“Just Joe and the Doctor. She’s jacked him into an immersion couch, we’ve been having an interesting conversation.”
“Glad you’ve made a new friend.” I kicked the door in. Janus, tall and Downside elegant in an obligatory white coat, was speaking into her smart. Joe, four hundred pounds of fur and muscle, lay on a couch with a king size drip in his arm and immersion leads on his temples.
“Hello, Doc” I said. “You’re under arrest for conducting an unlicensed medical procedure. Hope there’s enough in your Zurich account for a good lawy–”
This was when MEC Security Operative Number 12 shot me in the back with a tazer. I never heard a thing. Very slick.
Tazer shock feels a bit like being hit by a jackhammer travelling at a hundred miles an hour. It also makes you piss yourself and gibber around on the floor, all very embarrassing for tough guy detectives.
I was still in paralysis when I resurfaced. Janus was predictably dead with a hole in her forehead and Number 12 was staring down at me. He had those perfect teeth no-one is born with and a leathery face that didn’t match the dentistry.
“How you feeling, Inspector?”
“Schlumph,” I replied.
“Never mind. Won’t last much longer.” He wandered over to Joe, still sedated into oblivion on the couch. “Will you look at the size of this guy? Don’t appreciate it when you see him on the hol. But up close like this he’s really incredible. Had six hundred riding on him for the Ortega fight…”
He droned on as I swivelled my eyes about desperately. The Sig was on the floor a few miles away. Something was scratching nearby, something out of view because I couldn’t turn my head.
“… that mega-mutant of yours has shut down the pipe so my colleagues are having to climb down here. It’ll take a few hours so I thought I’d pass the time with you.”
“Thnshks.”
“You’re welcome. You know, that job you did on my team was remarkable. ‘Course, none of them had our experience.”
My eyes flicked up at him.
“Yeah, I’m a Vet too. On the other side of course. Still, all over now eh? No hard feelings.”
He was wearing a stealth suit of non-reflective, insulating fabric. That’s why Freak missed him. All he had to do was stay in the shadows while I scragged his friends then follow me to the Pipe. Latched onto the carriage somehow when Freak put it in free fall. Real hard-core space commando shit. He must have killed dozens of us in the war.
The scratching got louder. I had regained enough mobility to crane my neck a fraction of an inch. There was a large white box under the operating table about three feet away. The scratching stopped, started, stopped again. I heard something sniff the air.
“…after the war I had some trouble reintegrating into society. Not that there is much of what you’d call a society anymore. You should see it down there, Jesus…”
There was a catch on the front of the box and I was starting to lose the numbness in my arms. But Number 12 was certain to kill me the nano-second I moved.
“…I mean the poverty, you wouldn’t believe it. There I was, a three times decorated war hero for Christ’s sake, and what do they offer me? Refuse disposal specialist. I guess that’s when my anger management issues first manifested themselves…”
“Alex?”
I’d forgotten about Freak. “Yspls?” I kept it to a whisper. Number 12 probably thought I was throwing up.
“I can see the box on the room scanner. If I give you a diversion can you move far enough?”
“Uh.”
“OK. Just a sec.”
The box was starting to shake as what was inside got angry.
“…one day this MEC suit turned up at the psych ward with a contrac-”
Joe moved, not much, just a spasm as Freak ran a pulse charge through the immersion leads, but it was enough to get Number 12’s undivided attention. “What the fuck!”
I lurched across the floor, trailing saliva and piss, scrabbling at the box, finding the catch more through luck than judgement. Number 12 was already putting the laser dot on my forehead when a streak of black erupted from the box and latched onto his face.
The Emperor was trained to put on a show so it took longer than it should and Number 12 made some disgusting noises before it was over. The Emperor sat on the body, licking blood from his snout and regarding me with the cold, baleful stare singular to rats. I knew he was smart enough to tell friend from foe but he was such a vicious little bastard he might kill me just for the hell of it. After a few seconds he turned away, hopped up onto Joe’s massive chest, curled up and went to sleep.
