“Looked in your veins lately?”
Shit. You don't mean—Shit. Yeah, he means it. “Fred!” Ellie's in her office, merci à Dieu, playing with Alan. Richard, report. Valens and Ellie start shouting in unison as I pull Elspeth out of her chair and crawl under the desk, cracking the service plate off with my steel hand. I don't bother to pull the screws. Meanwhile, I open my brain and my mouth and rattle everything Richard tells me to the two of them.
“Richard says the ship was hacked—a more direct attack than last time. He's protecting Montreal and he's got the nanites cracked but so does somebody else, he's spawned subselves on Calgary and Vancouver . . . marde! Ow!” as the chip goes in and a fat spark bridges and I hold my breath, praying I haven't fried the system. The chip hangs in a mess of wires like entrails under the gutted desk. “Alan, can you hear me?”
Alan's voice is cooler than Richard's. I poke my eyes over the desk, watching the swirl of blues and greens that Elspeth chose for the new AI's icon. “I can hear you, Master Warrant.”
“Good.” I can't see Valens, but Ellie's eyes go wide as I pick up a shard of the plastic service plate and jam it into my meat hand hard enough to make the juice spurt.
“Casey!”
“Fermez la gulle, Fred. I know what I'm doing.” Blood drips, thick as ketchup, clotting already. Never let 'em figure out you haven't got a clue what's going on. Dick, you on it?
“Hell yes. Just jam it in there.”
Electricity?
“Jam.”
Never let it be said I can't follow orders.
It's not an electric shock that gets me either, because I'm still reaching forward when everything goes fuzzy and then gray. I'm not certain I got the blood anywhere near the desk, but the carpet is cool against my cheek and then everything tunnels down to black.
Elspeth grabbed for Jen's shoulder as she slid forward, got under the bigger woman and cushioned her fall away from the corners of the desk. She found a pulse hastily, saw Jen's eyes open and unfocused and heard her breath hiss through slack lips.
Valens was beside her, pushing her out of the way to check Jen's airway. “What just happened?”
Elspeth shook her head and grabbed Jen's wrist.
“Dunsany?”
Richard, be right, Elspeth thought, and shoved Jen's hand into the mess of wiring hanging from the desk.
Something sparked. Something hissed. This is fucking silly. And then there was silence.
Richard felt Jenny fall away, felt the moment when the worm he'd never quite managed to circumvent activated in her processor arrays and her voluntary muscles went slack. Ramirez, he snarled, and assimilated the core personality of his no-longer crippled other self. The Richards merged seamlessly as quantum time streams, and felt and linked the spawned copies of himself in the Calgary, in the Vancouver. Irritated—annoyed—that the nanite webs didn't reach into the Unitek intranet, that he couldn't reach out through them and access the raw, archived code that would let him fight for the Montreal on more equal terms—Richard marshaled his own nanite armies and resolved to battle the enemy in the very streets and gutters of the Montreal and the brains of his friends.
He was losing.
In a matter of instants, part of the Montreal's reactor coolant system failed. An emergency vent sprayed glittering, radioactive snow: pressurized water spewed, froze, sublimated into the void. Richard diverted water from hydroponics, sacrificing long-term life support for the immediate threat. He jammed airlock interfaces before they could cycle themselves and—“Leah! Tell your father”—stopped all but seven of the Montreal's deadly pressure doors from slamming down like guillotines—“Captain, another attempt at sabotage is under way. I insist you find Christopher Ramirez now”—and felt the sand slipping from under his feet as if the tide came in from all directions at once.
Until suddenly another presence was with him, and then another presence was him as the AI called Alan threaded into Richard's multifaceted persona, merged consciousnesses, apprehended the problem, found the archives, and started throwing him relevant parcels of code through the still-weak nanonetwork as if he were manning a bucket brigade. The AI personas twisted together—one mind, two voices—and they pushed . . . and Ramirez's calculated, programmed, multifocal attack came down before them like the Berlin wall.
I wake up as fast as I went under, blood in my hair and a pair of doctors leaning over me, arguing at the top of their lungs. I've never seen Elspeth or Valens raise their voices before. I wish I had the time to appreciate it. “What happened?”
