In the shelter of the bay window, I stole a few kisses, and could almost taste the day she would be mine. Then I wondered how Nixie was going, and how people would react to whatever she planned for tomorrow.
I was ready to leave some time after 2 am, shocked into silence by the harsh light in the hall, and the unflattering reflection of myself in the mirror—red-eyed, white faced, and not quite steady on my feet. Eva was right—the jacket was disgusting.
Eva’s father wanted to call for a taxi, but one of the guards nudged my arm. “Delegate, mashara prefers we arrange our own transport.”
The feel-good cocoon of food and alcohol evaporated in about one-hundredth of a second. The guard showed no outward sign of emotion, but I knew the subtleties. Something had happened while I was at dinner and I was sure the guards wouldn’t tell me until we were in that taxi that probably waited around the corner.
I turned to Eva’s father who would not have understood the guard’s Coldi. “They have already arranged a car.”
Eva’s father laughed, not entirely genuine. “Well, I suppose they could have done that.”
Both guards made no reaction, although I had no doubt they would have understood the barb.
I faced Eva, still so pretty at that unholy hour.
Her mouth twitched. “So . . . what time does your train leave tomorrow?”
That brought me fully back to the harsh reality. I held two tickets for the train back to Athens for ten tomorrow morning, but would I go?
Eva’s face creased. “Cory?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. At this stage, I’m not even sure I’m going.”
I sighed at the hopeful spark in her eyes. Of course I knew she didn’t want me to go, but it hurt to see it acknowledged. “I’ll let you know.”
The maid said, “There’s a taxi outside.”
See, I’d been right.
I kissed Eva, said goodbye to her parents and followed the two guards into the rain.
Except the car wasn’t a regular driverless taxi; it was one of the very few privately-owned vehicles in the city. Nothing on the doors or windows alluded to its owner, except the driver, whose Coldi ponytail glittered in the streetlight. A gamra contact then, someone out of the database.
Shit. If they didn’t even trust taxis, something had happened indeed. The guard held open the door.
I settled in the back seat and forced a smile as I waved to Eva. Her face showed no concern, thankfully. No doubt everything would be fine, but just now, it would be nice if someone told me what was going on.
Doors slammed. The electric motor whined and we were off.
“Mashara, I’m sure it is time to tell me what this is about. You are aware that I no longer have my feeder?”
The guard didn’t answer immediately; he was fiddling with his comm unit. The holo-screen lit his face with a bluish glow.
“Delegate.” He bent forward, peeling the earpiece off.
I attached the device to my ear.
Someone said, “Cory?” In that warm-hued tone between male and female. Coldi.
I recognised the voice. “Amarru.”
“Where are you now?”
“I just got in the car.”
“Tell the driver to avoid the city bypass.”
“What?”
“Just tell him, right now.”
“All right.” I relayed the message. The driver grumbled that he was aware of trouble.
“Amarru, can you tell me what this is about?”
“First up, there is a car behind you.”
I looked over my shoulder, but saw only an empty street. “I know that.”
“There is also a group of police at the hotel, and there is a trap on the bypass. Our bugs are better than theirs, Cory.”
“Thank you.” I made every attempt not to sound sarcastic, but I felt sick. The concepts “ours” and “theirs” were becoming horribly blurred. “Does this mean I am being targeted now?”
“Have you heard the press release from the emergency council?”
“No. I was at a family dinner.” See? I shouldn’t have given in to Eva; I should have kept my unit. I swear every time I had no communication I missed something important. Damn, damn it.
“The meeting only lasted about an hour and a half. Must be a record. Wait, I’ll read this out.” There was some rustling and clicking. “The Emergency council of Nations of Earth has declared that following the attack on President Sirkonen, member nations must ensure full cooperation to find and bring to trial the perpetrators, and has sanctioned the use of all available means in doing so. . . .”
“All available means? But . . .”
“That means using armed forces if necessary.”
A chill went down my spine. “That could mean war.”
“Danziger has just declared a state of emergency for Rotterdam. Already, there are riots in a number of places. People are looting shops owned by Coldi. And yes, the police want to talk to you. We’ve picked up some communication to that extent.”
“Shit. Are they going to give me the same treatment as Nicha?”
“I can’t answer that, but I have an offer: we can guarantee gamra protection on a flight that leaves for Athens in about an hour’s time.”
Leave Rotterdam. Now. That was as strong a suggestion as she had ever given me.
“I can’t. Not without Nicha.”
“I think Nixie is doing her best on that front. Nothing I can do; nothing you can do.”
I swallowed hard. “My luggage is at the hotel.” Buying time, surely.
“That’s been taken care of.”
I glanced over the seat. My suitcase lay in the back.
The car braked suddenly. The driver let out a fluent curse in Coldi and swerved into a side street. Between the two front seats, I glimpsed two police vans parked across the road.
Then we plunged into darkness. The driver hit the brakes as ahead of us, automatic gates swung open. We went down a hill, into a mass of buildings shrouded in darkness. I’d come this way to Eva’s house often enough to know where we were heading: one of the city’s Blue zones, where refugees, the poor and ill, lived in half-submerged high-rise buildings, and where gangs that prowled the waterways named themselves after the condition that stopped them getting jobs in the White zones: the Blind Bats, the Wheelies, that sort of thing.
