by Gary Gibson
‘Long time no see, Dai-Hsi,’ said a familiar voice from below. ‘Why don’t you come down and join me?’
Dutch stepped over to the railing and looked down to see Muto standing next to the Coupé, surrounded by several more heavies in dark suits with their weapons aimed up at her. Muto wore a shimmering dark dress, her skin pale beneath artfully coiffed hair.
Muto’s gaze shifted briefly to the katana in Dutch’s hand. ‘You can, however, leave the sword where it is.’
Dutch stood frozen for a moment, then slowly bent down, placing the katana on the floor. She stood back up and somehow made it down the steps to where Muto waited without faltering. The heavy with the Glock followed close behind her, stooping only to pick up the discarded blade.
‘You didn’t need to dress for the occasion, Sally,’ said Dutch, coming face to face with Muto. She had to work hard to suppress the tremor in her voice.
Muto’s eyes were full of glittering fury. ‘You will not call me by that name!’
‘Then you can call me Dutch.’
‘Fine,’ Muto snapped. ‘I learned you’d come here right in the middle of dinner with the Malaysian ambassador.’ Her fingers stroked the Coupé’s hood much like Dutch’s had. ‘It didn’t take much to guess why.’
‘I suppose Hiro told you.’
Muto regarded her with a sorrowful expression. ‘Oh, Dutch—didn’t it occur to you I might have had someone watching the hotel? You were followed the whole way here.’
‘All I want is the car,’ she said, holding up the keys. ‘And then I’m gone from your life forever.’
Muto smiled like a cat that had stumbled across an open bird cage. ‘We both know that’s never going to happen.’
‘I think it is,’ said a voice from above them.
Dutch looked up to see Nat standing on the walkway she’d recently vacated, his pistol aimed at Muto’s head. A door stood open, leading to the external staircase. Four more men spread out on either side of him, all dressed in black bomber jackets and dark jeans, and all, like Muto’s men, armed to the teeth.
And there was me doubting you’d come, thought Dutch, looking up at him.
Muto’s expression didn’t change, but her eyes did grow a little wider.
‘Dutch,’ said Nat, without taking his eyes off Muto. ‘I want you to move towards the exit.’
‘Not yet.’
A spark of anger flowered in his eyes. ‘Dutch…’
Dutch looked back at Muto. ‘Like I said, I want the Coupé and then I’m gone.’
‘Why should I give you anything,’ Muto replied, ‘when all I want from you is your life?’
Dutch somehow found sufficient willpower to take a step closer to Muto. ‘You owe me.’
Muto stared back in confusion. ‘What?’
‘C’mon,’ said Dutch. ‘You’re not seriously telling me you forgot about that thing like a giant slug in Lungshan, in the ruins of the old temple?’
Muto’s gaze momentarily softened. ‘I haven’t thought about that in years.’
‘I know things turned sour between us,’ said Dutch, ‘but if you give me back my car, and call off whatever death notices you’ve got out on my name, maybe we can call it even.’
Just for a second Dutch thought Muto might relent, but then her expression hardened once more. ‘No,’ said Muto. ‘It’s too late for that.’
‘I saved your life,’ said Dutch. ‘You told me yourself you owed me.’ She glanced at Muto’s soldiers, sensing they were listening, even while their attention was apparently fixed on Nat and his men. ‘Your whole reputation rests on never going back on your word, right?’
‘Any debt I owed you was cancelled when you murdered Jack,’ Muto snarled. ‘For that, I should kill you myself. At the very least, I’d save myself having to pay anyone else to do it.’
‘Sure,’ Dutch agreed, feeling a thin line of sweat form across her brow, ‘you could do that. But word would get around.’ She nodded towards the nearest of Muto’s men. ‘People would talk.’
Muto’s nostrils flared with suppressed fury. She stepped towards the heavy still holding the katana in one hand and snatched the blade from his grasp.
‘Please don’t do anything rash, Miss,’ said Nat from above.
Muto ignored him, turning back to Dutch with murder in her eyes, the katana gripped tightly in one hand.
