Spares

by Michael Marshall Smith

  The shot rang out in the darkness.

  I let my gun drop, listening to the shallow breaths of a man who’d seen me move my hand at the last minute and fire my bullet into the floor. I stood there a while, until the echoes had died away and left us alone again.

  “Why’d you kill Maxen?” I asked. “Because he’d decided he didn’t need you anymore and pulled Yhandim through to take you down? because the guys from The Gap were whacking your associates and girls? Or because of something else?”

  “Jack…” he whispered.

  “Get out of here,” I told him.

  He stood, like an old man, and walked to the door.

  “Good luck,” he said.

  “If I ever see you again I’m going to kill you. Understood?”

  He nodded once, opened the door and left.

  I went into the women’s restroom, removed the panel, and climbed through into the pipe. Then I resealed the exit behind me, in the hope of putting off the inevitable for a little longer. I ran down the ventilation corridor as quickly as I could, ignoring a few bumps and cracks on the head. By then I didn’t seem to have any processing cycles to spare for worrying about a little pain. I was listening to the sound of pieces falling into place, seeing how they changed things and wondering how much difference it made.

  But then I heard a faint clang behind me as they located the panel, and the shout from Ghuaji which indicated he’d heard my footsteps as I fled down the chute barely half a mile ahead of them. I hadn’t expected to elude them for long, but their speed was still a shock.

  They were good soldiers. I’d lost them but then they’d found me, and now they were going to do their job.

  My father only said one thing I admire. “The race isn’t over until everyone’s gone home and you’re left in the stadium by yourself.” He used to say it every time he lost a job. We would generally already be packing to leave for another town, and I never really understood what he meant. Not then, anyhow. But as I ran breathlessly through the dank guts of New Richmond I understood all too well. I played out the game to the last, darting through cross corridors, taking a deliberately bewildering route until I reached the main shaft, then putting my hands and feet on the outside of the ladder so I could slide down the floors as quickly as possible.

  But I could still hear their boots thudding toward me, and as I swung off the ladder at ground level I knew the odds were against me. It seemed unfair, somehow, to have come so far, and for it to all come down to this. All I ever wanted was to escape from the noise, to find a little peace. I saw it then, that final moment, as if it had always been ordained. I saw the features of men who didn’t even really know enough to hate me properly, who were simply living out their programming; saw the random expressions on their faces as they crowded around me in those last seconds; felt the channels cut through me like shafts of ice. I saw myself dying in the bowels of New Richmond, and it didn’t seem too bad a way to go; and strangely, in that moment, I felt closer to my dad than anyone else in the world. However badly he fucked up he never gave in, until he chose to give it all up.

  And then I saw something ahead of me, and the images fled as if they’d never been.

  I was staring down the tunnel, half wondering whether I could find some new route, some way which would lead me toward gaps too small to find. I was paralyzed with indecision, my eyes flicking frantically over the smooth metal walls of the duct, when suddenly I realized I shouldn’t be able to see them at all.

  There was a tiny light in the distance, like a single candle fluttering in the darkness. As I stared it seemed to come closer, until it was no longer a point but an orange glow. But it wasn’t coming nearer, just getting bigger; it had never been more than yards away.

  The glow had a shape inside it. A figure.

  I swallowed, feeling as if I had a brick in my throat, and whirled back to face the way I had come. The sound of the men coming down the ladder above told me what I already knew. There was nowhere else to run.

  I turned back and stared into the light. It seemed the thing to do. Maybe somebody knew that my time had come, and had arrived to lead me through. I kind of hoped it wouldn’t be Mai. I loved the guy, and hoped I’d see him sooner rather than later, but I didn’t want to eat noodles for eternity.

  At first the figure seemed to be made up of many flickering wings beating in time, but then it started to resolve into solidity. When I saw who it really was my mouth fell open, as if it wanted to help shed some of the tears which were forcing themselves up through my eyes. Something had happened. The birds weren’t insane anymore. My lips trembled so much that when I said her name it was inaudible.

  “Suej?”

  She smiled, and I saw that the scar on her face had gone. She looked whole, and perfect, and I thought that no one should ever look less beautiful than that.

  “We have to be quick, Jack,” she said, but the sounds behind me were forgotten as I noticed that as well as her summer dress she seemed to be wearing a ragged jacket, like those the Gap children wore.

  “What are you doing here?” I whispered. “How did you get out?”

  “I found some friends,” Suej said. “We’re making things different. The Gap’s closing. I’m the bridge.” She sounded proud, and serene, and I took a step forward, wanting so much to hug her. She held up her hand to stop me. I stared at it, marveling at the way it exuded light.

  “You must go the other way,” she said. “Down to the lowest level.”

  “But this is the way out…”

  She shook her head. “Go the other way. And something else, Jack…You don’t need Ratchet anymore. You must throw him away.”

  “No fucking way,” I said, but she interrupted me with a confidence she’d never had before.

  “You must Then you have to run. And they told me to tell you this: You did more than you’ll ever know.”

  I shook my head, not wanting to go, but her face was firm. It felt as if I were the child, as if she now held some truth to which I could only aspire.

