New York Nights [Virex 01]

by Eric Brown

  Below, he heard the sound of footsteps on the fire escape. He took off, running to the nearest satellite dish. It was set at an angle of forty-five degrees, and facing the direction of the fire escape. He decided that to use the first dish as cover might be too obvious. He sprinted across the roof to where half a dozen dishes regarded the heavens. He grabbed one and tipped it back to give his boots more purchase on the lower rim, then took hold of the antenna and hauled himself aboard like some desperate wind-surfer.

  A rivet was missing from the seam of the dish, and if Halliday lowered his head and squinted through the hole he could make out the expanse of the roof and the distant shape of the fire escape.

  He wondered if the Latino would be stupid enough not to realise that the dishes were the only possible hiding places. If he checked them, or took no chances and either cut them or pumped them full of bullets one by one . . ,

  Only then did Halliday wonder why the guy wanted him dead, and what if anything linked the Latino to the disappearance of Sissi Nigeria.

  His ankles ached and his hands, where they gripped the freezing metal of the antenna, felt as if they were being cut open with razor blades. He held on with one hand, warming the other under his armpit. He peered through the rivet hole in the dish and sighted the fire escape.

  The Latino appeared. The top of his head showed slowly, cautiously, followed by his raised right hand bearing a weapon. When he saw that the immediate vicinity was clear, he stepped from the fire escape and crouched, taking in the length and breadth of the rooftop, assessing the possibilities. Halliday felt his mouth run dry. If he survived this, when he survived this, he’d have a hell of a tale to tell Barney and Kim. He was aware of the laboured thudding of his heart, and his breath sounded loud enough to give away his position.

  As Halliday watched, he felt his stomach turn and he was almost physically sick. The Latino walked towards the first satellite dish, the one facing the fire escape, and seemed to consider its potential as a place of concealment. He evidently decided that they offered perfect cover, slipped the revolver he was holding into his belt, removed the cutter and aimed at the dish. A vector of silver laser light illuminated the darkness. It sliced through the metal, and the upper half of the dish slipped to the roof with a crash. Christ, but if he did that to every one . . .

  The Latino moved to the next dish, cutting a slash through the metal. He approached the stand of dishes where Halliday was concealed. He sliced the first dish from a range of two metres, approached the next. Halliday tried to think fast, work out what to do now. If he showed himself, he was dead meat. And if he stayed where he was . . .

  The Latino cut another dish, and Halliday saw how he might survive the encounter. The dish protecting him was one of three in a line, each one arranged behind the other, like spoons. To get an angle on Halliday’s dish, the gunman would be forced to come close . . . close enough, perhaps, for Halliday to leap out and surprise him.

  He readied himself, took the automatic from his pocket to use as a cudgel. The Latino halved the first dish of the three with a protracted squeal of torn metal and moved on to the next. He was perhaps two metres away. If Halliday waited until he was about to slice his own dish, it might be too late to act. He’d dive out when he was slicing the second dish, try to catch him off guard.

  The Latino raised his cutter, fired. The line of silver light lanced out, cleaving the dish through its diameter. As soon as he ceased firing and was lowering the weapon, Halliday dived.

  He touched the ground once and leapt, hitting the Latino in the midriff and sending him sprawling. He dived again, falling across the guy’s chest, and pinioned his cutter hand to the floor. He smashed at the hand with the butt of his automatic, breaking bones, until the fingers released their grip and the cutter fell away. Halliday dashed it across the rooftop, only now feeling a heady elation surge through him at the thought that, after all, he might survive. He reached for the guy’s belt, found the revolver and flung it as far as he could. His captive was struggling, attempting to reach Halliday’s face and gouge with his undamaged hand.

  Halliday raised his automatic high above his head and brought it down with force, smashing the guy’s cheekbone.

  Nothing, Halliday told himself later, nothing at all could have prepared him for what he saw then. At first he thought he was hallucinating, that the adrenalin of the chase and fight had affected his vision.

  The Latino’s face underwent a rapid transformation. The very flesh seemed to flicker, lose its definition and shape. For a fraction of a second the face became one completely different, an almost subliminal flash of someone else, too rapid for Halliday to say whether it was a man’s or woman’s, young or old. Then the face was the Latino’s again, before once more flickering and changing, and this time the change stayed for seconds. A pretty-faced blonde woman stared up at him - though the eyes, he thought, the eyes were just as cruel as the Latino’s. The sight filled Halliday with fear greater than that he had experienced at any time during the chase, a fear of the inexplicable.

