to take action.”
Fate looked back at her, took a deep breath. “Trouble—newTrouble—works out of Seahaven.”
“Where else?” van Liesvelt murmured.
“That doesn’t tell me very much,” Trouble said. “Hardly worth my time.”
“The
other Seahaven,” Fate said. “His realworld address is somewhere in Seahaven.”
Trouble nodded slowly. That made sense: the off-line Seahaven, or at least the beachfront Parcade, was the best source on this coast for grey-market electronics. Where better to live, if you dealt in stolen codes—and besides, from everything she had heard, the new Trouble would probably appreciate the obvious irony of having the same address on- and offline. “Right, then,” she said. “I think I’ll pay him a visit. Thanks, Fate.”
“Don’t mention it,” Fate muttered, and van Liesvelt grinned.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Trouble smiled too, and turned toward the door, opening it for van Liesvelt. She was about to follow him into the hall when Fate called her name.
“NewTrouble’s on the wire. I thought you should know.”
Trouble turned back to face him, nodding slightly. “Thanks,” she said, and then, because that wasn’t enough, “I appreciate the warning.”
It was more than just a warning, and they both knew it; it was a declaration that Fate had chosen sides. If newTrouble was half as good as he seemed—and Trouble had no real doubt about it, from the rumors she’d heard and the work she’d seen—then any direct competition between the two of them would be decided by millisecond advantages. Knowing that he, newTrouble, was on the wire might give her just that faction of an edge, the difference that would mean beating him face to face.
Fate made an odd, unfinished gesture, barely more than half a shrug, hands still deep in his pockets, and Trouble remembered that he had never been on the wire. Gossip said he’d gone as far as Carlie’s once, actually left his flat and walked cross-town to the storefront clinic where Carlie had been working in those days, and turned around and left before Carlie could even ask what he wanted.
“He’s crazy,” Fate said, and managed a malicious smile. “Better get Cerise to watch your back—if she’s still around.”
“Fuck you,” Trouble said, and slammed the door behind her. Van Liesvelt gave her a wary look, and she shook her head, suddenly tired of the whole thing. “No, let it be. I got what I wanted.”
“All right,” van Liesvelt said, visibly doubtful, but Trouble ignored him, starting down the stairs toward the lobby. She had what she came for, newTrouble’s address, realworld and on-line, and that was enough. She’d check Seahaven again—virtual Seahaven, the one that mattered—and then…. She smiled, slowly, without humor. Then she would head back north along the coast highway, to the other Seahaven, and see what this usurper had to say for himself.
Seahaven
6
Today Seahaven is a city in flight, and Cerise walks through uncrowded streets while the stars whirl overhead and under her feet, easily seen through the transparent sidewalks. The Mayor’s palace looms ahead, always Aztec no matter when the setting, but she ignores it, wanders instead onto the mall where the merchants, legal and not, collect in rows, and a wall displays a thousand messages. Her current icon is known—a comic-book woman, all tits and hips and Barbie-doll waist, but done in one dimension only, exactly like a comic book, so that the shape is paper thin, absolutely flat from certain angles—and so is her current affiliation: the crackers give her a wide berth, and she pretends not to see or recognize the familiar icons. She is interested in Trouble, not trouble, and there’s no point in antagonizing the people who might most be able to help her.
She is early at her rendezvous; she walks the length of the wall, scanning the displays. Art swirls through and over the messages, screening content in glorious colors—the Mayor pays in time for artists without other access to decorate his wall—and she enjoys that more than the words, until she reaches the midpoint. And there, in neon-red, hot Chinese red, the artists giving it a wide berth, is a familiar symbol: Trouble’s harlequin, brilliant against the dark seeming-stone of the wall itself. Cerise reaches for it, feeling the familiar flicker of codes against her fingers—Trouble’s work, no mistake, no forgery, the real thing, not the pale imitation of the new Trouble’s work—and the message spills into the air around her.
I’m the only Trouble there is. I don’t take kindly to impostors—fair warning, last and only warning.
Cerise puts the message back where she found it, watches the red symbol reappear around it and flatten itself back against the wall, glowing like fire against the darkness. So my Trouble’s back now, she thinks. I knew it wasn’t her who did the boasting. For an instant she considers copying the message for Coigne, using it to force him to admit that her Trouble wasn’t the intruder, but common sense intervenes. He will say that this is more clever planning, more evasive advertising, and, from anyone else but Trouble, he could be right.
She turns away, the stars wheeling overhead, streaks of light in a cloudless dark, wheeling underfoot as well, as though she and the city lie on a plane that bisects a sphere spinning through space. The buildings look sharper-edged, as though seen against fireworks, but she ignores the effect, scans the plaza for Helling’s icon. She sees it at last, almost doesn’t recognize it—he’s changed the symbol, gone from the old blue biplane to a blue thunderstorm, almost invisible, an inky shadow against the greater darkness.
