by S. C. Jensen
Fuming socialites and Biz District suits glared at me with money dripping from every pore and crystalizing in their eyes. There was no way I was getting on the bangtail now, but I still had enough cush to scatter the old-fashioned way. The trick would be to lose the goons long enough to hightail it to a fast bird or sneak on the next slug. Stairs hit the back of my heels when I made it to the outer perimeter of the bangtail station. I stumbled under the weight of the techhead and his mountain of gear. The crowd had closed around me, protecting me temporarily from the greys, so I let his body fall and hoped he wouldn’t have too many bootprints on his pretty face when he woke up. I turned to force my way through the sea of dirty cush in designer handbags, hoping I could cut past the doors and back toward the slug without any uniforms catching on to my drift, when something hit the back of my neck like a guillotine.
My knees buckled and my upgrade twitched. I rolled my eyes around the crowd, trying to figure out which one of the weasels had hit me. Someone hefted me to my feet and let me hang there in a titanium grip. “Over here, officers, I got her!”
Bug-Eye’s pal, back from his vacation in Glitch City, I guessed. I kicked backward at him but only managed to hurt my foot. How could he move under all that gear? He crushed my arms against my torso, pinning my upgrade uselessly into my side, and stars burst in on my view like uninvited party guests. The crowd parted for a unit of HoloCity’s finest to shove their way v-form through the outraged queue.
“Let go, citizen.” The front man, a vice official I vaguely recognized, pinned me with his rifle. “And step back. We’ve got her now.”
My captor loosened his grip and I flexed my upgrade, but he snatched me back before I could give him a kiss. “Is there a reward for handing her over?”
“Drop her.” The grey used his big boy voice and let his sights wander a little higher, as if to say his aim might not be all that great. “And step back.”
“Not even a thank you?” The techhead had found his metal cojones and proceeded to stuff them down his own throat. “’Cause I don’t like having to do your job for you, bro.”
I ducked my head and a subordinate officer nailed buddy with a blast from the stun gun. His titanium grip melted. I hit the deck and rolled into the wave of screaming socialites trying to high-pitch their way out of the line of fire.
The grey cursed, and I heard the firing officer licking boots while the rest of them tried to break up the panic with more stunners. Bodies dressed in designer rags draped over red-velvet queue markers and rolled to the damp cobblestones. The greys hollered over the squealers, threatening them back into a sense of tranquillity. “Resisting compliance with HCPD officers is classified as Tier 3 Civil Disobedience, punishable by fines of up to 5K and the possibility of jail time. Please remain calm.”
A shot rang out over the commons like a backfiring bangtail, and the rioting skipped a beat. All eyes were on a huge, black man in a sleek, white admiral’s uniform. He swept aside the rabble with one ham-sized fist and a small cannon smoking in the other. “What is the meaning of this?”
The leader of the greys leered at the admiral with ill-disguised contempt. “You have a fugitive trying to board your space craft. Sir.”
The admiral scanned the crowd and homed in on me where I was crab-walking through the forest of class sticks in stilettos and shiny-toed grid slickers. His voice boomed out of a chest like a bass drum, “Betty ‘Bubbles’ Marlowe?”
Busted. Called by the name my mama gave me and everything. I pushed myself back onto my feet and tried to regain a fraction of my dignity, if I’d ever had any. “Yes, sir.”
“Come with me, please.” The big man turned and pointed himself toward the entrance of the bangtail station. I hesitated just long enough to count the eggs in my basket before I tossed them all out and followed the white shoulders of the behemoth fleet master.
“Wait just a minute, Admiral!” The grey’s voice climbed up a notch and trembled at the edge. “We have a warrant for her—”
The admiral spun again and pointed the cannon over my shoulder at the V of grey uniforms behind me. His hand didn’t waver. “HCPD has no jurisdiction here. Unless you want me to make a very unpleasant call to Chief Swain about his losses in the line of duty, I suggest you take your officers off my sward and apologize to my guests on your way out.”
