Alita

by Pat Cadigan

  There was an actual waiting room outside the lab that looked a lot more comfortable. Chiren told Ido she no longer used it because she couldn’t trust the players to stay there. When they got bored or restless, they decamped for more interesting environs. Keeping them in the lab made them feel less like they were waiting.

  The lab certainly was big enough. Even with a third of it given to keeping Paladins amused, it was four times the size of his clinic, not counting closet space, and equipped with things he hadn’t thought were available in Iron City—probably because they weren’t. How the hell did Vector get away with all that skimming? Apparently the man had low friends in high places; somebody up there—in Zalem—liked him.

  Which made Ido wonder what Vector could possibly do that would make them so generously grateful. What could Vector give them that they couldn’t get faster or bigger or in customised colours and styles?

  Not “them”—the man in charge. Nova. All Nova wanted was gratification and, right now, he was getting it from Vector.

  Ido’s stomach rolled over. Eventually Nova would get bored with him. Someday Vector would reach into his bag of tricks and come up empty—there would be nothing else he could do to entertain Nova. That wouldn’t be a good day for Vector.

  But that day hadn’t arrived. Vector was still the king of the trashcan and Nova’s favourite toy. Dance, puppet, dance. Ido’s gaze fell on Chiren, who had a ribcage and spine set up in a stereotactic frame. That’s entertainment.

  “Have you heard a word I said?” Chiren asked him, but not unkindly—Ido knew she wouldn’t bite his head off while she needed him.

  “Yes,” Ido lied, “but it’s pretty complicated. Let’s go over it one more time, in case there was something I missed.”

  She knew he was lying but she also knew he would have asked her to go over everything again anyway so he could pick out mistakes and inconsistencies. Chiren hated when he did that, but tonight this was why he was here. She turned the frame around so the spine was facing them and opened each section of the backbone.

  As she began to explain what she wanted to do, Ido realised he’d heard a lot of this before. Chiren had been trying to do something similar back when he’d first met her in Zalem’s medical training programme.

  He’d told her at the time that changing the spinal cord required changing the brain, and that was where the whole thing became a mess. The vertebrate brain had evolved to work with the spinal cord in a certain way, and the spinal cord took its form from the brain. It was a chicken–egg case of mutual influence further complicated by the neocortex. And if that wasn’t enough, every brain–spine configuration was unique; no two people had the same one.

  This was, in part, why neural enhancements for sensory organs like eyes and ears weren’t possible for everyone; even those who could adapt to enhanced vision and hearing sometimes had side effects like synaesthesia. Supposedly, only the United Republics of Mars had ever succeeded in making extensive changes to the brain and spinal cord, and that was Lost technology now. The closest anyone had come in three hundred years was the Zalem bio-engineer who had successfully grown a spinal cord in a vat.

  It took some time for Ido to argue Chiren into just extending and increasing the number of connections to and from each area of the spine. It would be painstaking work but it could be done without destroying brain architecture and disabling the person. In the meantime, the Paladins became rowdier in their little corral. They had no way to blow off steam. If they’d been at the stadium, they’d have hit the track, and each other. There was a gym, Chiren said, but it had been flooded when one of the Paladins had used a water pipe as a chin-up bar. She had no idea who—they had knocked out the surveillance on the first day and no one was talking. Vector had shrugged it off; at least it hadn’t been a waste pipe.

  “Who’s here tonight?” Ido asked her, jerking a thumb at the other end of the room.

  “The usual suspects,” Chiren said. “Ajakutty, Crimson Wind, Claymore. God, Claymore is always in for repairs. The Jay, Low-Rider, Baby, and a few others.”

  “Not Wheelstein?” Ido said.

  Chiren shook her head. “He trashed the Kansas Bar one too many times. Vector had to cut him from the team. Why? Is he some special interest of yours?”

  “Just curious,” Ido replied, frowning. Without the safety net of a team, Wheelstein was all too likely to end up living under the causeway and selling off parts of himself for the drugs he wasn’t entitled to any more. It wouldn’t end well for Wheelstein or anyone around him. “What about the new guy—Chase?”

