Trouble and her Friends

by Melissa Scott

  The runabout slowed, and Trouble held herself motionless. Ahead, an orange-and-white barrier ran halfway across the avenue, its markings ambiguous, either police or road crew. A single figure stood in the funnel of light from a street lantern, the runabout’s headlights reflecting from his orange-and-white vest, but, glancing sideways, Trouble could just see the nose of a police van waiting in the shadows of a side street.

  “I see it,” Cerise said, almost cheerfully, and slowed still further. Trouble held herself motionless as light flashed briefly across her window—more than just light, she knew, probably a quick-scan as well, checking for additional bodies. The transponder beeped softly, lights flickering briefly in the heads-up display, and Cerise gave a sigh of relief. The man standing by the barrier waved them forward, and Cerise opened the throttle slowly, easing the runabout past the end of the barrier. Trouble looked back, toward the Parcade, and caught a quick glimpse of blue-suited figures moving down the center of the street, while the Parcade’s denizens scrambled to get out of the way, scurrying for cover.

  Cerise swung the runabout back into its proper lane, and opened the throttle. The engine sounded briefly louder, but the baffling cut out the worst of the noise. Trouble let herself relax again, and said, “So where to?”

  “Ah.” Cerise kept her eyes on the road, watching for trouble on the badly lit side streets and potholes in the roadway. The people who lived in the Sands weren’t precisely fond of the crackers and the suits who came to Seahaven, and didn’t make much distinction between them. “That’s a little bit of a problem. The deal I made, we can’t meet Mabry until tomorrow morning, and I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to show up at Eastman House before then. Or at any of the hostels. My thought was, we head out to the flyway, head north to the first truck stop, sleep over in a capsule there.”

  Trouble shook her head. “There’s a new cop-shop right at the head of the access road, there at the rotary. I’d bet anything they’ll have them watching for me, too. Maybe a roadblock.”

  Cerise hesitated, swerved without thinking to avoid a pothole, and reached for the miniature keypad that controlled the communications system. She tuned it to the police channels, let the voices mumble in the speaker and the code strings stream through the data display at the base of the windscreen, to the right of the main grid display. “You’re probably right—I’m seeing talk from a roadblock, anyway, and it looks to be in the right place. That doesn’t leave much of an option, though.”

  “The Plantation,” Trouble agreed.

  “The glass is bulletproof,” Cerise said, thoughtfully. “If any of the drug gangs are crazy enough to risk the beaches. Users are mostly jackals; if we stay alert we shouldn’t have any problems with them. And if we can follow some of the old paving, we should be all right as far as chem-sands go.”

  “Great,” Trouble said. “If the has-beens don’t get us, the ecology will.”

  “You got a better idea?”

  Trouble shook her head. “Not offhand.”

  Cerise smiled. “The Plantation is it, then.”

  Trouble nodded, smiled reluctantly. It was an eerie place, dangerous, and she shivered, remembering a video she had seen. An old man had walked along a beach, suited to the waist against the reeking sands and the seaweeds that smoldered sullenly under the low sun. The beach was absolutely empty, which had not seemed strange—beaches were always empty, in her memory—until she listened to the species that the old man—he had been a marine biologist, she remembered—had remembered studying there, back before the Hundred-Year Winter. A few, he had said, a few were still around, it was still possible to find specimens, but every year, there were fewer and fewer. They were dying before his eyes, and there seemed to be nothing anyone could do. Since the beaches had become increasingly poisonous, the normal tourists had—with good reason—taken their business elsewhere; that left only the drug gangs, who sometimes risked landing a smaller cargo along the chemical-laced shores, and the people who had absolutely nowhere else to go. The beaches, and the Plantation in particular, were a favorite spot for double suicide. She scowled, turned her head to watch the houses sliding past outside the runabout’s window. The streetlights gave only a thin illumination, the houses mostly dark now: it was getting late, and the people who still lived here worked long hours to try to get out. Beyond the houses, she could just see faint glow of fog over the marsh, fog lit by the phosphorescent algae that choked the channels.