The grey burned a hole in the back of my head with a laser glare. I basked in its warmth with a smile on my lips as I let myself be swept into the admiral’s wake. The greys backed off and ruffled cush feathers settled into place as everyone made their way back into neat little lines, sobered by the appearance of the man in white. Minor Dream fleet officers rushed to open the doors into the glass station building for the admiral, and I slipped quietly inside after him. The officers flanked him in perfect synchronization, tattlers flashing navigation charts and lists of passengers and supplies. He listened silently and coasted his way through the building.
I had never been inside a bangtail station before, but I’d done all the HoloPop tours while in the dregs of a hangover, choking on the bitterness of lost dreams. Every surface gleamed with chrome and white in testament to the stacks of cush an operation like that burned through, as evidenced by the custodial costs alone. At the centre of the main floor, customer-service representatives in crisp, sky-blue uniforms and neat white caps sorted passengers between the shuttle fleet with the speed and precision of dealers in a high-stakes card game. Curved metal staircases glittered and twisted their way toward a pyramid of mirrored glass on the floor above. The admiral climbed the stairs on the left, and his entourage dropped like flies without him saying a word. I didn’t know what else to do, so I kept following.
“Step into my office, Marlowe,” the admiral said at the top of the stairs. His voice reverberated off the mirrored glass and left a hum in the air. He opened the door and strode inside.
I stepped in after him and followed him to the massive, white desk at the centre of the room. How a man like that knew my name I could only guess, but the way he snatched me out of Swain’s sweaty grasp could only be a blessing. Or so I thought.
“What can I do for you, sir?”
He leaned into a high-backed chair that looked like it might have been made from genuine elephant hide. I don’t know what else would have been big enough. Then he fixed me with a look harder than diamonds and said, “You and I have a serious problem.”
“A problem, sir?” I dry-swallowed the rock in my esophagus. “If you mean that nonsense about the warrant I—”
“Do you know who I am, Marlowe?” The admiral leaned back in the rough grey leather chair and spun sideways so that it looked like he wasn’t watching me. In the reflection from the mirror glass wall on the far side of the room, his black eyes stared unblinkingly at the side of my face. He had a smattering of grey in his neatly trimmed beard and at his temples and looked to be a man at the top of his prime. Shoulders like boulders heaved beneath the sharp-white uniform, and a neck as thick as one of my thighs flexed as he swallowed.
I pretended not to notice him watching me in the glass. “I know you’re an admiral, sir.”
“Admiral Hollard of the Dream fleet franchise,” he said without pride, just a matter-of-fact. “Including the Sweet Dream, Fever Dream, Dream On, and the Island Dreamer on which you seem to have been awarded passage for the inaugural voyage. Quite a prestigious honour for an ex-Grit District beat cop with a phony P.I. ticket and a questionable source for cybernetic equipment.”
I flexed the long pink fingers of my upgrade and showed him the paperwork. “It’s a prototype. Special contract.”
“Spare me, Marlowe.” Hollard eased his chair around to face me and leaned forward on his desk with fingers as thick and black as street cart blood sausages. “I’m not interested in your tickets or how you managed to land yourself on one of my ships. What I want to know about is your connection to this woman.”
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sp; Admiral Hollard killed the lights and brought up a ’gram of my client’s “sister” with her head and necklace still attached. I clenched my fist and tried to figure my chances if I jumped through the mirror glass and back out the station door. Dead within seconds, probably. “I was hired to find her, but someone punched her card before I got there. Now Swain’s trying to knock me up on murder charges.”
“Chief Swain is a lot of hot air wrapped in a poorly fitted suit.” Admiral Hollard slammed a palm against his desk and leaned back in his chair again. I swallowed an inappropriate noise. “And those charges won’t even hold the sludge they call seawater around here. This woman is on one of my ships right now. The Island Dreamer, as a matter-of-fact.”