  “He’s at the track with his trainer.” Chiren’s tone was still pleasant, but now it had an ever-so-slight hint of impatience. “Come on, are you still with me here? That is what I’m paying you for.”

  Paying? Ido blinked at her. “I thought you just wanted me to help you out.”

  “Yes, but I hardly expect you to work for free. We are professionals, after all.”

  “That we are,” Ido said with false cheer and busied himself with connecting the first layer of dermis to the left side of the ribcage so Chiren wouldn’t guess from the expression on his face that he had come to her with no thought of payment.

  “This is superior skin,” he said as he worked. “Did you develop it yourself?”

  “I used some of our research,” she said, “but it needed a lot of work to make it into what you’re handling now.”

  “We’d give you the name of a supplier,” a man added, “but there isn’t one. The skin’s proprietary.”

  Ido told himself he was too busy to turn around and look at Vector, who had entered the room quietly for a change. And really, applying the first layer of dermis wasn’t the most difficult procedure in the world but it was fiddly. Leaving bubbles would be uncomfortable for the cyborg, an itch that couldn’t be scratched.

  “Vector, I told you: this is a scientist-only area tonight,” Chiren said archly. “I’m sorry but you’ll have to leave.”

  “Just passin’ through,” Vector told her. “I’m here to see how my champions are doing.”

  “Make it brief, and use the exit down there, please,” Chiren said, a superior speaking to a clueless warm-body breathing air meant for the elite. “This work takes a lot of concentration.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Vector said in a pleasant, easy tone that told Ido Chiren was going to pay for being high-handed with the king of the trashcan in front of her ex. “It’s just that I expected you’d be further along.” Vector strolled towards the curtained area, and Ido was unable to resist a quick glance. The king of the trashcan had a sense of style that wouldn’t have been out of place on Zalem and the looks to carry it off. Ido considered this proof positive that the world had gone too far wrong to ever go right again.

  “It’s his team,” Chiren said to Ido in a low voice as the Paladins gave Vector a hero’s welcome.

  “His lab too,” Ido replied before he could think better of it. He turned to her, intending to apologise, and heard himself say, “Is this what you want?”

  Her gaze seemed to bore into him; blue ice, so cold it burned. “It’s exactly what I want.” Pause. “You’re doing it perfectly. Keep up the good work.”

  “I will,” he said, faintly emphasising the I as he turned back to the dermis. That would teach him, he thought.

  “Vector has been extremely generous,” Chiren said in a lofty tone. “His generosity has allowed me to develop some amazing things besides this dermis.”

  He considered trying to talk her out of a few sheets for his burn patients—there weren’t many, but this would have been miraculous for them—and decided against it. It would be just like Vector to find the patients, throw them in the back of his limo, and bring them here to have Chiren remove the stuff. Because it was proprietary.

  To Ido’s relief, Vector honoured Chiren’s request. He must have felt it was more important to keep Chiren sweet than it was to assert his dominance, at least for the moment. He’d probably take it out on her late
r, Ido thought with a pang; men like Vector always did. And, he realised, with another, more intense pang, Chiren knew it.

  Vector’s arrival perked up the Paladins. They had been quieting down, but their collective energy level rose immediately as they bombarded him with questions about the line-up for the next game: would there be a new training schedule now; was the new guy gonna start right away or would he still be in training; and when could they all get their own super-chips because imagine what they could do with that kind of speed plus their skill and experience, they’d be unbeatable.

  The super-chip discussion continued after Vector was gone, with the players talking about the new player’s unprecedented speed. Chase was a good name for him—but it wasn’t just skating speed on the track; it was reaction time and reflexes, and those new parts he had probably helped a lot. Sure was getting quick to anger, though.

  “Pay them no mind,” Chiren said as they finished covering the ribcage area with the first metal layer. “Gossip is the real fuel the Game runs on. If they couldn’t gossip, they couldn’t play.”