  “What is this deal?” she asked, and looked determinedly away from the scarred land.

  “I’ll tell you when we get to the Plantation,” Cerise answered.

  “That good.”

  Cerise grinned. “You’ll like it. It’s certainly better than the alternative.”

  “What alternative?” Trouble said, but smiled.

  “Precisely.”

  Trouble let the silence fall between them, the old, companionable quiet, tilted her head again to see out through the runabout’s windows. Ahead, the road was empty, unlit except for the sweep of the headlights; the seawall, a piled heap of rock and sand, loomed to the left of the road, and here and there the rocks were stained as though with oil or burning. The last town had ended some way back, and the only sign of human settlement was the road itself. To the right of the pavement, the land dropped steeply into the marsh. In the distance, just at the edge of the headlights’ reach, she could see the first glimmer of the sign that marked the turnoff that led back to Southbrook. It loomed quickly, vivid green and white in the runabout’s headlights, and Cerise slowed slightly, scanning her display for any signs of surveillance. Trouble saw the same codes, nodded her appreciation of Multiplane’s equipment.

  “Nice package.”

  “I installed it,” Cerise answered. “It had better be.”

  Ahead, the road was sand-drifted, the tire tracks that swept off to the right drawing a curved clear line through the grit, making the general traffic pattern obvious. Cerise slowed the runabout, switched her lights to their maximum beam, and reached across to trigger a security package under the dash.

  “You want me to keep an eye on that?” Trouble asked.

  “Yeah, thanks,” Cerise said, and switched the display to the passenger’s side of the windshield. “You’ve got IR, broadcast scanner, gross motion detectors—those won’t be much good until we stop, though.”

  Trouble nodded, watching codes and symbols flicker across the screen, pale blue against the dark. Beyond the windscreen, the headlights swept across sand etched into low hills bound by clumps of straggling, sickly-looking grass. A broken barrel, the metal rotted into rusty lace where it had touched the sand, lay in the center of the drifted roadway, and Cerise swerved to avoid it. The beam swept across more grass and sand, and the foundation of a tourist pavilion, but nothing seemed to be moving in the shadows. “There’s a turnoff ahead,” Trouble said, more to break the silence than anything else. “Used to be one of the parking lots.”

  “I see it,” Cerise answered, and a moment later swung the runabout off the main road.

  The sand was deeper here, loud under the wheels, and Trouble said, “How’re your tires rated?”

  “They’re supposed to stand chem-sand,” Cerise answered. “I’m not getting out to sweep, though.”

  “Probably wise.”

  Cerise nodded, preoccupied, and swung the runabout through a half-circle on the invisible paving, looking for a landmark. She found it almost at once, the remains of another shack that had once been a parking attendant’s booth. There was more left here, or at least the collapse had left a stub of one wall standing. A sheet of metal that had been the roof rested against that wall. The metal was rotting from the ground up, like any metal left too long in contact with the sand, but the cracked asphalt of the parking lot had protected it from the worst of the damage.

  “Getting anything?” Cerise asked, and Trouble shook her head, eyes fixed on the readouts at the base of the windscreen.

  “Not as far as I can
tell. Nothing on IR, anyway.”

  “Right,” Cerise said, and eased the runabout forward again, swinging around the ruin to slide the vehicle neatly into its protective shadow. Trouble caught a quick glimpse of trash, food wrappers, and half a bright beer can before Cerise killed the lights.

  “Popular spot,” she said, and Cerise shrugged.

  “Probably courting. Or else cops or Coast Guard.”

  “There’s a happy thought.”

  Cerise shrugged again, shutting down the runabout’s primary systems. “If they were here recently, they probably won’t be back—or at least not this late in the evening.” She left the motor running on standby—there was enough fuel in the cells to last, and she wanted the option of a quick getaway if they needed it—and leaned back in the driver’s seat. She had left the security systems running as well, and letters and code symbols danced in staccato patterns along the base of the windscreen. She watched the familiar movements, feeling the tiredness set in, tugging at her back and shoulders—less exhaustion, maybe, than the sheer release of tension. Not that it was over yet, she reminded herself. They still had to get back to Seahaven in time to meet Mabry.

