Nightside City

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Those three were the clearest, but she'd made veiled references about it to half a dozen people. Somehow or other, Sayuri Nakada intended to stop Nightside City from crossing the terminator.

  In itself, I thought that was a great idea.

  Unfortunately, I didn't believe she could do it safely. Her past record wasn't very encouraging. Botching the job could easily be worse than not trying at all; at least the natural sunrise would be gradual and predictable.

  She'd been talking to people at the Ipsy, which was encouraging, but she had that grithead Orchid in on it, which wasn't.

  If she had a plan that would actually work, that would keep me and my hometown safe on the nightside, then I was all for it, and I didn't care if she bought the whole damn city for ten bucks and a tube of lube. I could give the squatters back their money, tell them it was out of my league, and stop worrying about the fare off-planet or a future spent scraping at radioactive rocks. I might even make a deal that I'd keep my mouth shut and help her out in exchange for giving the squatters a break and giving me the price of a few good meals.

  That was the best-case outcome, the absolute optimum short of a miracle. I didn't believe for a minute that it would happen.

  No, the way I figured it, she had some scheme that wouldn't work and that might do the city a lot of damage when it went wrong. I knew that all the sensible ideas had been tried out in comsims, and that they either didn't work or cost far too much to even consider. Somehow I didn't think that a burnout like Sayuri Nakada, or a sleazy slick-hair like Paulie Orchid, had come up with a way around that. Even buying the entire city cheap shouldn't make that big a difference in the final line of the spreadsheets.

  Bringing the Ipsy into it, though, made the whole thing uncertain. My best guess-and all it was was a guess- was that some planetologist there had a nifty idea he thought might work, some one-in-a-million shot he knew couldn't get respectable backing, so he got a hustler, by the name of Orchid, to find him a less-than-completely-respectable backer, like Sayuri Nakada. And I'd bet everything I ever owned or hoped to own that this theoretical son of a bitch, if he or she existed, had no intention of being on Epimetheus when Nakada actually tried this stunt he'd thought up.

  The time had come to call the Ipsy, I decided, and see if I could get the story on just what they were selling Nakada. I touched keys.

  The Institute's logo appeared on the screen, totally flat. "We're sorry," a synthetic voice told me, "but the Institute for Planetological Studies is closed to the public until further notice."

  That was a surprise; for as far back as I could remember, they'd always been eager for any attention they could get. I'd toured the place once as a kid, and for a while they had run a constant holo feed as an "informational service."

  If they were closed now, that just made me more suspicious than ever that something had skewed data somewhere.

  "This is a personal emergency," I said. "I need to speak to a human."

  There was a pause; then a voice that was either human or a good imitation came on the line, but the image on the screen didn't change.

  "Who is this?" she asked.

  "My name's Qing," I said, which was close enough to the truth that, if my identity came out, I could say it was a slip of the tongue, but which wouldn't let them track me down easily. "I need to talk to whoever's been doing the work for Sayuri Nakada. Something's come up."

  She hesitated, then exited the call.

  I hadn't expected that. I punched the code in again.

  "We're sorry," the synthetic began, as the logo reappeared.

  I interrupted it. "I was cut off," I said. "Reconnect me to whoever I was just talking to."

  The com beeped, and the logo was replaced by a little message-contact rejected.

  Then another message came through, not spoken, but on the screen: the ipse is a private, nonprofit organization, AND IS NOT AFFILIATED IN ANY WAY WITH NAKADA ENTERPRISES

  There was a pause, and then it added: if you want to

  KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT WORK DONE FOR SAYURI NAKADA, ASK MIS' NAKADA. WE CAN'T TELL YOU ANYTHING.

  So they weren't talking, either. Nakada and Orchid had bounced me, and now the Ipsy, too.

  And from their reaction, I didn't think that my best-case scenario was going to come true.

  I didn't like this at all. Nakada and the people at the Ipsy might just figure that since Nightside City was doomed anyway, it didn't matter if they risked wrecking it in trying to save it.

  They might even have had a point, really. So what if it was a gamble? What did they have to lose?