Blocks of units lined the street, with only a few scattered lights. Most of the windows were dark, the glass broken. Discarded furniture and rubbish lined the street, leaving barely enough space for vehicles. A tram rumbled in front of us, honking its horn. It slowed, and slowed even more.
“What’s all this about?” The driver threw the guard a glance and craned his head, but even in the back I could see that there was no room to overtake the tram.
From further down the street came shouts and the tinkling of breaking glass. People ran across the road. A couple of figures threw rocks at a building on the right. Their faces lit up with flashes of orange. Fire?
There was a “poof” of an explosion and a group of young men rushed past, some of them weaving their way between rubbish piles in homemade wheelchairs.
The guard next to me unclipped one of his guns from its bracket, his dark face all tension.
“Mashara?”
He shook his head, pressing his free hand to the earpiece; he glanced over his shoulder. A taxi and a bus waited behind us. No white cars.
The tram stopped in a small square. I realised this was a regular stop, because there was a platform with a sign on which I could just make out the letter L; the rest had broken off. Sure enough, this was the suburb of Lombardijen, hotbed of illegal and riotous activities.
Behind the tram stop were a couple of shops, and flames billowed from one of them. Silhouetted against the orange glow, figures ran towards the tram, carrying burning pieces of wood.
The tram’s passengers rose from their seats and crammed towards the back. A woman screamed.
“Get ready to take us ou
t of here,” the guard next to the driver said.
I couldn’t see how; we were stuck. My heart was thudding in my chest. As long as no one discovered who, and what, we were . . .
The guard next to me nudged the control button for the window so it opened a slit. He pushed his sunglasses onto his forehead and with the other hand raised the gun so the barrel stuck out between the glass and the window frame.
Two figures in black ran past the side of the tram, holding burning pieces of wood. Eyes glinted in our direction. One of the men shouted, “Chans!”
The guard tensed.
I yelled, “Don’t shoot!”
The other guard bellowed, “Now!”
The guard next to me stiffened.
I ducked.
I felt, rather than saw, the weapon discharge. The air crackled and chilled my skin.
The engine roared like I didn’t know electric engines could. Tyres screeched. The car shot forward, bumped one wheel onto the kerb. The wheels crunched through rubbish, slipped. The engine churned and screamed. Something hit the side door with a thunk.
Then the car shot away and the glow of fire and the screams faded. Sirens wailed somewhere close, came towards us, and passed.
Still the car gathered speed. I didn’t know there were city cars that could go this fast; the Coldi owner had probably inserted some non-Earth technology.
Slowly I raised my head from my knees.
“Are you all right, Delegate?” the guard next to me asked. He still held the gun. The metallic smell of discharge filled the car. I felt sick.
“You didn’t. . . ?”
“Mashara aimed away from live targets.”
Meaning what? That he hadn’t deliberately shot at people but might have hit some by mistake?
Oh shit, oh holy shit.
“To clear the way for the vehicle, Delegate.”
I blew out a breath.
I could still hear a tinny voice somewhere, but a glance over my shoulder only revealed an empty street. Dilapidated apartment blocks, crossings, trams whizzed by. The driver and the guard were talking about directions, arguing over the navigator screen about the best way to go.
Then I realised that the muffled voice I kept hearing was Amarru’s. My earpiece had fallen onto the seat between my legs.
I fumbled to pick it up—damn, my hands hurt—and reattached it to my ear.
“Amarru?”
“Cory, are you still there?”
“I’m sorry. We just hit . . . one of the riots . . . I think.”
“Are you all right? Did I hear a discharge?”
“Yes. I don’t think any damage was done. I think we have gone off course a bit. Where are we?” It was dark on both sides of the car.
“Diversion,” the driver replied, his attention firmly on the road. He was swerving around obstacles and, every now and then, there was the sound of the tyres hitting water. Definitely still outside the White zone. “Ask her where else there is trouble.”
Amarru said, “Put me on to him.”
She gave me the code to patch his feeder through the unit. A data-transfer icon blinked in the middle of the holo-screen; Amarru’s voice fell quiet. The piece of Earth technology wasn’t rigged up to deal with both types of communication at the same time. I cursed myself that I couldn’t listen. This would have been so much easier if I still had my feeder.
For a few minutes, no one said anything. The driver sat silent, his eyes on the road, while trying to break the speed record for electric cars on badly-maintained roads that were half underwater.
Then the car charged up a dike. A gate materialised out of the dark and behind it, a well-lit road with blinding headlights of buses and taxis. The driver thumbed his comm unit, and the gate swung open. He steered the car through, looking in the rear-vision mirror.
I glanced over my shoulder; between the gates which were closing again, the road was empty.
The car swung onto the main road, following the fence line. On the other side moonlight glimmered on water.
The icon at the unit blinked off and sound returned to my earpiece.
“We’re going to the airport, aren’t we?” I asked Amarru.
“That’s where I’ve directed him to go.”
“Do I get a say in this?”