‘Think about all you’d lose,’ Dutch said quickly. ‘Everything you’ve built over all these years.’
With an effort of supreme will, Dutch maintained at least a semblance of calm as Muto stepped up close enough that their noses almost touched. ‘It would be worth it,’ Muto said in a half-whisper. ‘Almost.’
Then she threw the sword down, sending it spinning away with a clatter, and stepped towards the side-exit. ‘But don’t think this makes us in any imaginable way even,’ she added, slamming the flat of one hand against a control unit mounted on the wall.
The roll-down door at the other end of the garage shook, then moved upwards, revealing the rain-streaked street beyond.
‘Muto…’ Dutch managed to say.
Muto stared back at her, her expression full of hatred. ‘You have the car. The death notices, however, remain in place. As you said yourself, I have a reputation to maintain.’
Dutch nodded carefully. ‘I understand. And thank you.’
‘Consider it a last request,’ said Muto. Then she snapped her fingers, and her men lowered their weapons. ‘Now go burn in hell.’
Muto stepped out through the side-exit, followed by her men. The moment they were gone, Dutch let herself slump bonelessly against the Coupé, trying hard not to think about just how close she’d come to being gutted like a fish.
‘Dutch?’ Nat called down as he and the rest of his men put their weapons away. ‘You okay?’
‘I’ll be fine,’ she said, trying to sound like she meant it. She pulled the door of the Coupé open. ‘I’ll meet you back at the hotel.’
Dutch slid the keys into the ignition and the engine caught with ease. She let herself sit there for a second, feeling the vibrations roll through her bones, and let her head sink forward until it touched the wheel. Then she brought it back up and drove the Falcon out onto the street, the engine grumbling with restrained power.
She saw a limousine driving away and guessed it was Muto’s. Nat and his men meanwhile exited the building, heading for a black unmarked van parked nearby.
Instead of getting in the van with the rest of them, Nat walked over and got in the Coupé beside Dutch. She didn’t wait for him to speak, turning the wheel and working the gas pedal. The Coupé shot forward like a greased otter, the acceleration pushing her deep into the leather seating. The rush it gave her was downright primal, like she’d merged with the car and become something new, a beast with steel sinews and gasoline for blood.
‘In any fair and sane universe,’ said Nat, ‘you would be dead right now.’
She shot a quick glance at him. ‘Nice.’
‘You have no idea how much trouble you’ve caused, do you? First you disappear, then that…message.’
‘This car,’ said Dutch, ‘is my best chance at staying alive on Teijouan.’
She took another glance at him and saw something like resignation. She suppressed a grin and turned onto a busy street where, to her amused shock, the self-drive pods realigned themselves to make way for the Coupé.
She reminded herself it had been Muto’s car for a good long while, and she had enough contacts in the police and government to ensure a permanent traffic override. People pointed and stared as they blazed past.
‘What the hell’s so special about this car you’d risk your damn neck like that?’ Nat demanded.
She couldn’t help but laugh. ‘You’re shitting me. Did you even look at this thing? There’s no onboard electronics any more advanced than a vacuum tube. Nothing that could get scrambled by Teijouan’s d-field.’ Dutch guessed there was some kind of fancy override under the hood, but she could stri
p that out in seconds. ‘It’s a hundred per cent optimised for the Devil’s Run,’ she added, tapping the d-meter on the dashboard.
Nat let out a heavy sigh. ‘So how come Muto had your old car?’
She grimaced. ‘I told you it was a long—’
‘I want to hear it. And why you called her Sally. And about what the hell happened in Lungshan.’
She gave him a long, sideways look, then turned back to the road. ‘Sally Hu’s her real name. She’s about as Japanese as I am. We ran together when we were kids back in New Detroit, stealing and modifying cars. Then along came Jack.’
‘Burton? Your old co-driver?’
Dutch nodded. ‘He and Sally were tight—real tight. They used to drive together.’
Nat raised his eyebrows. ‘In the Run?’
‘I started out working on their car before I raced myself. Third time out, they nearly died.’
‘Lungshan?’