“I estimate you will regain full mobility within two hours. That provides us with an adequate window to move Joe and destroy this place before the arrival of MEC Security. I can provide transport but we’re lacking a destination. Colonel Riviere has refused asylum for Joe in the Axis…”
“Ishokay.”
“Pardon?”
“Isst’s OK. Uh’ve got shumwer fer im.”
*
“I don’t really know why I did it,” Joe was saying. “I saw the little guy was about to get torn to pieces and I just couldn’t leave him there.” He paused to look around. “Nice place.”
“The Black Forest,” I said. “As it was in the thirteenth century. There’s a wide selection in the library if you want a change. Just ask Freak.”
“Thanks, Inspector. How long will it take?”
Shorn of his fur and muscle it was surprising how ordinary Joe was. Big and tough, certainly. But nothing special. I mean that in a nice way.
“About seven months. Standard de-Splicing period. You’ll be pleased to know you died in a shuttle crash last night. Along with most of your management team.”
“These things happen.”
I smiled. “Gotta go, Joe. I’ll come and visit soon.”
“I’d like that. And hey, remember what we talked about, you know, about Sniffy.”
“I can’t believe you called him Sniffy.”
“He likes it.”
I shook my head. “Jack me out please, Father.”
*
I was standing over Joe’s body. The machine grafted onto his chest was already starting the programmed alterations: blood change, DNA realignment, everything he needed to make him human again. In the meantime he could stay here with Father Bob.
I pulled the leads from my temples and turned to Consuela’s couch, laid my hand on her face, traced her profile.
“Would you like me to leave?” Father Bob asked.
“No.” I bent down and kissed her forehead. “The blue switch, right?”
He nodded.
I looked down at her hawk face for the last time. I had always liked to think she looked as if she was sleeping but I knew now she just looked like a dead woman plugged into a third-rate life-support system. She was right. I had made her a prisoner, a slave. And what do all slaves dream of?
“‘Bye, Con.” I hit the switch and she sighed, face going slack, head lolling to one side. She sounded relieved.
*
I carried the box to the air ducts on Yang Twenty-Four. They lead directly to the mid-outer hull, Rat Country. I undid the catch and stood well back as he ambled out, stopped at the lip of the duct to sniff the rush of air, ears pricking up at the scent of so many brothers and sisters. He glanced back with that same glittering, baleful stare, then was gone.
I dug my hands into my pockets, feeling something cold and sharp, realising I’d forgotten to give Consuela the dolphin brooch. It was raining as I walked away. I hate the rain.
END
A Song for Madame Choi
Doc Owuga cast a dubious eye over the old 2D I’d given him then took a long look at my face, propped none too comfortably on a chin support in front of his dermal scanner. “You sure?” he asked.
“Sure I’m sure, Doc,” I said brightly. “Surer than sure.”
Doc Owuga rechecked his screens, he hid it well but I noticed his hands w
ere trembling a bit as he punched the keyboard. We’d done some business back in the war and I guessed I’d left a lasting impression.
“This,” he waved at the screens where the face that I wore revolved in all its flawless glory. “This is art. This…” he glanced at the 2D, “…is -”
“It’s me, Doc,” I told him. “You remember me right?”
Doc Owuga sighed and sank into a swivel chair that was two parts duct tape to one part faux leather. “Sure, you’re a tough guy Demon who killed a shit-load of people during our glorious revolution and a shit-load more since.”
“And you sold the Resistance anti-biotics at a three hundred percent mark-up, when you weren’t trafficking organs to both sides of course.”
“There was an amnesty…”
“Not from me.” I undid the velcro strap from my forehead and freed myself from the scanner. “I can pay. You want the work or not?”
Doc Owuga had been through eight faces in the time I’d known him, each more youthfully handsome than the last. But whilst the faces grew younger the rest of him didn’t, he was pot-bellied with liver spotted hands and an old man’s stoop. The face he wore now, darkly handsome and reminiscent of some old action-movie star I dimly recalled from late-night free-flix reruns, looked like a particularly bad joke.