“I’m offering a way to safety, Cory. Take advantage of it. I can’t guarantee no one will kill you if you stay here. We both know it’s the right thing to do. Gamra has no responsibility for the attack on the president. You haven’t done anything. Nicha hasn’t done anything. We are not letting Nations of Earth suggest we did, or letting them dictate the terms. We will talk, but on our terms, and not under threat. Iyamichu ata.”
That was it then. She threw the gauntlet, asked me to repeat the pledge to follow her, as I’d heard Coldi soldiers did before going for a mission. She could demand that of me; she was my superior in the loyalty network. What else could I do? If what had happened to Nicha was a guide of what I could expect, my options were limited.
Still, I stalled. “Is there a point in trying to get through customs? If the police want to intercept me, I won’t be allowed to leave the country.”
“I said that our bugs are better than theirs. We guarantee this flight only. Get out, Cory, while you can.”
No other option. “Iyamichu ata.”
“Good. Have a nice trip. I’ll see you when you get here.”
7
THE AIRPORT.
Glaring lights reflected in puddles outside the terminal. Taxis and buses waited for bleary-eyed passengers who streamed out of the building, suitcases in tow like little doggies.
I stumbled out of the car at the drop-off area, the meal and alcohol consumed at Eva’s house heavy in my stomach and my decision heavy on my mind. Did pressure exerted by Amarru justify leaving Nicha? Would Nicha forgive me? Was I doing the right thing? I didn’t know.
As diplomat, I was supposed to have carefully considered answers, but right now, I had none. I longed for a shower and a clean bed. I was a buggered-around runty pig that had missed the feed trough.
One of the guards took my luggage and led the way into the harsh light of the terminal. I fiddled with my comm unit. “Mashara, can I at least let Eva know that I’m leaving?”
The guard shook his head ever so slightly. “With respect for you safety, Delegate, not now.”
“I have to let someone know, or everyone will think that this is a kidnapping. Gamra will be blamed even more. How about my father?” The guards would know my father wouldn’t run to the press. He was retired, a New Colonist himself, and didn’t hold much love for suspicious media.
“Mashara regrets not. Chief Delegate Akhtari’s orders. Until gamra sources establish responsibility, it will be assumed that since the first attempt on the Delegate’s life failed, the perpetrators will try a second time. Since we are now in hostile territory, let us move.” He gestured at the flight counter, where a smiling, blue-eyed girl was staring at our extraterrestrial party.
Hostile territory?
All right—it was a form of kidnapping then. You’ll take one of ours—we’ll take one of yours. While Nicha was held by the police, I was to face the wrath of gamra’s Chief Delegate Akhtari, a dragon with a reputation of spitting fire. On the other hand, I’d get more information out of her than the police would get out of Nicha. Information that might be useful in getting him released.
I nodded to the guards. “Let’s go then.”
True to Amarru’s word, my ID scanned without hitch. Right now, I didn’t want to know how she achieved it, but I’d long suspected that all those computer chips, especially ones made in Japan and China early in the 21st century, had been seeded with little Coldi routines that no one noticed but could be called up with special commands. Those commands Amarru had activated on my behalf, and if this came out . . . I didn’t want to know, I just didn’t.
From the customs gate, the guards led me straight to the plane. My hasty entry, while the engines were alread
y running, caused raised eyebrows. Some passengers elbowed each other. Others pointed. Cory Wilson had become a celebrity for all the wrong reasons.
The airhostesses shut the door after me and bustled us to an empty row of seats. One of the guards sat next to the window; I, in the middle; the second guard in the aisle seat.
During taxi and take-off, I stared out the window at the few pinpricks of light that pierced the rain. Down there, Eva was asleep and knew nothing. Tomorrow morning, a few hours away, Delia would call to bluster at me over the meeting I was late attending, and Vice President Danziger would find his representative gone.
And a whole lot would fly besides this plane, but in one way or another, I would find a way to deal with that. I had one chance to prove myself worthy of this job, and this was it.
Into the lion’s den, the cliché said.
By now, clouds obscured the last few lights and I leaned back in my seat.
The guard next to the window pretended to be asleep, but I didn’t mistake the sensor behind his ear for a music player.
The other guard had taken out a pocket reader. He scrolled through text, but his eyes didn’t move behind his sunglasses. Listening to something, it seemed.
I tapped the man’s arm. “Mashara, can I have my reader, please?”
The guard passed me the padded bag.
I put the reader on the folded-out table. While I flicked through the menus a hostess came with coffee, which I accepted gratefully.
Ah—the news. I skipped sections about rioting, deliberately, because there was nothing I could do about it, and Eva was down there. . . . Deep breath, Mr Wilson.
. . . Meanwhile, sources close to the family have confirmed that the president has responded to the presence of people around his bed. . . .
Well, that was a bit of good news. Maybe Danziger would not captain the ship just yet.
I flicked through the other news items.
Another transport strike.
Housing problems on Taurus to be fixed. An article by freelance journalist Melissa Hayworth.
The housing shortage in Arcadia worsened as desert sands claimed another suburb. This came at the time that the Taurus governor-elect Marius Sena announced a project to protect the outer suburbs of the city. . . .
Rogue Stars Page 165