  He cried out and rolled away, staggered to his feet and ran. He meant to head for the fire escape, but he was disoriented and got it wrong. He was heading in the opposite direction. He stopped, almost weeping now, turned. The Latino ... or whatever the hell he was . . . climbed slowly to his feet, staggering, his damaged hand cradled across his chest. He saw Halliday and lurched towards him. In appearance he was the Latino again, though there was something nebulous, almost undefined, about the cast of the features - as if they were attempting to return to their original guise, but could not quite make it.

  Halliday turned, ran, and stopped quickly. He was at the edge of the building. He turned and faced the Latino. Christ, but the euphoria he’d experienced just seconds ago tasted sour now. He knew he had to fight, but the prospect of facing again something that he could neither explain nor understand filled him with irrational fear. The Latino approached, crouched, ready for Halliday should he try to run for it.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ Halliday shouted.

  The Latino just stared, his refusal to speak almost as eerie as his earlier metamorphosis.

  He caught Halliday by surprise. He had not expected the Latino to attack, dive at him. He yelled out as his assailant launched himself and hit him in the midriff.

  Halliday felt himself topple backwards, experienced that sudden, fraction-of-a-second apprehension that there was nothing, nothing at all he could do to stop himself.

  A sickening lurch.

  Oh, Christ. . .

  And he was falling. It happened too fast for him to understand that he was dead, that he could not survive a fall from a height of twenty, thirty metres, but the knowledge of his failure swept through him like a wave. Geared to think only of survival, his animal brain was denied any option, and howled at the fact of its extinction.

  Then he hit something, something soft. He seemed to bounce, roll, pain shooting through his torso and limbs, but not terminal pain. He was tumbling down a pile of something, and only later did he work out what had saved his life: garbage, bagged in polycarbon-weave sacks and awaiting the next collection.

  He dropped again, a short distance this time. He yelled as he was deposited from the piled garbage. He struck the ground with a breathtaking impact. He tried to climb to his feet, but succeeded only in rolling onto his back. He lay moaning, barely conscious, staring up at the bright scatter of stars. Something warm was trickling into his eyes, which he realised must be blood. He found himself wondering how he might die - from loss of blood, or from exposure to the sub-zero temperature? - before he finally, blissfully, passed out.

  * * * *

  Three

  Anna Ellischild finished the last scene of the holoscript and emailed the pages to her producer over at Tidemann’s Holo-Productions.

  She ordered the TrueVoc program to shut down, pushed her swivel chair away from the desk and stretched, yawning. At Christmas, Sapphic Island had been a hit in holo-auditoriums all acro
ss the country, and Tidemann’s had offered her a new, improved contract for a further six episodes. She’d dictated the second series in record time, around three hours per script, and told herself that three hours was probably too long to be spending on such shit.

  The screen chimed and her producer, Felicity, smiled out, waving fingers. ‘Just read the last scene, Anna. Loved it. Liked the conflict. Great cliffhanger. Sasha is developing into a wonderful character. A true heroine for our time.’ She drew breath. ‘But what did you think about the sex scene?’

  Here it comes, Anna thought. The old ‘love it, sweetie, but. . .’ proviso.

  She remembered Felicity’s response to reading the very first script of Sapphire Island - as it was then - a year ago. ‘Absolutely loved the script, Anna. But don’t you think the title lacks a little ... I don’t know, specificity?’

  It had become a joke amongst Anna’s writer friends. ‘Don’t you think this scene lacks a little . . .specificity?’

  Anna had responded with, ‘Do you mean it needs to be less subtle? How about Raging Dykes on Dildo Party Island?’

  Her producer had blown her a sweet kiss. ‘Think not, Anna. How about Sapphic Island?’

  Which was almost as bad as her joke title. But she who pays the ferry woman . . . Sapphic Island it had become. And, to Felicity’s credit, she’d allowed Anna a pretty free rein with the script.

  Perhaps only about fifty per cent of her original work was altered in production . . .

  Now Anna lodged her legs on the swivel chair and hugged her shins, staring at Felicity from between her knees. ‘The sex scene?’ she said. ‘Well, I was deliberately keeping it low-key. This is the fifth episode, after all. We don’t want to pre-empt the orgy in episode six.’

  Sometimes she had to stop herself from laughing when taking part in script conferences with Felicity and the other luvvies over at Tidemann’s.

  Felicity was saying, ‘But surely in this situation, Sasha would demand cunnilingus from Amanda and Jo - we should explicitly intimate that it’s going on, even if the cameras don’t dwell. . .’

  How, Anna thought, does one ‘explicitly intimate’ anything?

  ‘Felicity, Sasha doesn’t even care for Jo. She’s only invited her around to ingratiate herself in order to get the job.’