“Hear they’re doing accelerated, full-body remodelling on the Downside,” I pushed. “Asking price is twenty thousand in folding green if you know where to go, and I’m sure you do.”
He arched an eyebrow and I got a part fix on the face. Roves was it? Reeves maybe? “Where’s a Demon get twenty thou in green?” he asked.
“Fuck d’you care?”
“Why not go to a Yin-Side clinic? Nice and clean and legal.”
“There are… ethical issues, apparently. Cosmetic surgeons have a legal code of practice. Who knew?”
He glanced back at his screens, sighed and stood up, moving to the coat rack to toss me my jacket. “Half now, got expenses.”
I nodded, peeling bills onto his desk.
“Mind if I ask why?” he said as I went to the door. “What you’re wearing would cost a lot, and you got it for free.”
Consuela’s eyes, that first time, taking me in, scars and all, liking what she saw… “It’s not my face,” I said, yanking the door open. “See you in a week.”
*
I bought noodles from a vendor near the Yang Four Pipe entrance, sat on a bench and watched the crowd as I slurped. Yang Four used to be mostly normo but there were a lot more Splices these days, hence Doc Owuga’s new surgery. Youthful vamps and cats eyed each other warily from street corners and overpasses, horned and scaly hellspawn muscled past waif like elf maidens, all genres represented in the genetic soup.
My smart buzzed as I wiped away soy with a napkin. ID withheld. That’s never good.
“Yeah?”
“Alex.” Flat even tones, cultured Yin-Side vowels. Voices from the past, I hate them.
“Mr Mac. How’s the criminal overlord business?”
“Fair to middling. We need to meet.”
“No we don’t. I’ll kill you on sight, you know that.”
“Not today. Got an opportunity for you to play the hero, be the knight errant, save the day, et cetera. There’s even a damsel in distress.”
I tossed my empty noodle carton into a nearby hopper. “There’s always a damsel in distress around you, y’fucking psychopath.”
A pause, maybe I’d hurt his feelings, as if such a thing were possible. “It’s a child.”
I stared at the crowd, noticing how even the pseudo-demons avoided my gaze. Mr Mac and I had been playing this game for five years and there were rules. Mr Mac was always a stickler for rules, number one being you don’t lie to me. He would conceal, omit, prolong or carefully phrase. But he wouldn’t lie.
“Where?” I said.
*
The last time I’d seen Mr Mac he was repelling from a second storey window, nimbly hopping between lines of SWAT team tracer. I was out-ranged with the Sig but fired off a whole clip anyway. He’d waved as he touched down, no irony or affectation, just the friendly greeting of an old friend. I was sprinting towards him, slamming in a fresh clip, when the building he’d just exited blew up, taking most of the SWAT team with it. The blast earned me some new scars, oddly none to the face, and a week in hospital. It’s fair to say the experience hadn’t made me like him any better.
Mr Mac’s new abode rested in a corner of Yang Thirty-Three, one of the commercial levels clustered around the main freighter docks. Warehouses and bland two-tier office blocks, anonymous and thinly populated, just the way he liked it.
I circled the place twice before approaching the entrance. It was a mid-size warehouse with flickering holos proclaiming itself the home of Fairweather Import Export: Customs Clearance Specialists. I counted ten unremarkable grey-green boxes on the roof, positioned at the corners and mid-way along the edges. Auto-guns, I decided, noting the inter-locking fields of fire. Each box contained a 7.62mm minigun and sufficient ammo to turn any assault into a Somme rerun. Every passer-by would be scanned and relayed to Mr Mac’s smart who could and would deal out instant death with a thumb-flick if your appearance aroused even the slightest suspicion. For someone in his position, paranoia was an essential survival trait.
The doors slid open as I approached. In the lobby Nina Laredo waited with two blocky security types, obvious weapon bulges creasing their suits.
“Nina,” I said. “Not dead yet?”