  Abruptly I realized that the sound of boots on the ladder was now much closer.

  “But what are you now?” I asked quickly.

  Suej smiled again, and lifted her hands—and then she was gone.

  I plunged back into the shaft, suddenly in motion as if someone had just plugged me back in. As soon as I was into it, I heard a shout from above, and I leaped down to land awkwardly on the floor below. For a second I recognized where I was, from my Rapt expedition, and then as the bullets started to spang around me I ducked into the nearest tunnel and ran.

  I sprinted past places I’d never seen, over lintels and past strange doors. I saw a rusted sign that said baggage, but then I was past it and still running hard. I remembered what Suej had told me to do and thrust my hand down into my jacket pocket. I pulled out the chip in which Ratchet lived, and held it tight. I didn’t want to let him go, but sensed that something else was calling the shots now. I placed him carefully on the ground. I ran.

  I spotted a familiar corner, vaulted up a couple of steps, and found myself in one of the exhaust ducts.

  They were gaining on me, and I knew I wasn’t going to make it. But at least I was going to try.

  I ran past an endless wall of metal, pocked with a century’s wear; the sound of air rushed in my ears as I stumbled forward, tripping and careering down the tunnel. And always behind me, and getting closer, were men running after me with only one thing on their mind. Occasionally, a bullet whined down the dark tunnel past me. They hadn’t hit me yet, but they would.

  I felt like the ghost in the machine, trying to find a way out. Trying to find the door to the outside, where there would be a sky above.

  I ran, and I ran, but my lungs couldn’t take it anymore. My legs started going, the muscles melting into fire too insubstantial to carry me on. The footsteps were thundering louder, and my life had been too long and deep for me to find anything else left to give. I ran, but I began to fail, my feet losing rhythm, the
shadowy, cold walls around me swirling into darkness.

  My knees buckled beneath me and I stumbled, knowing that I had given it my best but that I had lost the race. My hands flailed out, desperate to find something to hold on to, something to stop me from just pitching forward forever onto my face.

  And as I fell I felt a tiny hand grabbing hold of mine.

  The hand was warm and tender, and the voice, when it came, was firm, whispering in my ear. A voice that had my own in it, and Henna’s, too.

  “Come on, Daddy,” she said. “It’s time to leave.”

  I didn’t question it, but tightened my hold on the little fingers pressed into my palm. I was dragged forward, the small, soft voice still urging me on. My legs found new strength, and the pain in my chest faded away to nothing or became so loud I couldn’t hear it anymore. My body wrenched order from chaotic failure, and began to work in time again.

  I didn’t fall, but found a new rhythm. I ran down the tunnel like a child to the sea, until the walls were a blur and all I could truly sense was that tiny warmth and her voice drawing me on. As I ran I knew the footsteps were falling behind, still following but irrelevant now. All they had was hate to pull them on. There are stronger pulls.

  I hurtled after Angela as if it would be my last run ever, and I felt ludicrously happy and knew that’s the way it should be. I knew finally that you shouldn’t lie down and wait for darkness, leaving quietly, slouching toward death. You should run, because the only real fear is that you’ll stop running, that you’ll stop doing, that you’ll come to an end before everything else.

  As I ran I felt each second stretch to breaking point as it tried to hold everything that had gone before it. Nothing was lost, nothing was futile. Every thing I had done, every glance, every word, every breath—shone, huge and limitless and mine. My life didn’t pass in front of me—I ran in front of it. Nearly had been right. Memories are nothing more than a book you’ve read and lost, not a Bible for the rest of your life.

  I saw a light ahead, and began to notice strange sounds reverberating down the long tunnel around me. I could still hear the footsteps of Yhandim and his men, but they were a long way behind me now. Sooner or later, they would catch up, but at least I would make it out of New Richmond. I trotted the last stretch of tunnel raggedly, losing rhythm again. The joy was fading, as if it had been a fuel I was now coming to the end of. The joy had been everything that Rapt should have been, and I wished it were easier to come by.

  Angela’s form flickered in front of me, leading me up some staircase I’d never seen before. There was a rectangle of light at the end of the tunnel and I realized I had somehow come up another level, out of the exhaust ducts and toward the exit I knew.

  The guys at the door stood there staring, mouths gaping. I was pretty impressed with my running myself, and half expected a round of applause. But as I got closer I saw that it wasn’t admiration in their faces, but fear.

  The noise I’d heard seemed to be getting louder, ricocheting round the walls until the whole city appeared to shake. Before I made it to the door the men there had already turned and run.

  I burst out of New Richmond, still pulled by Angela’s hand. I panted through the basement and up the stairs, barely yards behind the fleeing men, and then out into the Portal to find that everyone else was running, too.

  I ground to a halt in the midst of chaos. Hundreds of people sprinted past me out of the buildings arranged round the walls of the city. For a moment I couldn’t understand, thought only that I’d started some new trend, and then a distant rumbling told me what in some sense I already knew.

  I felt a tugging, and I let her pull me backward, away from the bulk of New Richmond and out of harm’s way. In my mind I could still hear footsteps pursuing me, though I knew they were still down in the exhaust ducts, that Yhandim and the soldiers who were with him were now probably being shaken off their feet by forces that were awake again.