  That went without saying, Ido thought, and they’d both been around long enough to know it. He smoothed away a few small bubbles near the bottom of the ribcage, listening to the Paladins. No wonder Chiren had been happy to keep him out of the stadium, even though it meant having a lab full of rambunctious Paladins running her assistants ragged with requests for food, drink and entertainment. She didn’t want him checking out the new guy’s hardware.

  And now she was telling tell him not to pay attention to Motorball scuttlebutt. The thing about scuttlebutt, though, was it tended to range far and wide. These guys could barely talk about anything else except the new guy’s super-chip that gave him super-reaction time, super-reflexes, and super-coordination to match. Like he was born living at a faster rate than everyone else.

  “Sounds like you’ve really outdone yourself with your latest enhancement,” Ido said to Chiren after a bit.

  “I outdo myself every day,” Chiren said absently. She was running a diagnostic on the part of the torso they had just finished applying skin to.

  “I’m referring to this chip you’ve developed,” Ido said. “In case you need me to narrow it down.”

  Chiren finished the diagnostic, then paused. Ido could practically see the wheels and gears turning in her mind while she decided what to tell him and whether she should lie a little or a lot. Sometimes Ido wished he’d never come to know her so well. Maybe they’d have had more to talk about.

  “It’s just a little something I’ve been working on with this spine,” she said finally. “When I’m not making repairs or doing upgrades or swapping out lungs and livers. Right now I’m testing a prototype.” She beckoned him to join her at her desk and put up a 3-D display. “Since you’re here anyway, let me ask: do those numbers look right to you?”

  Ido felt himself go cold as he stared at the display. Well, he’d expected her to lie to him, he told himself. She’d done a lot to disguise it, rearranging some things and adding others that didn’t seem to belong, but he knew he was looking at a partial schematic of his own chip. She had already installed it in the spine, and the discussion about brain–spinal cord arrangements had actually been her way of getting advice on the best way to utilise it.

  Had she really thought she could fool him? And how could she have possibly known he’d gone back to work on it after she left?

  Hugo.

  Ido’s heart sank. Chiren might have overheard him talking about the chip to his friends, trying to show off how much he knew. Or maybe Vector had taken advantage of Hugo running his mouth the way kids do.

  He tried to remember what he’d told Hugo in all the thinking out loud he’d done. He’d just been running his mouth too, talking it up like it was a miracle. Hugo hadn’t known about the problems. Ido had never gone into detail about those, just extolled the possibilities. Because nobody ever waxed rhapsodic about all the things they couldn’t get right.

  That’ll teach you—again, said a small voice in his mind; it belonged to the sane, sensible man who hadn’t wanted to come here.

  “You can, can’t you?” Chiren was saying.

  Ido looked at her blankly.

  “Stay a little longer?” she said with exaggerated patience. “You can stay a little longer and help me with these upgrades, can’t you?”

  Ido gave a weak laugh. “Are you putting in super-chips?”

  “Don’t you start.” Chiren rolled her eyes. “If I hear the term ‘super-chip’ one more time I’ll go nuts and kill everyone I see.”

  But he could only get through two upgrades before he could no longer stand to be in the same room with her. He apologised, telling her his lack of sleep was finally catching up with him.

  “But you’re an insomniac,” Chiren said, frowning. “You never sleep.”

  “Sometimes I do,” he replied. “I’m sorry, but I’m ready to drop where I stand. And I don’t think Vector would like it if I spent the night with you. Even if it was in your lab.”

  Chiren looked as if she were about to argue, then shrugged. “You helped me with the main problem. I can handle the rest of the upgrades myself.”

  “Great.” He headed towards the exit at the other end of the room, where Ajakutty was just letting himself out.

  “Hey, wait!” Chiren called after him.

  He stopped and turned. Did she know he was onto her?

  “Send me an invoice,” she said.

  Ido was blank again. An invoice for what—the chip?