“That can’t be, sir.” I stared at the hologram as it faded out and was replaced by a live feed. My girl, necklace and all, throwing her head back in a laugh and tossing dice across a green-felt table. “I saw her body.”
The admiral’s face hardened into the sculpted mask of a Trade War Era statue. “You saw wrong.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. What else could I say? If one of us was going to be wrong, it had better be me. “So what do you need me for?”
“I have been made a generous offer by a … person of import … who knows the woman is alive and well aboard the Island Dreamer and who would like to see her stay that way.” The admiral stood and crossed his arms behind his back. He strode out from behind the desk and loomed above me. I kept my eyes on the blank wall ahead of me and told my heart to stop beating so loudly. “I have more than enough security to manage that.”
“Of course, sir.”
“I want to know who this woman is, and why she’s worth so much.” The admiral leaned toward me like a toppling siege tower. I fought the urge to leap out of his way. “You’re going to find out for me.”
“And Chief Swain’s warrant—”
“Will make a trip down his throat if he tries that half-rate number with me again.” Admiral Hollard clapped his big hands and broke the sound barrier. “Consider it your payment for services rendered.”
A gentle knock at the door allowed me to turn my head. I took a deep breath and stepped out of the admiral’s shadow, feeling a bit lighter and bit braver. With Chief Swain neutralized and a new job on the roster, it looked like I might just survive to see next week after all.
A tall, thin man stepped into the room wearing an equally crisp but deep-blue uniform with silver buttons up the front of it. A red-skinned face, creased and weathered by too many years of poorly filtered UV rays, perched atop his narrow shoulders like a shrunken head in a curios shop.
“Who’s the pepperoni stick?” I muttered out of the side of my mouth, earning me a hard lined mouth from the admiral.
“This is Hank Whyte, Chief of Security on the Island Dreamer.” The Admiral placed a hand on my left shoulder and squeezed so hard enough I thought he’d dent the upgrade. “You’ll be reporting to him for the duration of our cruise. Enjoy your holiday.”
He pushed me toward my new keeper and returned to his desk. Whyte nodded his well-smoked face at me, and his skin folded back around his too-bright teeth. He held the door open like a gentleman corpse.
“Nice to meet you, Hank,” I said as he ushered me out the door.
“And Marlowe”—the Admiral’s voice boomed out of the room after me—“Don’t give me cause to regret our alliance. As an enemy, I would make Swain look like a sweet potato.”
“Great,” I said as Hank Whyte, Chief of Security, led me back down the glittering staircase toward the check-in desk. “Now I’m hungry.”
“You don’t want to bite Admiral Sweet Potato.” Whyte kept his eyes straight ahead and his mouth a hard line. “Trust me.”
But the corner of his weathered lip twitched, and I laughed. “I might like you after all.”
“There will be refreshments available on the shuttle,” Whyte said as he guided me in front of one of the sky-blue uniformed attendants in the crisp white caps. She had pale-blonde hair pinned in a neat bun at the nape of her neck, a sun-kissed complexion, and big Chiclet teeth to match her hat. She asked for my name through her cushy dental work and looked right through me. A suit in the queue we’d cut cleared his throat loudly. Whyte ignored him.
“That’s more like it.” I gave the attendant my name, and she keyed it into the system with pink, almond-shaped fingernails that swept through the air with practiced graceful arcs. “I was looking forward to a vacation, you know.”
“We can discuss the details of your contract on the shuttle,” Whyte said, nodding to the woman. “You’ll be flying with me.”
“Door three, please, ma’am.” Her voice was only slightly tight when she said it. What a professional. “And please enjoy your time as an Island Dreamer.”
I turned to say something to Whyte, but he had evaporated into the crowd, so I stepped around the counter. Behind the service desk, six, round doorways were lit with white neon tubes that emanated a soft, bluish light, each with a tastefully arranged collection of dots above it to indicate which door was which. I stepped through the third gate and into a glowing white corridor with floor lights leading the way toward the shuttles. A mirrored door shushed open at the end of the corridor, and I stepped through to a security checkpoint.