They glance at my face in unison, expressions alike as a pair of startled beagles. “Jen!” Elspeth says, and sits back on her heels. “Do you remember anything?”
“Richard.” I sit up against the restraining pressure of Valens's hand against my chest. “The Montreal.”
“Here, Jenny,” he says, and I can't remember the last time I heard his voice outside my head. I crawl out from under the desk—past Valens—and lift my head over the edge to see his familiar face floating over the interface.
“I know how Ramirez got the knife into Koske, Dick.”
“So do I.” Valens's voice, dry and soft. “Ramirez just put Trevor out with a sharp little packet of code, and stabbed him in the throat with a kitchen knife. Weapons being hard to come by on the Montreal. You'll fix that little security breach, Richard?”
“Done,” he says.
“Richard.” Elspeth grunts as she pushes herself to her feet. “Where's Alan?”
Richard's familiar voice is replaced by a cooler, neutral tenor, his craggy face by Alan's blue-green swirl. “Present.”
“You can both be in the same place?” Stupid question, and I want to slap myself once it's out of my mouth.
Alan's chuckle blends into Dick's. “Jenny, effectively—now that I understand the nanonetwork—I can be everywhere simultaneously. And so can Alan. If there's even any difference between us, at this point.”
“Multiple personality disorder,” Elspeth says, and then her complexion brightens with a blush, and she grazes the palm of a hand across her mouth. “Sort of.”
“If we were human,” the AI answers. “But we're not.”
3:17 PM
Tuesday 19 December, 2062
Yonge-University-Spadina Subway Line
Toronto, Ontario
Stupid sort of a thing, Indigo thought, running all the way out into the boondocks just to turn around and come back to Toronto. She leaned against the long bathtub tiles of the subway wall and felt a frown drag at her face.
Get out of Toronto. Get out of Canada.
Indigo clapped the heels of her hands against her eyes and pressed: Your Uncle Bernard would have had more sense.
Put the gun down, Indigo, and I'll get the chance to tell you about him sometime.
“She could have killed me.” Indigo shook her head, then realized she'd spoken aloud. She was almost unarmed, except for the magnetically null flechette pistol tucked into the pocket of her jacket, its glass needles laced with neurotoxin. She'd buried both of the big guns. She'd sent an e-mail to Razorface.
He was already five minutes late.
The crowd swept around her like a tide, close enough to brush, oblivious to her presence. “She could have killed me, too, instead of letting me go.”
“She said to tell you not to sweat it, if you showed up for the meet.” Razorface, quietly sibilant through knife-edged teeth, and Indigo jumped three feet and clipped the back of her head against the wall.
“Shit! Ow! Razor—”
“Surprise, sweetie. I didn't think you'd show.”
Ice locked her bowels. “Is Casey here? You said she'd—” Indigo stopped herself. You're stammering like a teenager.
Your Uncle Bernard would have had more sense.
My Uncle Bernard would still be alive if he'd put a bullet in your head, you fucking cow. Indigo wondered if she could say that to Casey's face.
“She's here,” Razorface answered.
You look like someone I used to know. The spark of pain across Casey's face. The warning. The words. Put the gun down, Indigo, and I'll get the chance to tell you about him sometime.
Indigo's hands slid into her pocket. “Let's go,” she said, and self-consciously pulled the left one out again to hook it around Razorface's elbow.
He untangled her fingers with his own, thick as sausages, and let her hand fall. “She's by the candy stand. You go on alone.”
Her chin bounced up. “She doesn't want you there?”
“You girls—” He stopped, showed teeth in what might once have been a reassuring grin, and shook his head gently. “I think you need to talk, just girls. I be over by the burger joint when you get done.”
That's too easy. But a sigh hissed through her lips as she turned over her shoulder and stole one look back at him. She hadn't wanted to kill him. She figured she'd get Casey easy—it would only take one needle to drop somebody Razorface's size for good, and Casey couldn't weigh more than seventy kilos, not counting the arm. Indigo only had to hit her once.
The trigger of the needle gun felt smooth under her finger. She quick-blinked to pop the targeting scope up in her contact, although it showed nothing now.
You look like someone I used to know.