‘That was on my second Run. Sally and Jack’s car had broken down and they were struggling to hold this…thing off while they fixed their engine. I helped keep the Kaiju at bay long enough for them to get back on the road.’
‘You saved their lives.’
‘Yeah, but that was it for Sally and she quit the Run. She wanted Jack to quit as well. And he did, for a couple of years, but then…’
He glanced sideways at her. ‘And?’
‘There’s something about the Devil’s Run that keeps people coming back to it again and again. Or a certain kind of person, anyway.’
Nat gave her a curious look. ‘What kind of people?’
Dutch shrugged. ‘It’s hard to explain. People who don’t…fit.’
His expression became uncomprehending. ‘Fit what?’
The world, she was about to say, but it was hard to explain in words what she felt every time she returned to Teijouan and the racecourse. She’d recognised that same feeling in the eyes of other racers—some of them, anyway, and usually the most batshit crazy ones. ‘The point is,’ she continued, ‘I was looking for a new navigator and when Jack heard about it he offered to take up the position. There wasn’t anyone better, so no way was I going to turn him down.’
‘And Muto? I mean, Sally?’
‘He didn’t tell her. Then he died, and of course she blamed me.’ She stared ahead through the windscreen. ‘Maybe she’s got a point,’ she said in a voice low enough Nat almost didn’t catch it.
‘Meaning what?’
‘Meaning,’ she said, ‘that I took a risk behind the wheel I shouldn’t have, and that’s how Jack got hurt—so if she’s going to blame anyone, it might as well be me. I auctioned this car to raise money for Jack’s treatments.’ She flashed him a faintly sardonic smile. ‘Muto bought it mostly to spite me, I think.’
Nat shook his head. ‘What an unholy mess.’
Dutch nodded. ‘Got it in one, man.’
Signature Move
Nat let her grab a few hours sleep in his own room with the private security he’d hired posted outside. He woke her later that morning with a hard shove.
‘Time to rise,’ he said with brisk efficiency, dumping a tray on the bedside table. She sat up, head still groggy, to find he’d brought her croissants and coffee. ‘Shower first. You still smell like a prison.’
She stared at him through hair fanned across her face. ‘Time?’
‘Time to get the fuck up.’ He glanced at his wrist. ‘I want you in Conference Room Six on the twenty-third floor for a meeting with the boss twenty minutes from now.’ He stepped over to the door and wagged a stern finger at her. ‘And do not be late.’
* * *
She showered with a coffee in one hand and a waterlogged croissant in the other, mumbling to herself. She got dressed fast and staggered out the door, where one of Nat’s hired goons jerked his chin towards the elevators.
He followed behind her, mumbling into a walkie-talkie. Nat clearly wasn’t taking the risk that she might go AWOL a second time.
The conference room turned out to be long, wide and tall enough to host a couple of pick-up basketball games side by side and contained a single U-shaped table. Nat sat far off at one end, staring at a laptop. When she entered, the minion departed, closing the door after him.
Nat gave her a quick up-down. ‘Well, you look like shit.’ He nodded to a side table. ‘Get more coffee and we’ll start.’
She followed his suggestion before taking a seat beside him. She saw Wu on the laptop’s screen, seated behind a wooden desk of such vast proportions it looked like it could be taken out to sea were there any place to affix a sail. His gaze shifted towards her as she sat.
‘I find myself experiencing regret for releasing you from prison,’ he said with a scowl. ‘What, precisely, did you think you were doing last night?’
‘That’s it?’ she asked. ‘No, I’m so sorry you were almost murdered by a sword-wielding maniac?’
‘You failed to inform either myself or Nathaniel here that you had a price on your head.’ A muscle twitched in the old man’s temple. ‘Nor were you meant to abscond in order to steal a car.’
‘I didn’t steal it,’ she said in what she hoped was a reasonable tone of voice. ‘It’s my car.’ Not one hundred percent true, not any more, but it felt right to say it. ‘So I asked for it back.’
‘There may be at least two further assassination attempts,’ said Nat. ‘I’d like to beef security up further at the Fuji track.’