Once the doors closed behind me, and I was hidden from the other passengers, two grim-faced officials peeled themselves off the wall and approached me with scan wands drawn. It was nice that they gave their customers some privacy for the necessary prodding. Nicer still if security had to get tough. Wouldn’t want to spoil the start of anyone’s vacation with blood spray and missing teeth. I knew the play. Despite the official invite from the admiral, anxiety clawed at my chest, and I had to fight to control my breathing.
“Please remove any and all cybernetic enhancements, external techwear, or other inorganic devices from your person and place them on the conveyor belt to your left.” The official droned robotically, probably for the thousandth time that day. “Or, if you so choose, you may take the tunnel.”
I dropped my backpack, jacket, and umbrella on the belt. “The tunnel?”
“If your technology is difficult to remove or implanted internally, you may enter the immersive scanning tunnel.”
“Let’s do that.”
“This way, ma’am,” the other security guard said in an equally robotic voice. “I must advise you that if you are carrying or wearing any illegal technology such as explosives, firearms, or toxins of any kind they will be removed and destroyed and you will be held for questioning. We do not accept any legal responsibility for the cost of replacing destroyed technologies, and in the case of implanted devices, we cannot guarantee your physical safety in the tunnel.”
I swallowed. Rae hadn’t shown me everything the arm was capable of before I rushed out of the office. I had no idea what kind of tech might be embedded in the prosthesis. “Can’t I just show you my ticket?”
The security officer’s bland smile made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and icy fingers trail across my shoulders. “That won’t be necessary.”
Of course not. Watching illegal implants get ripped out of cush-drunk passengers’ bodies was probably the highlight of his day.
A narrow door parallel to the main corridor opened silently beside the officer. Inside, it was pitch black and smooth as eel skin. A bead of cold sweat trickled from my forehead and past my ear. The white jumpsuit clung to my skin and itched in undignified places. I rolled my shoulders once. The nerve connection was seamless. Rae had outdone herself this time. There was no way I would be able to get the arm connected properly on my own, even if the security creeps deigned to help me.
I took in a deep breath of air, stretching my lungs until they burned, and then let it out slowly through my nostrils. I stepped inside.
“Please proceed to the end of the tunnel,” the man said with a gli
nt of suppressed joy in his colourless eyes. “In the event of your inability to do so under your own power, assistance will be provided. Do we have your consent to intervene?”
My mouth said “yes,” but the word disappeared before I heard it. Either the audio equipment inside the tunnel was more sensitive than my ears, or security didn’t actually give a steaming Grit pile about my consent, because the door closed behind me, leaving me in total darkness. A fraction of a second later, lights flashed on with a simulated banging noise that must have been there just to make the tunnel walkers feel extra guilty. The long, narrow throat pulsed with red and purple light, and the scanning equipment thrummed behind the walls.
“Please proceed,” a voice boomed through an overhead speaker system. I thought I detected a malicious smile behind the voice, but that could have been my imagination. Just in case, I flexed my fingers and imagined giving the smarmy officer a kiss with my fist. Then I stepped into the light.
The humming noise intensified as I got farther into the tunnel, one slow step at a time. My upgrade vibrated unnervingly and felt hot against my slick skin. I kept moving forward. All I had to do was make it to the end of the tunnel, right? Sweat rolled between my shoulder blades and pooled in the curve of my back. I took another step forward. And another.
The pain started in the severed nerve endings at the end of my stump. Electric shocks of bright, hot pain shot up the side of my neck and directly into my brain. The metal glowed as red as a hot poker under the throbbing lights of the tunnel, and the flesh around my shoulder felt like it was being seared by an iron. Almost there. I kept moving forward.
When I reached the end of the tunnel, my entire body felt raw and blistered. Even my eyeballs burned. The door opened, and I stepped into the cool white light with a groan. The air outside the tunnel splashed across my scalded skin like an ice bath.
