We should have been running, or I should have been searching for the rest of the spares. A man I didn’t know had my death on his mind, and the spares didn’t have anyone but me to care about what happened to them. But this was an afternoon I should have had long ago, and while having it now didn’t change anything, at least it was one that was squared away. You have to accept gifts occasionally, because there are some things you can’t give yourself. That afternoon was a small present from the gods, one which was heavily overdue. I took it, and was glad.
It took a long time for the pennies to start dropping. I’ve no real excuse for that; guess I’m just a stupid man. At least when they did they fell together, like a scattered handful of change.
We were sitting in a bar on 67 at the time, it was mid-evening and I was within shouting distance of drunk. I can’t help it. That’s the way I am. The bar was long and old fashioned; the walls wood paneled, with hanging TV screens burbling in corners. Someone had gone to the trouble of building small rectangular contraptions to house the flat LCD sheets so they resembled antique TV sets, and the overall effect was of a bygone age. The patrons were talking fast and hard, and seemed to be having a good time. As far as I could tell, I was having one too.
Nearly and I were drinking steadily, sitting with Suej in a raised booth. I was vaguely considering the idea of food—a burger the size of Texas with everything on it, possibly; Nearly had already eaten a salad and a twenty-degree slice of pecan pie. I think the afternoon had quieted us all down, and we weren’t talking much. I’d learned a small amount of Nearly’s history, but hadn’t told her any of mine. She was twenty-six and had been in the life for four years, operating toward the higher end of the scale. She reckoned that by thirty she’d have enough to get out, and I was trying not to picture what she’d look like by then. I gathered that Suej must have given her the bones of my last five years, because Nearly’s attitude toward me seemed to have altered. I couldn’t put my finger on what the difference was. I’d obviously changed from being just a big violent dude with a drug problem, but to what I wasn’t sure.
It was during a break in the conversation that the first small revelation came. I was looking vaguely in Suej’s direction, watching her finish her burger, her jaws chomping gamely as her eyes followed people with fascination.
And blearily I thought: Maybe she’s the key.
The guy with the blue lights had to have been part of the team who killed Mal and took the spares. Yet when I’d returned to Mal’s building, far from taking me out, he’d stopped Rat-face from trying to kill me. He must have known I would try and avenge Mal, and it had probably been he who’d kept me in New Richmond by hiding Mal’s body. I could only think of one possible reason for wanting me to be still alive and in the city: Blue Lights hadn’t yet gotten something that he’d been sent to find, and I was the key to him getting it.
He had all the spares, except one.
“My treat,” said Nearly, necking the last of her wine. “But I’m going to the John first.” She winked, a pantomime gesture which involved most of her face and half her upper body, and I guessed a pharmaceutical top-up was on the agenda. I watched her as she made her way across the floor to the ladies’, drawing a quiver of appreciative glances. She was living proof that being top-to-bottom slim didn’t stop you from looking like a woman. Meantime, my mind was working. For the first time in two days I felt awake.
Suej was important: to make up the set, or in her own right? If the set was the issue Nanune wouldn’t have died the way she did. I suddenly believed that whoever had set Blue Lights on us was mainly interested in Suej, and that he’d been waiting for me to lead him to her. By keeping her stashed I’d inadvertently been doing the right thing, which figured. My good moves are generally accidents.
Did that make him SafetyNet? Not necessarily. I couldn’t believe that the corporation would allow an operative to conduct business in the way he did. Plus three other missing links:
1) The day we blew the Farm, it was Jenny they had wanted. Her twin had to have been near death for the operations they were considering. So how come Suej was the issue now?
2) What was Blue Lights’s problem with Vinaldi? How could Vinaldi fit with a SafetyNet scenario?
3) Nanune’s desecrated head and the stealing of Mal’s display pointed to either Blue Lights or his accomplice being behind the facial damage homicides—as did the tie-ins to Vinaldi. In that case, why were the NRPD files security locked? Blue Lights wasn’t a cop, I’d lay money on that—so how did he rate protection? The shooter I’d killed outside Mal’s apartment had no rap sheet, and I’d a hunch Blue Lights wouldn’t have either. Which meant either that all the trouble was coming from out of town or that someone was going to a lot of trouble to make it look that way.
Fine thinking as far as it went, but it didn’t go far enough. Instead of making me feel like I was getting somewhere, it made me unsettled and nervous. The downside of Suej being the key was that it meant that the other spares were probably expendable, and none of it got me much closer to understanding what was going on or how I could rescue them. There was at least one part of the puzzle still missing, and until I knew what it was I couldn’t go after the spares, or even ensure that Suej was safe. I couldn’t do anything.
I looked up to see Suej’s eyes on me.
“Are you okay, Jack?” she asked; I stopped drumming my fingers on the tabletop and smiled.
“Sure,” I said. “How was the burger?”