  When we were two hundred yards away we stopped, and I turned to see where she’d gone. A small shape leaped up at me as she always had, and I caught her and clasped my arms around her, and it was as if she were really there. I pushed my face into hers, smelling her mother and hearing my daughter’s laugh.

  Then my arms held nothing but air.

  People kept speeding past me, still tumbling out of buildings which would be falling within seconds. I gazed up beatifically at the bulk of New Richmond, at its two hundred floors and its countless rooms filled with life. As the ancient pulse engines finally fired into action I knew that I had nothing to fear from anyone who still chased me deep in the tunnels. The things that had pursued me were gone.

  I shouted Ratchet’s name as I realized what he’d done, that the old repair droid in the basement had somehow found the chip and Ratchet’s mind had saved me once again; and I staggered backward, laughing my head off, as the MegaMall stirred like a mountain waking up after too long a sleep.

  There was a moment of hesitation, as if old machineries were striving to remember the jobs they’d once performed, and then the entire city lifted up into the air. New Richmond rose up into the sky, higher and higher, until it was finally free of the earth. Looking for old paths, new roads, and a life it could have once again.

  The sky has a frost around the edges today, but is a blue that tells that though winter may not be over, spring is on the way. I don’t mind either way, to be honest. Rain or sun, it’s just good to see weather again.

  I had waited until the city had gone out of sight, standing amidst the spouting water mains and spitting power cables, then hitched my way down to northern Florida, to the beach where my mother and I used to visit. For a couple of days I just walked up and down the coast and slept in the dunes beneath the sky. Then I took a deep breath and found the condominium where my grandparents used to live. It looked older now, and battered, and nobody lives there anymore; but I found a room that was more than habitable, and that’s where I’m staying for now.

  When I was ready I got a job in a bar in St. Augustine, and one quiet night I was standing there serving beer and wine when I saw a news report on the flatscreen hanging down at the other end of the bar. An unspecified medical facility in Vermont had been attacked by a lone terrorist. Nobody knew who he or she was, and all they’d done was kidnap one of the “patients” and disappear.

  At first I just smiled, and then I laughed so loud and so long that people moved away and left me standing there alone.

  I wished Suej and David luck, and hoped that someday I’d see them both again.

  Nearly arrived yesterday afternoon. I was sitting by the old, empty pool round the back of the condo, remembering when there was water in it, when she marched right up behind me and cracked me on top of the head. Very hard.

  She was still extremely pissed at me, but she was also strangely determined. Suej had come to her in a dream, she claimed, and told her that she could find me here. When New Richmond put down temporarily in Seattle she’d jumped ship, and come a long way to give me a hard time. I stood there while she shouted and raved, and when she ran out of breath I took her hand and led her down the old wooden walkway to the beach.

  We walked along the shore until the light began to fade. There were no lights in the old buildings we passed, looming abandoned back up behind the dunes, but birds ran along the waterline as they always had, and a group of pelicans flew first one way, and then back, above our heads.

  Howie was doing well, I heard, as was Vinaldi, and the MegaMall was still on the move. Each time New Richmond landed somewhere, people tried to tether it down so they could get inside; but Ratchet was having none of it and just kept taking off again. The people inside didn’t seem to mind; they were happy to be flying at last.

  The gaps are closing.

  I would never know how much of what happened was directly Ratchet’s idea, whether something had affected him a long time ago, when he’d been in The Gap, whether he’d struck some deal with the children even then; but I believed that
if anyone was going to be running New Richmond, then its inhabitants could do a lot worse than the small, clear chip which now labored somewhere deep inside it. Sometimes you have to accept presents, and Ratchet was one of those. If we are to hand ourselves over to someone unseen, I trust him more than most.

  Time will tell what will happen. It always does.

  Nearly still beats me up occasionally, but she’s smiling now when she does it. A couple of nights ago we found ourselves sitting on the beach at midnight, full of wine and peace.

  “So,” she said, leaning into me, the skin of her shoulder soft against my cheek. “What are we going to do now?”

  I kissed her softly on the corner of the mouth, and slipped my arm around her.

  “That’s all very well,” Nearly said, with a little cat smile, “but are you sure you can afford it?”

  “Well, I don’t have a credit card,” I admitted, shaking my head sadly, playing along.

  She pouted. “You must.”

  “I gave it away.”

  She looked at me for a moment, and then pursed her lips. “I’ll take cash.”

  “If I had some, it would be yours.”

  She sighed, and rolled her eyes. “All right,” she said eventually, putting her arms round my shoulders and bringing her face right up to mine. “I’ll settle for an interesting insight on the human condition.”

  I shrugged. “Hope springs eternal?”

  “Good enough for me,” she said.

  A week ago Nearly bought me an old book from a secondhand store in St. Augustine. It’s about plants, and tells you what they’re called and where they’re from. I’m working through it, memorizing the names. When we’re out walking I look to see if I can find any of them.

  When I do, I name them: for Henna, for Nearly, and for me.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR