by Linda Nagata
She left the records for a moment, to stand by the tall glass windows, her gaze fixed on the dark line of the Imperial Highway.
Behind her, she could hear a sudden, harsh intake of breath from Allende. She turned slowly, to meet his narrowed gaze. “We’ve just arrested two youths who may have been involved in Van Ness’s murder,” he told her. Then his lip curled. “Doesn’t sound like we’ll get any leads out of them, though. It seems to have been a simple mugging. When the Islamic Resurgence turned up, they dumped the body in the river.”
“Nature save us! How long until that notebook is ready to read?”
Kirstin’s ghost followed the dogs through the city’s rain-soaked, labyrinthine streets as they tracked the various scents of the children who’d inhabited the warehouse. They’d brought down six so far; none had shown any trace of the Maker. The rest had disappeared like rats into the maze of crumbling buildings.
At mid-morning she decided to return to the site of the warehouse. The air stank of smoke all up and down the riverfront. She looked ahead for the warehouse. At first she thought the dogs had become disoriented. Then she realized the collapsed heap of charred girders and melted plastic slag was all that remained of the building she’d visited earlier that morning.
Apparently the Islamic Resurgence didn’t approve of squatters who attracted the attention of police dogs.
“Now here’s an interesting name,” Allende said.
Kirstin’s original self broke off her review of the ghost’s memories and allowed Allende to shunt an entry from Van Ness’s visitor log to her atrium.
“One Sy Gaudreau.” Allende read the entry aloud. “Affiliation: RedCam Corporate Group, Farsight City. An historian.” He pronounced the word as if it smelled of decay. “You know the kind? They dig up dirt on corporations, then expose them, or blackmail them.”
“I know the kind,” Kirstin said. Nikko was the best of them. “Alert the Gates to his physical description. And trace that address. It’s probably a fake. RedCam’s too conservative to tolerate an historian. Dissect the plexus. See if those calls weren’t routed from somewhere else.”
His gaze shifted minutely. The order had been sent. Kirstin had just turned back to the window when a long, low whistle escaped Allende. “Data finally coming in from Van Ness’s notebook. Love and Nature, that bastard was weird. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Oh sweet mercy, you were right about that fake address.”
Kirstin glared at him, one eyebrow raised in irritation.
Allende grinned back, his pudgy face twisted in a simian leer. “You’re going to love this, boss. Van Ness recorded the name of his accomplice. One Sandor Jiang-Tibayan. Out of Summer House.”
For a moment Kirstin was struck dumb. Then fury began to burn: a slow, deep fire under her heart. Jiang-Tibayan. Sandor she’d never heard of. It didn’t matter. There were only two Jiang-Tibayans who amounted to anything, and Fox had never had a criminal mind. So it was Nikko. He was probably using this Sandor as a mule, playing games with Van Ness behind her back.
She’d been holding her breath unconsciously. Now she let it go. Her gaze focused on Allende. “Alert the Gates to the profile of this Jiang-Tibayan. Issue a warrant to the local police force in Sunda. Send it through our ambassador, so they know we mean business. I want this mule arrested!”
Then she called the mausoleum at Castle and made reservations. “I’m going to Summer House,” she told Allende. “In hard copy.”
Physical travel between the celestial cities was uncomfortable and dull and could consume weeks, or even months of time. Most citizens never bothered. Those who did travel generally transferred only their personas, downloading them into duplicate bodies kept stored in distant city mausoleums: hard copy.
Kirstin had accumulated hard copies of herself in mausoleums throughout the Commonwealth, most of them never used and known only to herself . . . like the one at Summer House. She would download her persona, and she would be there. She’d have Nikko under her hands.
“We have officers at Summer House who can handle the investigation,” Allende was saying. “There’s no need for you to go.”
“Oh yes there is.” This was personal. She wanted to take Nikko out herself.
She launched herself out of the office, and headed for the mausoleum. She’d have to put this body on ice before bringing up the one on Summer House. It was a Commonwealth covenant that only one physical copy could be active at any given time. That would take half an hour, at least. And another half hour to awaken the body on Summer House.
But then she’d be able to hunt down Nikko and take him, face-to-face.
Chapter
8
Sandor Jiang-Tibayan stared unhappily out the window of a Summer House corporate helicopter, as it automatically carried him on a preprogrammed course across the Strait of Malacca. The helicopter banked right, then left, flying around (never directly over) one of the hundreds of old oil-drilling platforms that studded this section of ocean. The rigs had been towed to Malacca, anchored firmly on the bottom and then christened, each one a separate nation.
Sandor was supposed to be working as an apprentice in a project to install a security system for the newest member of the community, a platform that would become regional headquarters for Summer House. But yesterday he’d been summoned to Castle. Nobody seemed to know why. He’d protested the order, sure that it was another one of Dad’s schemes to get him off-Earth. But his boss told him to go anyway.
Fox had exaggerated ideas about the dangers of working in the Free Trade Zone. Things were all right here for the House. The cops left them alone and the locals welcomed their business. The ecoterrorists were a bit of a problem, but that’s what security was for. Sandor liked it Earth-side. He’d been to Australia and Tonga and he liked what he saw. He’d even talked to his boss about applying for a permanent position.
He sat up a little straighter as the helicopter crossed the shoreline, continuing inland over an agricultural plain. He could just make out the city in the distance—a maze of white buildings huddled under a dark ceiling of rain clouds. The city was in the Free Trade Zone . . . not part of the Commonwealth. His boss wouldn’t let him take weekends here, so he’d only seen the airport.
As the helicopter descended, clouds veiled the fierce gaze of the mid-morning sun. Soon rain began to run in rivulets across the window. Moments later the helicopter landed, its hull rattling under a fierce tropical deluge. A hangar extended out from the terminal to cover the helicopter, and the roar of the rain suddenly ceased. Sandor disembarked, then boarded a slidewalk to the main building. It would be at least an hour and a half before his flight to India and he was already bored.
He decided to summon his resident ghost into existence. “Hey Nikko, wake up. Guess where we are.”
The ghost crouched on his shoulder, a tiny humanoid figure encased in a smooth, blue, armored hide. It was House policy that apprentice corporate members be accompanied by a resident ghost at all times Earth-side—an electronic babysitter to keep young minds out of trouble. Fox had wanted to issue one of his own ghosts to fill the position, but Sandor could guess how much fun that would be. So he’d begged Nikko to spare him a dedicated ghost.
Things had worked out. Sandor had been only a few months Earth-side, but he’d already muled for Nikko four times, playing the role of a radical historian out of RedCam to get interviews Nikko swore he never could have gotten on his own. Sandor didn’t mind fronting for his brother; it was fun. Nikko knew the most interesting people.
Now Nikko’s gaze swept the terminal. “What are we doing here?” he asked. It had been a few days since Sandor had activated him.
“On the way to Castle,” Sandor explained. “Somebody up top wants me to run up the Highway, but they won’t say why.”
“Layover?”
“Ninety minutes.”
Nikko chuckled. It was an odd sound, coming from a face that never smiled. “Want to take a walk around the terminal?”
Sandor grinned. His bo
ss wouldn’t let him take weekends outside the Commonwealth, so all he’d seen of Sunda so far was sky and sea. But he could count on Nikko to overlook the rules. “Let’s drop into the city. I want to know why this place is off-limits.”
Nikko’s head swiveled to gaze at him, the tiny black lenses that covered his eyes glittering in the overhead lights. “You’re kidding.”
“Uh-uh. Let’s go.”
“Have you got a bodyguard?”
“Oh, come on, Nikko.”
But to Sandor’s disbelief, Nikko was shaking his tiny head. “You want to see the city? Then hire a mule and ghost it.”
“It’s not the same!” he said, outraged.
“And a good thing too. It’s an ugly neighborhood out there, Sandy.”
“Nikko!”
“Sandor,” he corrected automatically. “Show me you’re not dumb, and stay inside the terminal with your own kind.”
“My own what?”
“Look at yourself.”
“I don’t have to. I know what I look like.” A lean eighteen-year-old, blond hair, milk-white skin, blue eyes.
“You’re a walking jewelry store: earrings, cheek stones, coiffure pendants, rings, bracelets, necklace, even a chain for your boot. Leather boot?”
“Synthetic. So’s the silk. Anybody could get it. Big deal.”
“That’s right,” Nikko said. “Big enough to kill for. This isn’t the Commonwealth.”
“It’s different, I know. That’s why I want to see it.”
“You wouldn’t get a block without being assaulted. Uh-oh. Police dog. Look innocent.”
Startled, Sandor stumbled off the end of the slidewalk. The animal sat on its haunches, studying the column of arriving passengers with a blank-eyed stare.
“What’s it doing here?” Sandor hissed. He scowled at the ugly animal. “I thought they were confined to the Commonwealth.”
“They run wherever the police have an interest. In answer to your first question, it’s checking chips.”
Sandor hefted the bag as he walked around the motionless animal. A patch of skin on his forearm hid the ID chip that identified him to any police officer who cared to know. It functioned as a passport for travel between the sovereignties. Usually the police checked chips at Gates. Sandor guessed they had no authority to set up a Gate here. “So I’m clean enough, right?” he asked Nikko.
“Why? Guilty conscience?” Nikko laughed again. The House worked at the edge of molecular law, and occasionally they pushed the technology beyond police tolerance. Sometimes their client corporations protected them; sometimes not. Sometimes the cops reversed a decision on a previously accepted molecule. Sandor’s back tingled as he walked away from the dog, but it made no move to intercept him.
“Love and nature, Nikko. What's that?”
He stopped to stare at a trio of human-creatures squatting against the wall of the concourse. One of them seemed to have melted. His flesh hung down in black, decomposing wattles beneath his throat while the skin on his hairless head had grown so thin it had become translucent and Sandor could see patches of white bone shining through it. The sockets of the pitiful creature’s eyes had stretched halfway down his cheeks. Dried mucus clung to his bloodshot orbs. His nose wobbled like a bit of dead flesh at the level of his lips. His partner suffered the same afflictions, though her state seemed less advanced. The stench was horrific. A child huddled with them, a little girl, healthy-seeming, except for a crusty-looking growth of dull blue enamel on her stunted forearms that was nothing like the smooth blue enamel platelets of Nikko’s skin. Nikko was strong and beautiful in the way of natural things. These . . .these people (they were a family group, he realized, father, mother, daughter), how ugly and unfunctional and unnatural they seemed. The crowd flowed around him as he stared. A few individuals turned uncomfortable eyes on him, but no one else dared to look at the plaintive creatures waiting mournfully beside empty bowls.
Sandor had never seen anything like it. Why would anyone accept such hideous, nonfunctional modifications? “What are they, Nikko?”
“Victims of a cruel joke,” he growled. “Someone cast a spell on them.”
“What?”
“They’ve been scarred by uncataloged Makers.”
“Oh.” Sandor frowned. “Involuntarily?”
“Sandy, you are so green.”
Sandor shook his head. He’d heard of such things before, but— “This is Sunda. Makers are illegal here.”
Nikko snorted. “Come on, little brother. You know better than that. Makers are everywhere. The only difference is, here they’re not regulated. You can buy anything here—a new face, a new body. A curse. Now let’s move on.”
“But the police are here,” Sandor said, stubbornly rooted in place. “They’d never allow this sort of thing in the Commonwealth.”
“This is not the Commonwealth. The police maintain a presence here, and they’ll move on anything they consider threatening to the Commonwealth. But petty molecular crimes they’ll ignore. This is not their jurisdiction.”
“Petty crimes?” he asked. “Is that what you call— Hey look!” The little girl had noticed his attention. He knelt down and smiled at her, and she approached him cautiously. Her hands were knotted, and nonfunctional. She held an empty bowl squeezed between her crippled arms. “So . . . uh, what does she want?” he asked Nikko.
In a flat voice: “She’s a beggar, Sandy.”
He scowled, uncertain. “Begging for . . . ?”
“Coins, trinkets, food, anything. That’s how her family survives. Will you give her something?”
“Sure.” He slipped a bracelet off his arm. If people needed help, they should be helped. Why Sunda had elected to boycott legitimate Makers he didn’t know, but he doubted this child would agree with that decision. He dropped the bracelet in the bowl.
She stared at it a moment, wide-eyed. Then she bowed frantically. A moment later she’d run back to her father to display her prize. Sandor stood up, grinning. He scanned the overhead signs, then cut left toward the corridor identified with SpanAir.
“Feel pretty good about yourself?” Nikko asked.
“Sure do. I don’t see why—”
A commotion broke out behind him. A woman screamed. He spun around. A solid thunk! and a child started sobbing hysterically. Sandor barely had time to step aside as the little girl raced past him holding her arms pressed against her head, her face streaked with tears and blood. Thunk!, thunk! Two uniformed men stood over the prone figure of her father, swinging their clubs mechanically against his fragile body. The woman huddled shivering against the wall.
Sandor’s hand closed into a fist. “Fascists!” he hissed. He dropped his bag and charged back through the crowd.
“Stay out of it!” Nikko screamed in his ear, his voice touched by a rare note of panic. “Sandor, this is not the Commonwealth. This is not—”
He stopped listening. He grabbed one of the uniforms by the elbow and wrenched him aside. The shorter security guard he grasped by the wrist, aborting the flogging. “Mercy, man!” he shouted. “He’s done nothing wrong. He’s bothering no one.”
The short guard stared at him with stony black eyes. After a moment, Sandor thought to release his wrist. Slowly, the guard lowered his arm. He tapped the club gently against his leg. The other, taller guard stepped up beside him, his expression officially polite. “You’re interfering in an official matter,” he said.
“They’ve done nothing wrong,” Sandor insisted. His gaze shifted to the man on the floor. He could see no sign of life in the bruised, malformed frame. This close, the odor of decaying flesh was almost overwhelming.
“On the contrary,” the tall guard said. “Begging is illegal. This family’s been warned many times to keep out of the terminal. They continue to return, and so we must employ these brutal methods. But it has nothing to do with you. Please continue with your vacation.”
Sandor continued to stare at the body. “You’ve killed him, haven’t you?�
�� he asked.
The guard shrugged. “If you would move on. . . .” His hand invited Sandor to leave.
“Get moving before they get mad,” Nikko advised. “Believe me, you don’t want to get arrested here.”
“But they killed a man.”
“This is not the Commonwealth.”
“You keep saying that!”
“It’s worth repeating. Now let’s go. These thugs hate ghosts and now they know you’ve got one on your shoulder. Move on before they decide to censor you.”
All pretense of politeness had vanished from the hard eyes of the taller guard. Sandor stepped back hesitantly, then quickly turned and walked away. He could feel a crimson flush of shame wash his face. He looked around for his bag, but it had vanished. “Naturally,” Nikko said.
“So what?” His hands coiled into fists so tight he could feel fingernails biting into skin. He wanted the pain. Ugly fascist pigs! Un-nature. Dirty world. “You knew what it was like here, didn’t you, Nikko? Why’d you never tell me?”
“Grow up, Sandor.” Then, a moment later, “Uh-oh. Police dog just ahead. Copy two. It’s fixed on you. Why? I don’t like this at all.”
The dog trotted toward them, the crowd parting before it as if it employed a priority transportation program. Except for Sandor. He refused to step out of its way. No matter. Because Nikko was right. Apparently it had come for him.
It stepped aside just far enough to let him pass. Then it turned around and followed at his heel, its great head almost on a level with his shoulder, its hot breath washing across his back as it snuffled, searching his person for illegal molecules.
“Be easy, Sandy,” Nikko crooned. “It’s got nothing on you.”
But Sandor felt his anger wind tighter with every step. His fingernails bored deeper into his palms. When the dog sniffed at his heel he could stand it no longer.
He spun around and struck out with his foot, cracking the animal in the jaw. It yelped and jumped backward. “This is not your jurisdiction!” he shouted at it. “Leave me alone!”