  I didn't know what they had to lose, but I didn't like the idea that they were gambling with my home. I didn't like it, and I intended to find out just what the wager actually was.

  I had to get somebody to talk to me, but I didn't know who to approach at the Ipsy, and I figured Orchid was probably just a flunky or a go-between, and besides, he was repulsive. I knew I could get him to talk to me if I had to, but I didn't want to, not yet.

  That left Sayuri Nakada herself, and I decided it was time we had a little chat-in person, without a lot of intrusive software, or any worries about other people tapping into the com.

  I got my gun and called a cab.

  Chapter Eleven

  WHEN I STEPPED OUT MY DOOR INTO THE WIND I remembered something that had slipped my mind- something that had hovered outside my window all night. I looked up and there it was, hanging there just the way I'd seen it last.

  "You're still here?" I asked.

  "Yeah, Hsing, I'm still here," the spy-eye said.

  I stood there looking at it for a minute, thinking this over.

  Sayuri Nakada, I was sure, would not take kindly to having a spy-eye hanging around anywhere near her. What's more, I wasn't any too thrilled about letting Big Jim Mishima know I was visiting Nakada. I wasn't any too thrilled about letting anyone know that. I wasn't too sure just what I was getting into, after all, and that made me that much less eager to let anyone else know what I was getting into.

  Besides, could I really be sure that that eye was Mishima's? That was what I'd figured all along, but I didn't really know. Maybe Orchid had found out about me right from the start, when Zar Pickens showed up on my doorstep, and had sicced an eye on me and let me think Big Jim was carrying a grudge.

  It wasn't likely, but I couldn't say it was impossible.

  Now that I thought I was getting somewhere, and it was somewhere that might be dangerous, that eye wasn't comforting at all. It was a serious nuisance. It was bad enough worrying about what might turn up if someone broke into my com system without having to deal with this sort of petty harassment-and that's what it was, I realized. Harassment. After all, if anybody really seriously wanted to keep an eye on me, me specifically and not a particular location or whoever just happened,by, the way to do it would be with a mircrointelligence or three, planted on me and breeding messages to be picked up later, not with a damn floater following me around.

  And yeah, I've heard all the jokes about how microintelligences are dumber than dirt, and their messages all sound like sneezes, and all the rest of it, and some of it's true, but they'd do the job better than this flying chunk of chrome and silicates. A spy-eye is great for watching whatever comes along, and it's reusable, but it's easy to shake, the way I'd done at the Manhattan, and it's easy to keep outside, and to shield against, and even to shut down if you have to. A microintelligence is invisible, just about impossible to spot, and rides along anywhere; it can't be shaken or shielded without some pretty fancy preparation.

  But maybe Mishima-if it really was Mishima-was just working with what he had on hand, and wasn't really trying to harass me. If he'd really just had the eye cruising the Trap, with my stats somewhere on file, and it had picked me up by accident, then he might not have bothered to switch to micros. It might just be sloppiness, not harassment.

  I decided I'd give whoever had sent the eye the benefit of the doubt and assume it wasn't malicious. I'd
give it a chance to play it sweet.

  "Hey," I said. "Get lost. I'm going out on business now, and it's my business, but it's not yours. It's not in the Trap, and I don't want you along."

  "Sorry, Hsing," it said. "I just do what I'm told, and I was told to follow you." The main lens was locked right on my eyes.

  "Yeah, I know," I said. "But you might want to check in and see if your boss might reconsider. Warn him I'm getting pissed off."

  "Okay, I'll ask," it said. "But don't get your hopes up."

  I didn't. I stood and waited for my cab.

  It settled to the curb in front of me, a battered old independent with an old Casino Cruiser logo still showing faintly on the side, and I got in. I gave an address on the East Side-not Nakada's, just one I pulled at random.

  The cab took off, and the spy-eye followed, and a swarm of pocket-sized advertisers swooped in from somewhere. I settled back for the ride and watched the lights flash by.

  The advertisers peeled off when we came out the eastern edge of Trap Over, and a flitterbug that had slipped into the cab without my noticing beeped and self-destructed when it realized it was outside its legal range. I don't know what it thought it was doing there in the first place, since I'd never had any business with flitters and it could have extended its range if it were hired. Maybe it had been a friend of the cab's, but if so it was pretty damn careless. It left a spot of hot orange plastic on the seatcover beside me, and I felt like spitting on it to cover the smell, but I figured the cab wouldn't like that.

  Instead I turned and looked out the back.

  The spy-eye was still there, cruising along a meter behind us, its main lens fixed on me.

  A couple of minutes later the cab landed at the address I'd given, and I paid up, told it to wait a minute, and got out. Then I stepped back and looked up at the eye.

  "So what's the program?" I asked. "Are you going to log off, or are you asking for trouble?"

  It beeped and said, "I've got my orders, Hsing. No change. Sorry."

  "I'm sorry, too," I said. I waved to the cab, and the door opened again and I got back in.

  "Privacy," I said. "Full privacy all around, up and down."

  "Yes, Mis'," it said, and the windows went black. The glow from the screens gave me all the light I really needed, but it put in a glowfield anyway. "Where to?"

  I gave it an address on East Deng and unsealed my coat. Then I hesitated for a moment. Was I sure about this?

  There were alternatives, after all. I could shield. I could use a jammer. I could just lose the eye for a while, though of course it would find me again eventually.

  But yes, I decided, I was sure. Whether or not it turned out to be vital on this case, I had to let Big Jim, or whoever it was, see that I couldn't be pushed around. I had a point to make, an important one. Dodging or shielding or jamming wouldn't do it-not emphatic enough. If I planned to stay in business on Epimetheus -which I did, at least until dawn-then I had to make a clear and definite stand. The eye had to go. I pulled out the HG-2 and turned it on.

  I could feel the electric vibration in my hand as it came alive.

  "One target," I told it. "A floater. I need to take it out completely with one shot. Don't know if it's armed; it says it isn't."

  I wasn't sure if it knew all those words, but I figured it would get the gist of it. It knew its job, and that was all that mattered.

  I had to let the gun do most of it, because I knew that the eye would have reactions much faster than mine. I'll go up on even terms against a human just about any time, but against a machine I need a machine of my own.

  "Put me down here," I told the cab. "I'll walk."

  "Mis', is that a weapon you're carrying?" it asked. The voice was smooth, but I suppose the cab was pretty worried; as a free machine, its costs all paid off, it didn't have any owner to protect it if it were caught violating city law. And a machine convicted of a felony in Nightside City wasn't just sent for reconstruction; it was scrapped.

  "Don't worry about it," I lied. "It's licensed. And I'm not trying to bugger you for the fare." I held the gun in one hand while I pulled my transfer card with the other and slid it in the slot. "There, see?" I said.

  "Yes, mis'," it said, like a good little machine. I took my card back and then took a deep breath and held it as the cab set down sweetly on East Deng and slid the door back.

  The instant the door opened I spotted the eye, pointed the gun, and squeezed the trigger.

  I felt a jerk as the Sony-Remington targeted the eye; then it went whump, a deep sort of sound that I felt in my hands and the base of my skull, as well as my ears. A fine spray of gunk hissed around me from the recoil damping, and I was thrown back onto the seat by the recoil anyway-the HG-2's just a handgun, after all; it hasn't got room to be truly recoilless with a heavy-gravity charge. My right arm felt like I'd rammed it against a wall, felt like the shock bruised all the muscles right up to my shoulder. By the time I hit the upholstery I heard the bang as the spy-eye was blown to splinters- a good loud bang, like a two-meter balloon popping. Fragments whickered and whistled away in every direction, and I heard them rattle across pavement and on the cab's outer shell.

  I felt the seat I'd landed on ripple desperately under me as it tried to accommodate my sudden arrival.

  I'd blinked when the gun went off-I always do-so I'd missed most of the flash. By the time my eyes were open and focused again the spy-eye was just powder and scrap, scattered across the surrounding landscape. Some of the pieces were glowing red-hot, and a few of the more aerodynamically-inclined fragments were still drifting down; none of them were bigger than my thumbnail.

  I love the Sony-Remington HG-2. It's a hell of a weapon. I'm told that, on the heavy-gravity planets it was meant for, it doesn't do much more damage than a regular gun does on Epimetheus, but there in Nightside City, in just nine-tenths of a gee, I could count on it to do a pretty good job on just about anything. If I have to shoot, I don't want what I'm shooting at to have a chance to shoot back; with the HG-2, nothing ever did.

  "Sorry about the mess," I told the cab as I looked at the spots the damping spray had left. It was supposed to be clean, odorless, and volatile enough to evaporate in ninety seconds, but it never really was; I don't know if it was because I didn't clean the gun often enough, or I didn't do it right, or there was too much crud in the city air, but it always left a ring of little gray spots. This time about half of them had landed on the cab's interior. The rest were mostly on me. A few fragments of the spy-eye had wound up in the cab, too, and a couple might have hit the shell hard enough to scuff the finish. "Put the cleaning charge on my bill," I said, using my free hand to stick my card back in the slot. "If there's enough to cover it. And if there's anything left, take a little for your trouble." I figured even a cab would recognize that as a bribe not to call the cops.

  I guess that cab did, anyway, because I never heard from any cops about shooting the eye.

  "Yes, mis'," it said. "Will that be all?"

  "No." I settled back onto the seat more comfortably and turned off the gun. "Close the door and take me to 334 Sekizawa," I said. That was about two blocks from Nakada's; I'd figured I could walk the rest of the way from there.

  To keep my muscles from stiffening up, I flexed the arm the recoil had banged around. My symbiote had already suppressed the soreness.

  I felt a little sorry about blanking the eye like that, but what the hell, it was just a dumb machine. It hadn't had any sense of self-preservation, and might not have really been sentient at all.

  I wondered what Mishima would do about losing his gadget. It was a safe bet he wasn't going to be happy with me.

  I also wondered if Mishima's reaction would really matter to me after my visit to Nakada.

  The cab dropped me on Sekizawa, and I took back my card and climbed out and stood there while it took off. I waited until it was out of sight before I began walking.

  The Nakada place was easy enough to find, certainly; countin
g the grounds it covered an entire block. It was big and elegant, and the exterior was done all in white and silver, but it looked dull red in the light of Eta Cass B. The red was spangled with polychrome highlights where it caught glimmers from the Trap, but it was still dim and shadowed. The dawn drew a bright haze of pink across the sky above that made the house look dead and dark by comparison, and pretty ominous. If there were any windows they didn't show, but of course they could have been inbound-transmissive only. No lights showed at all, anywhere.

  I didn't see anything I could identify positively as a gate or door; I knew an entrance had to be there somewhere, but it was blended into the wall. I'd expected that. It was the fashion among those who could afford it, and Sayuri Nakada could sure as hell afford it. If I'd had legitimate business there, the theory went, someone would have told me where the door was. And there would have been lights on to welcome me, too.

  I wasn't welcome, but I had business there, all right. The lack of lights might have meant that Nakada wasn't home, but I wasn't going to let a detail like that stop me. Somebody would be in there, even if it was just some basic software.

  As I stood there on the front terrace I realized that I'd never put the HG-2 away after shooting the spy-eye, that the gun was still in my hand; I'd turned it off but never reholstered it. Even though I knew that my absentmindedness was a sign that I wasn't really at my best, I decided that my hand was the right place for it. I didn't have the time or the patience to be subtle anymore. I didn't know for sure that the cab hadn't called the cops. I didn't know whether Mishima might be coming after me already. I couldn't afford to waste time figuring out a better approach.

  I pointed the HG-2 at a random spot in the middle of the facade, turned it back on, and said, loudly but not shouting, "This thing's loaded with armor-piercing explosive shells, and they can do one hell of a lot of damage. I need to talk to Sayuri Nakada. You get her out here, or let me in, and I'll put down the gun; you give me an argument and I start blowing expensive holes in the wall. If she's not home, you let me in and I'll wait. What'll it be?"