“Good.” She grinned. “Nicer than Ratchet’s.” Ratchet had been a droid out of the top drawer, but, as discussed, cooking hadn’t been one of his key skills—and especially not short-order stuff. On the other hand, it wasn’t supposed to have been, and it was surprising he’d been able to cook at all. For the first time since leaving the Farm I experienced my recurrent curiosity as to what exactly Ratchet had been. I also felt a sudden twinge of loneliness and melancholy on realizing that the machine which had saved my life was probably unrecognizable now. Trashed or reprogrammed by the company, his mind dead forever as punishment for exceeding his role. There ought to be a warning on my forehead, I thought: Think carefully before entering this man’s life, because very few people make it back out alive. Then I thought it was time to can the self-pity before I started boring even myself.
“Can we go there?” Suej asked, and I turned to follow her finger. One of the monitors was showing a news report about some mountain, huge and covered with snow. Suej probably thought the mountain was somewhere just outside New Richmond, back near the way we’d come down from the hills.
“Maybe,” I said. I was about to make it sound more convincing when suddenly I stopped.
Mount Everest.
“You’re not okay,” Suej said, immediately. “I see it in your face. What’s wrong?”
I’d realized what Nearly had inadvertently reminded me of the night before: the report I’d already seen about someone discovering a mountain higher than Everest. Presumably I was now seeing it again.
But that was bullshit. Mount Everest was the highest mountain on Earth. Of course it fucking was.
And now the gates were opening, I realized something else: Wall-diving. Jumping out of windows with nothing but some weird fiberglass rod for company. How likely was that? Did that make any sense at all?
“Jack, what’s wrong?”
Ignoring her, I looked toward the ladies’ room. A sudden influx had turned the area round the bar into a crush of people. Nearly was a way back from the counter, talking to some guy. From her body language I could tell the conversation wasn’t especially welcome, but no more than that.
“I’m sorry, Suej, but we’re going to have to go,” I said. Suej pouted, but she knew something was wrong. She stood up with me and I waited while she gathered her bags, and then she let me lead her down into the throng.
When we got to Nearly, she was alone. “We have to leave,” I said. “We have to leave right now.”
Nearly looked at Suej, the
n back at me. “Says who? I’m thirsty.” I grabbed her arm and tried to pull her away, aware that I was appearing a Neanderthal. She yanked it back again. “What is your problem?”
“What’s the highest mountain in the world?” I asked, fighting to stay patient. Nearly just stared at me, buffeted by the people around us. “Quickly.”
“Well, Mount Fyi, of course. They just found out. Do I win a prize?”
“No. That’s why we have to go.” I looked around the crowd. The man Nearly’d been talking to had disappeared, “Who was that guy?”
Nearly looked confused, then realized whom I was talking about. “Said he was a John of mine from a couple of years back; wanted to play tonight. I told him to go away. Why?”
“Didn’t you recognize him?”
“No, but—how can I put this?—it’s not like I keep a lock of each one’s hair.”
“Nearly, trust me. We really have to go.”
She stood her ground for a moment longer, then rolled her eyes. “Jesus, you’re no fun at all,” she grumbled, and allowed me to pull her toward the door.
Too late.
I suddenly sensed time rushing toward me again, without really knowing what I was reacting to. Maybe it was some sound from deep in the crowd. Or perhaps I felt the crush of people parting. Some sixth sense from long ago, stirring sluggishly. I instinctively put myself between Suej and the rest of the bar, shoving Nearly toward the door. As I surreptitiously pulled my gun out I felt Suej move behind me and glanced to see that Nearly had taken her hand and was taking her with her. I didn’t know whether she’d started to believe me or was just doing what she was told for once. Either way, I was grateful.
I quickly slipped a few yards to the right through the crowd, keeping my gun hidden and low. Scanned the faces, and kept moving in unpredictable directions six feet at a time, turning my head as far round as I could, trying to feel where he’d be. It was like moving through grasping and twisted trees. I used to be good at that. But he was obviously better than me.
“Shutdown,” a voice whispered an inch behind my ear.
With a whole-body spasm I crunched my heel backward and felt it connect solidly with his shin. Whirling on my other foot I brought the gun up, cracking it against people in the crowd. Surprised mouths opened in front of me. The man had gone but at least people were getting the fuck out of my way. I searched the crowd, saw no one, then my head snapped toward the door. He’d twisted behind me and was ten feet away, carving his way through the throng toward Suej. But it wasn’t Blue Lights: It was someone new.
I could see Nearly’s head just outside but she didn’t catch my desperate signals. Suej was looking somewhere else entirely, staring at the wooden frame of the door, I forgot the secret of slipping through people and threw myself forward, fighting the crowd as if it was a thicket of undergrowth. A mass of arms and legs and red angry faces. Hard elbows, jabbing into me.
He was getting to the door much more quickly than I, slipping through the crowd as if it wasn’t there. There was something in the way he moved, a murderous grace, which told me he’d been trained for this. I had been, too; and once upon a time maybe could have caught him. But not now. It was far too long ago.
When I started going backward, I knew I was going to have to do something unusual. I changed course and headed for the bar like a lumbering missile, slamming people out of the way with both hands. I made it to the counter and hoisted myself up, sending rows of glasses flying. I scrambled to my feet, slipping on spillage, and whirled to face the crowd.
“Stay there or I’m going to blow your head off,” I shouted at him. Not very original, but there you go. Some phrases are hard-wired into the male psyche. When the need arises, out they come. The guy knew this, and gave it about as much heed as it deserved, continuing toward the door. The crowd were less sanguine, and dived to get out of the way; opening a channel to the exit, exactly what I didn’t want.
Nice one, Jack, I thought: tactical mastery as usual.
A second to make a decision. I needed the guy alive—I wanted to talk to him. But if he got to Suej, everything was over anyway.
I shot him, carefully.
The bullet caught him in the neck and spun him round, but he was a big fucker and kept on going. I parked another in his back and launched myself off the bar, flying raggedly over rows of heads and smashing down onto him. We crashed to the floor, a space suddenly clear around us; I tried to turn the fall into a roll but he was quicker than me and kicked me back down again as he pulled out his gun. I twisted immediately and took some splinters in the face as the patch of floor where my head had been exploded.
I decided I was tired of being shot at in bars and that I didn’t need to talk to him that much.
My gun was half empty before he staggered; I pushed myself to my feet with one hand, still firing with the other. The problem with guns is that they don’t kill people as quickly as you might think. Shooting people doesn’t send them flying backward in a graceful arc. It just tends to really annoy them. I lunged forward and grabbed his neck, my hand slipping in the biology spilling out of the hole there. I got him on his back and knelt over him, hand still on his throat and a knee on each arm, gun firmly pointed at his forehead. His face was thin and not very clean, eyes deep set and dark. Under his coat it looked like he was wearing army fatigues which hadn’t been troubled by water in a while.
I knew I didn’t have long before the cops arrived, so I made it simple for him. “Tell me who you are and where you’re from or I’m going to spread your brains all over the next floor down,” I panted, feeling warmth spilling out of his neck onto my fingers.
He bucked and nearly threw me off so I put another bullet through his collarbone at close range.
“You know where I’m from,” he said, through a mouthful of blood. He seemed to be grinning.
“No, I don’t,” I said. “And it’s pissing me off. Are you SafetyNet, or what?”
The man laughed, sending another gout of mess up through the remains of his lungs. “Ain’t no safety net there, Randall. You know that.”
From behind, I heard someone whisper “They’re coming,” and knew that time had run out. I stood up and left him lying there, knowing he wasn’t going to tell me anything. Then as an afterthought I shot him in the head. Not very polite of me, I know, but then he didn’t want the best for me either.
“Jesus—what is it with you and public places?” Nearly shouted. “Were you, like, mistreated in a bar as a kid?” I’d obviously slipped back in her estimation to big violent dude with a drug problem, maybe even further than that. “Wherever you go it’s the same fucking movie. Don’t you-get tired of it?”
“One, he could have been the guy killing women,” I said, pushing her and Suej quickly along the street. “Two, he could have killed Mai. Three, either he or his friend cut Nanune’s fucking head off, and four, I don’t want to discuss it.”
We ran out into Road 2, the smaller of 67’s main drags. I could hear sirens in the distance, cops on platforms surfing toward us from the station on the other side of the floor. The platforms are simply that, four-inch slabs with Hovers underneath; one cop drives using the lectern at the front, the others do what the hell they like. I kept us moving away from the bar for as long as possible, and then, when I saw a flashing light turn the corner into our road, yanked the girls into a sidestreet. The platform rocketed past like a very low-flying bird with parasites on its back, and I hoped the bar wasn’t about to experience an “incident.” The cop piloting was bombed out of his mind and the others were waving their guns around like cowboys on a runaway riverboat.
When the platform was safely past, we ran back out onto the street and sprinted across it, into another side road and then through to the waste ground behind. Once it had been a botanical garden. Now it was just a mess, some descendants of the original plants still struggling for life, most dead and gone. Yellow streetlights were strung along the edges of the grounds, but the interior was dark and abandoned
.
“Where are we going?” Nearly panted. “And are you going to shoot anyone when we get there? if so, I think I may pass and take in a movie instead.”
There was an elevator on the other side. I pointed to it.
“Down to your apartment,” I said as we ran into the gloom. “There’s stuff I left there. Then Suej and I are disappearing. Probably for good.”
“Well hey, it’s been nice knowing you,” Nearly said angrily. “And when I say ‘nice,’ I don’t mean it.”
I was about to try to say something conciliatory when Suej suddenly ground to a halt in front of me. I almost collided with her and instead skidded to a stop, a growl ready on my lips.
It never made it out.
We were in the middle of the waste ground by then, two hundred yards from anything in any direction. The sirens still blared in the distance, but apart from that it was quiet and still. Suej was staring into space with her mouth open. There was nothing there.
“Suej?” I said. “What—?”
Then something morphed out of the shadows. A flicker at first, a shimmer like shadows changing places to music I couldn’t hear. At the threshold of audibility a sound, like many hands clapping but speeded up and far away.
Then a shiver went through the ground and the space between us fractured into noise and light.
Suej shrieked as the birds exploded into being, a hundred mad, happy orange sets of wings and ear-splitting cries crashing into fluttering life, Living flames shot up into the air, but went nowhere; movement and noise contained into stillness, as if everything in the world was trying to be in the same place at once. It was impossible to discern the beginning of one scream and the start of the next, or one bird and another.
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