  “So,” Trouble said. “What’s this deal you’ve made?”

  Cerise smiled wryly, grateful for the darkness. “Ah. I figured the main thing was to get Treasury off your back, right?”

  “Right,” Trouble said, after a moment.

  “So I went to Vess Mabry—the guy from Interpol. I told you about him.” Cerise took a deep breath. “He’s looking for newTrouble, too, and I said if he’d get Treasury off your back, we’d give him newTrouble.”

  There was a long silence then, and Cerise wondered if she’d gone too far. She looked sideways, away from the flickering codes of the heads-up display, but couldn’t read the expression on the other woman’s face. Trouble said, at last, “It’s a nice thought, Cerise, but we don’t have newTrouble.”

  Cerise let out an almost soundless sigh and said, “But we’re more likely to get him than Treasury, so far. Or Interpol.”

  “True enough.” Trouble did not move, staring through the ghostly displays that signaled monotonously. Her eyes were adjusting to the dark; she could make out the shadows of the distant trees, a horizon faintly darker than the sky, and a few low hillocks that must be the remains of beach buildings. Some of the brightest stars were visible through the thin clouds, but she did not bother to crane her neck to find the few constellations that she knew. She could give Interpol newTrouble, she was sure of that. The only question was, would she? She smiled faintly, very aware of Cerise’s silent presence in the seat beside her. Cerise hadn’t left her much choice—Cerise was always thorough—but in this case she was also right, however much it might annoy Trouble to admit it. Mabry was the only person who could get Treasury off their backs long enough to track down newTrouble. And it would be one in Treasury’s eye.

  “So what next?” she asked, and heard Cerise stir against the seat cushions, as though she had finally relaxed. The sound was obscurely comforting—it was nice not to be taken completely for granted—and Trouble shifted so that she was leaning half against the locked door. From that angle, she could see Cerise as well as the flickering band of security readings. The pale face was just a blur, the expression unreadable, but Trouble could hear a certain renewed ease in the other woman’s voice.

  “Next we meet Mabry,” Cerise said.

  “Which may be harder than it looks.”

  “Possibly,” Cerise admitted. “He’ll be at Eastman House by ten tomorrow morning.”

  “And what are we supposed to do with ourselves in the meantime?” The moment the words were spoken, Trouble wished she could recall them. In the old days, there would have been no question about Cerise’s answer, no matter what they ended up doing—which probably wouldn’t have been fucking; sex on the ruined beach, even in the car, was probably a stupid thing even to think about. Now, however, she felt an odd, unexpected constraint.

  It was almost a minute before Cerise answered, and the same restraint was very audible in her voice as well. “Have you heard from Mollie yet?”

  “Not yet,” Trouble answered, grateful for the diversion. “I didn’t expect to so soon. Did you find anything on the net?”

  Cerise laughed, barely a breath of sound. “Not a lot. How about you?”

  “The major news,” Trouble said sourly, “seemed to be that a few people don’t like me.”

  “Surprise, surprise,” Cerise murmured, but with only a touch of her usual teasing note. “No sign of newTrouble?”

  “No.” Trouble looked more closely at her, hearing something not quite right in the other woman’s voice, but unable, quite, to recognize it. It sounded almost as though she were amused, but not quite. The last time Cerise had sounded like that had been the time she’d tumbled into and out of an affair with a man. “He seems to have gone to ground.”

  “That shows more sense than I’d’ve expected,” Cerise said. She took a deep breath, well aware of Trouble’s reaction. “I’ve met someone who might be able to help us there.”

  “You didn’t,” Trouble’ said, and her own laughter was very close to the surface.

  Cerise glared at her, didn’t pretend not to understand. “Yes, I did, yes, I got hustled, and yes, she was very good. But she’s of newTrouble’s generation, and from something she said, I think she may know him.”