*So you’ve seen it,* Helling says without preamble, drifting closer, and a tiny fork of lightning briefly touches the dancing figure.
*How could I miss it?* Cerise asks, and hears herself hard and bitter.
*No one else has, either,* Helling agreed.*It’s been up for a hundred-twelve hours.*
Cerise whistles softly, amazed that the Mayor would allow anything to occupy space for so long, and Helling goes on, *Treasury’s seen a copy, too—and it’s been downloaded out of town, of course.*
*Of course.* Cerise looks up at the spinning sky, dizzying herself. This is Trouble’s style, this warning: one warning, and God help you if you don’t listen, because she won’t give another one, or any quarter afterwards…. She remembers Trouble, long ago, earning the name she’d taken, tracking a man who hadn’t paid her through the nets, and, once she’d found out exactly what he was doing and where in the realworld he was doing it, passing details and location to the police, once a day every day for three weeks—always through complex cutouts; she’d been just as deep in the shadows as her victim—until they’d caught up with the dealer. Trouble had sat smiling at the evening news, and never had to do it again. Cerise shakes her head, shakes the memory away, and looks back at Helling. *I hear you’re consulting these days.*
*That’s right,* Helling says, and she hears him suddenly wary.
*I also hear you’ve got a friend at Interpol.*
*Yeah.*
*Anywhere accessible? In reality, I mean.* It occurs to her that she no longer knows where Helling is based—she had heard he was in London, but that was a year ago.
*To you, yeah,* Helling says, sourly. *I’ll tell him to have his people call your people.*
*Thanks,* Cerise says.
*One thing, though,* Helling says, and Cerise looks back at him. *Vess wants Trouble, too.*
*I thought Interpol only dealt with multimillions or germ warfare,* Cerise says, already dreading the answer.
*The new name’s been linked to a couple of nasty viruses.*
*Bullshit.* The word triggers a lurking watchdog, which materializes as a small and yapping terrier, sparks flying where its claws strike the transparent paving. Cerise glares as it circles her ankles—the Mayor’s delicacy never fails to irritate her—waits until it dissolves before she goes on. *Also not Trouble’s style. Even less so than boasting.*
*Vess never knew Trouble,* Helling says. *He’s a Eurocop, they move in different circles. You sure you want to talk to him, Cerise?* His face shows briefly in the thunderstorm, smiling.
No, Cerise thinks, but says, *I’m sure. Tell him, will you?*
*I’ll tell him,* Helling says again. The icon brightens slightly, lifts away from her, lightning flickering through it to outline the clouds.
She watches it go, fading to nothing aga
inst the moving sky, makes no move to call him back. There’s nothing more to say, not to him, and she walks back down through the plaza under the spinning stars.
Helling was as good as his word, as Cerise had expected. Interpol’s local office contacted her secretary, and they juggled schedules until they found a mutually acceptable time for lunch. She took a car and driver—not her usual habit, but she wanted time to think—and as the car slowed in the clotted traffic on the main approach to the downtown business district, she began to wonder if she was doing the right thing. That uncertainty was unlike her, and she frowned, annoyed with herself, and pushed the thought away. What she needed from Interpol was simple, an accounting of the false Trouble’s activities—it would be useful to have something to show the board, to prove that Multiplane was not the only corporation targeted by this particular cracker, plus it would be nice to have more evidence to analyze, to prove to Coigne that it wasn’t her Trouble—and maybe, just maybe, she could trade her own information, her knowledge of the old Trouble and her certainty that this was someone else, for Interpol’s files. After all, she thought, I was Trouble’s partner, and anyone who’s been anything in security, even a Eurocop, has to know that. It’s the least I can do, for old times’ sake. And if I have to, I have other coin to trade. The pun pleased her; she smiled, and saw the driver cast a fleeting glance into his mirror.
The car turned off the flyway, rode the ramp down into the crowded streets. Cerise leaned back in her seat as the hordes of pedestrians flowed around the car like water around the rocks in a streambed, not wanting to pay attention to them, men and women in cheap-corporate suits, the middling sort who kept the companies running and the money flowing. Trouble would have teased her for her contempt, called it arrogance—and she would’ve been right, had been right about it, but I was right, too, when I said I’d earned it. Cerise frowned slightly, the old apartment coming back to her in a rush of memory, the plain two-rooms-and-a-bath, with a kitchen unit mounted into the wall above the freezer, and Trouble lounging on the foam-core folding couch that was their only piece of furniture. It had been two months before they’d gotten a job that let them pay for anything else, and right after it they’d seen a play on the culture channel that took place entirely in a bed. For weeks, just the thought of it had been enough to send both of them into giggles. Bad enough to be crackers, Trouble had said, that was enough of a stereotype, but artsy crackers….
Trouble and her Friends Page 15