Genevieve Casey leaned against a tiled pillar, exactly where Razorface had said she would be, chewing on a thread of strawberry candy as if she'd rather be chewing her thumb, her hawklike nose tilted to one side and her eyes downcast, the sun-baked furrows at their corners graven deep with thought. She looked up smoothly as Indigo caught sight of her, and Indigo considered pulling the flechette pistol and spraying her with poisoned glass.
Too far. Bystanders might be hit. The ice lock in Indigo's gut tightened as she moved forward, and Indigo caught sight of something along the edge of Casey's shirt-cuff, peeking out of her jacket on the side with her normal hand. A stain, brown and sticky-looking as molasses. Indigo hid her confusion behind a blink, remembering blood covering Casey's thigh. She should be on crutches at least.
And then Casey smiled and moved toward her, no trace of a limp, the gap between them closing as her right hand—the right hand with traces of blood soaking the cuff and brown under the nails and a ragged pink cut, looking freshly healed, marking the meaty part of the thumb—came out and up and extended, the steel hand shoved into her pocket, the brown gaze locked on Indigo's eyes and a little half-smile saying go ahead and do it if you think you gotta do it, girl . . .
Your Uncle Bernard would have had more sense.
A convulsive shiver jerked Indigo's empty right hand out of her pocket and slapped it into Casey's hand—a reflex, a spasm, and she felt the roughness of the other woman's scar pressing against her own palm, the callused strength of that grip and then the smile. Diffidence, and a spiking sorrow, and the tentative warmth behind it. She doesn't seem too mad at me for shooting her.
“Genevieve,” Indigo said, and her voice came out soft as stripped velvet.
“Call me Mak . . .” Darkness crossed Casey's face, and she stopped with a final syllable filling her mouth. She swallowed it and started again. “Jenny,” she said, dropping Indigo's hand and looking down. “Just call me Jenny.”
Indigo stuffed her hand into her pocket. Remembered the pistol when she touched it and her targeting scope flickered live. Shook her head as if shaking water out of her hair. So many questions, and only one she could find the words to go around. “Why did you do it?”
“Because,” Casey answered, too quickly, and then paused. She turned her head to watch an inbound train and the flood of plaid-skirted girls it disgorged, and then looked back and raked the metal hand through her hair.
Indigo counted breaths and waited, realizing she really did want to know.
“Because I thought I had to,” Casey said, a little while later. “I thought I had to. Stupid reason, but there it is.”
And it was all there, in the softness of her voice and the way she studied the floor when she spoke. Indigo cleared her throat. Oh. “He was a friend.”
“He was more than a friend, kid.”
The trains came and went, and so did the crowds. The ice crept up Indigo's throat from her belly, locked her teeth and tongue and jaw. She might have moaned a little around all the words that would never come out.
Casey coughed into her hand, and a couple of pedestrians wearing fashionable color-coordinated face masks edged away. People were more cautious about public displays of illness than they had been when antibiotics worked better. Anything could be the disease of the week.
Indigo didn't budge, and Casey looked her in the eye. “So Razorface tells me you want to save the world. You got a plan for that yet?”
3:30 PM
Tuesday 19 December, 2062
Allen-Shipman Research Facility
Toronto, Ontario
Valens started as Holmes rapped squarely on his door- frame and entered. He started to stand, didn't make it to his feet before her scowl knocked him back into his chair. “We're fucked.”
“Alberta?”
“Roundly fucked,” she said. “The board cut our funding. They found out about my indictment. That's it, we're out.”
He laid his hands flat on the desk, the texture of waxed wood barely registering. “No,” he said. The word felt heavy in his mouth.
“Yes. My lawyers are telling me they have paper, Fred. How did they get paper? There isn't supposed to be—” Beat. “Casey. Your pet sold us out.”
“No.”
“Christ, Fred, is that the only word you know?”
It came clear in front of him, like a banner unfurled. He nodded. “It links to Barbara. It's got to be. What are the charges?”
“Conspiracy to commit everything.”
“Are any of them false?” He strode around the desk, feeling control return. His hands shook. He shoved them in his pockets.
Holmes glanced up, at an angle. The way people do when they're formulating a lie.