  “Who is she?”

  “She calls herself Silk.” In spite of herself, Cerise felt a flash of memory, pure sensation stabbing through her as though the name tripped something in the brainworm.

  “I don’t know her,” Trouble said, shaking her head. “On the wire, I assume?”

  “Do you think someone off the wire could hustle me?” There was arrogance in the answer, as well as a certain defensiveness.

  Trouble shrugged. “You never know. Your tastes could’ve changed. A text-only interface is supposed to be fun—or so they tell me.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Do you think this Silk would help you?” Trouble asked, ignoring the insult.

  “That I don’t know,” Cerise answered. “She—was out to hustle me from the beginning, I’m sure of it, but I don’t know if I was a trophy or just for fun.”

  “But you think it’s worth a try,” Trouble said, and suddenly wasn’t sure if she wanted Cerise to approach Silk after all. Before it wouldn’t have mattered, any more than the sex had mattered—and it doesn’t matter now, she told herself firmly. Their affair was over, had been over for years. But it didn’t feel as though it was over, felt more as though it had never ended, as though the time in between had been a suspension of reality, less than a dream. To be sitting here, in a car parked on the ruined paving of the old Plantation, discussing with Cerise how to sell another cracker to Treasury—to be in the shadows again, with Cerise. That was where she had always belonged, should always have been. Except that the shadows weren’t what they had been, any more than either of them had remained entirely the same.

  “It’s always worth a try,” Cerise said, and Trouble dragged her attention back to the present, annoyed that she’d let her own exhaustion distract her so far. “Besides, even if she doesn’t help, she may lead us to newTrouble anyway.”

  “You said she was good?”

  “We’re better.”

  Trouble shifted again against the door, searching for a more comfortable angle, and failed to find one. She hunched her shoulders and let her head rest against the chill glass, said, “So, how do we get back into Seahaven tomorrow morning?”

  “Ah.”

  “You haven’t worked that out yet,” Trouble said, with sudden certainty. She remembered that tone from the old days, the false confidence, and knew enough to dread it.

  “I was more worried about keeping you away from Treasury tonight,” Cerise said. She took a deep breath. “I thought we could probably slip in with the morning rush—there seem to be a lot of people who live in the other towns who come in to
work. Besides, the last thing they’d expect is for you to come back after you’ve got away.”

  “True,” Trouble said, mostly appeased. It would probably work—would have to work, she amended silently, and smiled.

  “What are you grinning at?” Cerise asked.

  “Nothing,” Trouble said, and even in the darkness could see Cerise’s quick frown. “I just don’t believe we’re doing this, that’s all.”

  Cerise paused, still frowning, and then, slowly, her expression eased. “Me neither, sweetheart.” She had spoken without thought, the casual endearment easy on her tongue, and for a heartbeat she didn’t realize what she had done. Then Trouble stirred, shifting against the padding, and Cerise made a face, looked away as though she could find some apology in the dark outside the car. The security crawl stayed monotonously clear, offering no change of subject, and the silence stretched between them.

  “Do you know, I’ve fucking missed you?” Trouble said, and sounded at once surprised and annoyed by the thought.

  Cerise looked back at her, surprised into laughter and the truth. “Well, I’ve missed you, too. Even if you did walk out on me.”

  “I screwed up,” Trouble said, quite seriously. “And I know I screwed up. I’m sorry.”

  And that, Cerise thought, was one thing you had to say for Trouble. She could make even the most inarticulate of apologies sound better than sincere. “It’s OK,” she said, vaguely, and thought almost that it might be.

  “How is Multiplane to work for?” Trouble said, after a moment.

  Cerise shrugged, even though the gesture would be all but invisible in the darkness. “The company’s all right, they let me handle the net pretty much the way I want. My immediate boss is a bit of a bastard, though. He’s got a real problem with this intrusion, and I don’t know why. He really wants you, or newTrouble; he doesn’t really care which.”

  Trouble frowned. “But since I didn’t do it—”