“Inspector.” She inclined her head, perfect Latin features impassive. Unlike me Nina’s beauty was all natural, though like me, entirely skin deep. Six years at Mr Mac’s side, uncountable kills to her name and she never picked up a single scar, nor apparently, anything resembling a human emotion. The Department’s criminal psychologists had her pegged as either a sociopath or an ultra-rationalist personality. I preferred my own diagnosis of Grade A Evil Bitch.
“Your weapons, please,” said Nina, holding out a hand, short nails, impeccably manicured, no rings. Nina had no need of ornamentation.
“Fuck you,” I replied amiably.
“You know he won’t harm you. It’s for his protection.”
The knowledge that she was right and I was entirely safe here did nothing to improve my mood. I unholstered the Sig and handed it over, followed by the tazer in my inside pocket and the knife strapped to my forearm.
“I better not find a tracer on these later,” I warned her, knowing it was a redundant threat. Mr Mac had no need of tracers.
“This way please.”
Mr Mac’s office was a picture of Victorian elegance, as much as an ignorant Jed like me understands Victorian elegance. Antique real oak-wood desk, leather bound books on the shelves, horse bronzes and automata, actual oil paintings on the walls. If knowing he would have to move everything as soon as I left perturbed him at all, he didn’t show it, coming from behind the desk to offer his hand, smiling warmly. “Alex!”
I ignored the hand, gesturing at the office. “Where’d you get all this shit?”
“Downside auctions mostly. Passion of mine for a while now.”
I made a mental note to profile a customs search on future antiques imports and sank into the chair opposite his desk. “So? This child.”
Mr Mac smiled tightly, resting against the desk, arms folded, dressed in sweater and slacks. He’s a tall man, Mr Mac, every inch the blond, good-looking Yin-Sider. At his age he should have been running Daddy’s procurement division, making partner or approaching the climax of a sporting career before commencing a run for political office. Instead, here he was, quite simply the most feared organised criminal on the Slab, which potentially made him the scariest gangster in the populated solar system. He came over the Axis during the war, running medicine through the blockade, then joining up with our Active Service Unit. For three years we blew stuff up and killed people together. Even back then I could tell he was really enjoying himself. He disappeared shortly befor
e the Langley Raid, we all assumed he’d been pinched by Federal Security. A year or so later, not long after I joined the Department, rumours started circulating about a Yin-Sider gang boss with a ruthless attitude to conflict resolution.
“I heard about Consuela,” he said. “I’m very sorry.”
“Yeah, mention her again and I’ll beat you to death with one of your bronzes.” It had always irked me greatly that Consuela had liked him so much. “Tell me about the kid.”
He took a smart from his pocket, thumbed up a holo and tossed it to me. The holo showed a pretty little girl, seven or eight years old, Eurasian features.
“Name?” I asked.
“Don’t have one.”
“Nature of distress?”
“She arrived twelve hours ago, economy-class ferry from the Jakarta Hub. Accompanied by a twenty-something male of European appearance. They walk through Customs and security without a blip and promptly disappear. Two hours later the accompanying male is found dead in a dock-level warehouse along with two others, both armed. No sign of the girl.”
“Manner of execution?”
“Neat made to look messy if I’m any judge. You can double check with Doctor Ricci.”
The little girl’s image revolved in my palm, it was a still shot but the sadness evident in her face was unnerving. Kidnap or not her expression told me she needed protection. I wondered briefly if she was an avatar, imaginary bait on Mr Mac’s hook, but then he didn’t lie. Not to me.
“What’s she to you?” I enquired.
“A child in need of rescue.”
“From what?”
“Nothing good, Alex.” He’d moved into dissembling mode. No lies, but no more truth either.
“If I find her, there’s no way I’d ever hand her over to you.”
“If you don’t find her, I strongly believe she’ll be dead very soon.”
I switched off the holo and pocketed the smart. No need of tracers.
“I need more to go on than this,” I told him.
“Come on, Alex.” He laughed and shook his head. “No you don’t. You never do.”
I levered myself out of the chair and went to the door. “Have fun moving your stuff. And tell Nina, if I see her within a mile of this, I’ll put her out the nearest airlock.”
Slab City Blues - The Collected Stories: All Five Stories in One Volume Page 3