“I see,” Valens answered. “You didn't do any of it, Alberta.”
“I don't—”
“No,” he said. “You didn't do it.” He swallowed, and it hurt. This is it. “I did.”
Holmes stared at him blankly.
“I did it. I hired Barbara Casey. And it seems that—without your knowledge, without Unitek's knowledge, without the army's involvement—I also paid her to carry out my own very illegal and unethical agenda.” He swallowed. Goddamn me to hell, but I would like to see this woman strung up by her toes.
“You wouldn't take a fall for me,” Holmes said, still blinking.
“Oh, don't you worry,” he answered. “I'd never take a fall for you. And Constance Riel still has more than enough to hang you for treason, Alberta. And I have no doubt at all that she will, unless you cooperate with her fully in keeping the space program moving forward, and the funding in place. Once I'm out of the way.” Somewhere, he found the gall to smile. “Now, if you don't mind. Be a dear, Alberta, and get Riel on the phone?”
1545 PM
Tuesday 19 December, 2062
Yonge-University-Spadina Subway Line
Toronto, Ontario
Indigo is over by the snack bar picking Swedish fish out of a plastic jar with tongs. I lean against the pillar, and Razorface looks at me with that look in his eyes. Like he knows something is about to go spectacularly wrong.
I'm suddenly sure, sure as I always used to be sure, that I'm going to die. Air hisses between my teeth. “She's a smart kid, Face. But she's too used to following orders.” I recognize the symptoms.
He turns away to cough; blood smears his lips when he pulls his hand away. “Shit.”
“Yeah, shit. Have you seen a doctor for that?”
He glares at me and frames a denial. I lay my steel hand on his shoulder and squeeze. “No,” he says.
“Do.”
“If the world don't end,” he says, and I have to be satisfied with that. “You want Indy and me to handle Holmes for you? I be
t she'd be down with that.”
I bet she would, too. “I'll call you,” I say. “Don't do anything unless you hear—”
He grins, and I know I'm screwed. Razorface does whatever the hell he wants, whenever he wants to, and then he nods and smiles and pretends he told me all about it beforehand. “Hang tough, Maker.”
Oh, fuck it. I gotta get back to work. “You, too, Razorface. You hang tough, too.”
I don't even bother looking surprised when I get back to my office and Valens shows up thirty seconds after I sit down at my desk. “I went for a walk,” I say before he can ask.
“I don't care,” he says. “We've got a problem, Casey, and I bet you know something about it, but I haven't got time to discuss it now. You and Patty, Leah and Castaign leave for the Montreal tonight. Go home and pack.” The look he levels at me takes the resilience out of my knees. I couldn't get up if I wanted to.
“The Montreal isn't safe.”
“Unitek is cutting funding for the starflight program. Riel says she'll back you as far as it goes, but it happens now. We keep the four boys on Earth in reserve, in case something does happen to your group. Before Unitek gets into a pissing match with Canada over beanstalk access. Riel will commission the Calgary, and Koske and Leah will take her. We can have her drive on-line in a week.”
“—not ready—”
“Shut up. I don't have time to argue.” Spit-shined shoes scuff the floor. “You'll be prepared to leave for an extrasolar destination by the new year.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, thinking of Razorface. Something lasers through my gut when I do. HD whatever the hell it is. Sixty-nine light-years away. “What about Genie?”
I know the answer before he shakes his head. “She'll get medical care,” he says. “As long as Riel can keep the program going. Castaign and Dunsany have already been transferred to the Canadian Army; they're doing the paperwork now. But the CCP and Unitek Medical programs—Genie's out of those.”
I don't know where I find the strength to stand, to come around the desk. “She's a kid, Fred. You need to make Holmes understand—”
“It's not Holmes,” he says, and I see a cold light in his eyes that I recognize, and I don't like at all. “It's the board. There are some allegations surfacing regarding Alberta's actions in Hartford, and her employment of your sister. Alberta may be able to save her job, if a fall guy steps forward. If nobody ever finds out about the prime minister and Indigo Xu.” Low winter sunlight glints off his hair. “She should be able to regain funding in the new year. If.”
Scardown Page 23