‘Agreed,’ said Wu. He looked back at Dutch. ‘Any more of this nonsense,’ he spat, ‘I’ll hand you over to the Russians with instructions to chain you upside-down in the main reactor at Chernobyl. Do we understand each other?’
‘I promise there will be no further incidents,’ said Nat, with apparent confidence. ‘Last night caught us all by surprise, but I’ll be even more vigilant from this point on.’
Wu massaged his head like he had a bad headache. ‘Just get her to Fuji,’ he said. ‘And for God’s sake don’t let her out of your sight.’
‘So,’ said Dutch, once Wu had signed off, ‘I get to drive the Coupé?’
Nat drummed his fingers, staring at the blank screen before turning to her. ‘It appears so. In which case, I think it’s time to talk about your new navigator.’
‘You’ve found someone?’
‘Watch this.’ He tapped at the computer and a video started running, shot from the perspective of a camera fixed to the hood of a car driving at speed past rusting and long-abandoned vehicles lining the side of a road. She could see one edge of an American Eagle decal on the hood.
Straight ahead of the car were the crumbling remains of a city block, and towering over that was a behemoth-like creature with six legs and spines like shards of black glass bristling up and down its back. It was in close pursuit of a second vehicle that combined the extravagant fins of a Lincoln Futura with the sleek, rounded curves of a Phantom Corsair, like some 1950s idea of a spaceship on wheels. The occupants were hidden entirely from sight behind wraparound black windows grey with dust. It shot past the first car, moving in the opposite direction, and disappeared from sight.
The Kaiju stared straight down the lens of the first car with eyes like burning coals, and let out a shriek that hurt Dutch’s teeth even through the laptop speakers.
Whoever had control of the first car decided, correctly in Dutch’s opinion, that their best strategy involved flooring the gas and driving straight under the beast before it had time to react. Kaiju were big and strong, but paid for that strength by being slow and dimwitted.
The camera viewpoint shot towards the Kaiju with increasing velocity, and Dutch found herself holding her breath. A leg as wide around as a bundle of tree trunks came thudding down onto the tarmac straight in front of the camera lens and the footage came to an abrupt end.
‘Anything look familiar?’ asked Nat.
Dutch let out a shuddering breath. No wonder Wu and Strugatsky made so much money out of the broadcast rights. ‘The Kaiju, or the cars?’
<
br /> ‘All three.’
‘The Kaiju is Long Tall Sally,’ said Dutch. ‘First sighted in 2035, right after the Rift first formed.’
‘And the cars?’
‘The first one is the Siberian’s jeep,’ she replied. ‘I’d know that hood decal anywhere. The other is Lucifer Black.’
‘The Siberian didn’t survive that encounter, I’m afraid.’
Dutch looked back at the screen. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘Black had overtaken the Siberian a half-hour previous to that encounter. More than likely he doubled back deliberately, knowing there was a good chance Long Tall Sally might go after the Siberian instead.’
Dutch nodded. It sounded like the kind of thing Lucifer Black would do. ‘And the Siberian’s navigator? He get chewed up too?’
‘If he did, he wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you.’
Dutch stared at Nat, who favoured her with a thin smile.
‘Wait a second—you’ve been in the Devil’s Run? How the hell did you survive that?’
He nodded. ‘I don’t remember any of it. All I remember is waking up in the wreckage hours later.’
‘And the Siberian?’
Nat shook his head. ‘No sign of him. Most likely he tried to make a run for it and Long Tall Sally got him. When I came to, the jeep had rolled over on top of me. I figure it kept me hidden from sight. By the time I crawled out from under the wreckage, both the Kaiju and the Siberian were long gone.’
Dutch regarded him with something approaching admiration. ‘You were one lucky son of a bitch, coming out of something like that alive.’
He nodded. ‘Very much so, yes. I had to hike to the coast and signal to one of the offshore ships.’
All this must have happened while she’d still been in jail, Dutch realised. ‘Then why weren’t you my navigator in the first place, rather than Harry?’
‘Harry’s more expendable. I run security for Wu’s operations all around the world—or I did, until you forced his hand. Now he’s got no choice but to put me in the race with you.’