  “We’ll pay your going rate,” Chiren went on. “Whatever it is. I’ll round up to all night. I’m sure you—the clinic can use it.”

  “Oh, yeah. Thanks,” Ido said and hurried out, hoping he hadn’t lost Ajakutty. Fortunately, the Paladin had gone only half a block. Definitely not equipped with a super-chip, Ido thought as he caught up with him.

  “Hey, Aja,” Ido said. “What about this new guy and his so-called super-chip?”

  “What do you mean, Doc?” Ajakutty looked mildly puzzled. “You musta seen the videos.”

  “Yes, but how does he seem to you?” Ido asked him. “You know, up close and personal.”

  Ajakutty shrugged his big shoulders. “He’s a whole new brand of fast.”

  “Yes, I saw.” Ido tried not to show impatience. “What else can you tell me about him?”

  “Other than he makes the rest of us look like we’re standing still?” Ajakutty said. “Not much.”

  Apparently that was all he was going to get tonight, Ido thought. He thanked the cyborg and started across the street.

  “Hey, Doc, wait,” Ajakutty said. “Is there any chance—any chance at all—you might come back to the pits? We sure need you.”

  “Sorry,” Ido said and walked swiftly around the nearest corner before the Paladin could say any more.

  * * *

  Ido told himself he was too tired to think straight about anything, that he could open the safe after a few hours’ sleep. Whatever he’d find now would be there tomorrow. His resolve lasted all of fifteen minutes before he went down to the cellar.

  He found only what he already knew. The chip was gone. But he had no way to know when it had been taken—

  Wrong—he did. It would be logged to his phone, even though he’d muted the alarm, which was the stupidest thing he’d done lately. Or ever. If he hadn’t, he’d have known the very moment it happened. Ido looked at his phone and decided that he didn’t have to know now. Maybe tomorrow or the next day, or next year, when he could better withstand one more thing to feel bad about.

  CHAPTER 13

  “Some people you only have to tell once and they get the message,” Vector said to Hugo as they sat in the back of the limo. The clink of ice in his glass as he took a sip sounded rich somehow and the amber liquid looked even richer. Hugo sipped from the small bottle of soda Vector had given him, unconsciously mirroring the man’s actions. So far he was still on the seat and he intended to stay there.

/>   “Sadly, our northland friends don’t know what’s good for them,” Vector went on. “Not even after I put two of them out at Farm Forty-Three to pick asparagus.” He looked at Hugo with pleasant curiosity. “You like asparagus?”

  “I love it, sir,” Hugo said. He’d never had any.

  Vector nodded approvingly. “It’s a food for the discriminating palate. It can be harvested by machine but it bruises the stalks and damages some of the nearby plants that aren’t ready to be picked.” Vector leaned towards Hugo and lowered his voice a little. “The Factory are all cheapskates, tighter than a duck’s ass. They won’t spend money on a better harvester. They’d rather cross their stingy fingers and hope some labourer has a hardware brainwave and builds them one for free.” Vector sipped again. “But you never heard that from me.”

  “No, sir,” Hugo promised, shaking his head solemnly.

  “But asparagus is best picked by hand anyway,” Vector said, sitting back. “It’s the only way to really do justice to it. You know, in ancient times—” Vector paused for another sip “—asparagus was reserved for kings. Commoners weren’t good enough.” Vector smiled at Hugo. “But I doubt I’m telling you anything you don’t know.”

  Hugo dipped his head in a non-committal way. For all he knew, Vector was spinning him a line. But it was his limo. If he wanted to tell fairy tales about vegetables all day, Hugo was all ears; it might make Vector feel generous.

  “It’s hard work, even for a cyborg tailored to the job. But hard work makes people feel good.” Vector had another sip from his glass and Hugo had a drink of his dark-brown soda. Hugo was a bit leery of drinks he couldn’t see through but this tasted pretty good. Vector said it was from his private stock of something called “coke”. Weird name but it had a nice bite.