  ‘In that case how about rewriting the earlier scene where Sasha approaches Jo for the job? How about sexing it up a little? That’s it! Sasha fancies Jo as well as Amanda, and the last scene brings them together and Sasha gets the job. How does that sound?’

  It sounded lousy. Felicity had obviously not followed the character’s motivations through the earlier episodes. . . But what the hell? She was being paid a hundred thousand dollars per episode, and the crap was appearing under a pseudonym. So what had she to lose?

  She nodded. ‘You might have something there. It’d certainly end episode five with a bang.’

  Felicity smiled. ‘Thought you’d like it. Okay, leave it with you? Need the rewrite by tomorrow early, okay?’

  Anna nodded. She could do the work in fifteen minutes. ‘It’ll be with you tonight.’

  ‘Terrific, sweetie. See you!’ She waved fingers again and was gone.

  Sighing, Anna stood and found her headphone and mic. She slipped the unit around her neck and walked to the window. ‘TrueVoc, on.’ She waited a few seconds. ‘Sapphic Island, episode five, scene fifteen. Cut lines . . .’ She approached the screen and peered at the text. ‘Cut lines five through to thirty. Replace with the following

  She moved from the study to the lounge, dictating. She rented a big apartment in East Village, four big second-floor rooms overlooking Tompkins Square. She’d moved here late last year, after Sapphic Island took off, and was already beginning to feel guilty. For how many years had she lived in a tiny bedsit in the Bronx, practically starving while she wrote novel after novel which were met with the standard publishers’ rejection: We thought this work showed great artistry and intelligence. However, we would find it hard to market in the current cultural climate . . .

  Two years ago, on the advice of a friend in the holo-business, she’d developed the idea of a drama set on a holiday island catering for lesbians. Some dyke in production had liked the treatment and commissioned Anna to do a pilot episode. The original one hour holo-drama had gone down well, and she’d been commissioned to write six more.

  She’d started the project with high ideals. She had intended the series to explore the psychology and sociology of alternative women, but done with a light touch so as not to alienate the mainstream audience. Felicity had greeted each draft with exaggerated enthusiasm . . . and then asked for a few minor changes. TheSapphic Island that showed to rave reviews at Christmas bore little resemblance to the original Sapphire Island. Come the second series, Anna had known exactly what Felicity required, and had hacked out the episodes in record time.

  Each script contained about as much work as a page of her serious novels, and earned her about ten times as much as the elusive advance on a literary novel . . . each of which took her a year to write.

  She finished the scene, reworked the dialogue to include the added oral sex, and emailed it off to Felicity. The irony was, Felicity was a tight-assed little straight who’d never even kissed a dyke, never mind experienced the pleasures of a woman going down on her.

  Anna quit the apartment before the producer could get back to her.

  It was a day rare for January, a bright blue sky, brittle sunlight, frost underfoot. She huddled into her coat and tried to shut out the ever-present noise of the city. It seemed impossible for New Yorkers to conduct a conversation without shouting: every few metres she passed people arguing and beggars calling for dollars. The piercing whine of road drills was a constant background effect, interspersed with snatches of mood-music belting at full volume from stores and private apartments.

  She considered taking a train, then had second thoughts. The subway was unpleasantly crowded these days: a combination of refugees making the platforms their temporary homes and more city dwellers than ever using the rail system.

  She made for Broadway, where she’d hail a cab and make the short journey to the Mantoni Tower, where Kia worked.

  The sidewalks were busy with pedestrians and encamped refugee families, while the streets were relatively clear of traffic. A few electric buses shuttled back and forth. Cop cars and taxis still patrolled, along with the occasional vehicle owned by richer citizens. Personally, she thought the oil crisis no bad thing - it made New York habitable again; the streets were no longer death traps and the air was getting cleaner by the day. She had to smile at the conditioned citizens, though: they still kept to the sidewalks and crossed at the crossings, as if the old jaywalking proscriptions still held. Anna took great delight in walking across wherever she wanted. Late at night you could wander right down the middle of some streets in perfect safety.

  She caught a cab and looked forward to meeting Kia. They’d missed each other last night. Kia had gone along to the Scumbar, while Anna had dined with a few writer friends in Chinatown. Kia had come home in the early hours, and was up early to start work before Anna awoke.

  She’d met Kia Johansen in the Scumbar about a year ago, and at first Anna had no reason to assume that it wasn’t going to be just another brief sexual encounter that would fade, after the first week of passion, to friendship. Anna had no more desire for monogamy than most of the women she knew. She was happy to live alone and reward herself with the occasional brief affair. Then she met Kia, and after a couple of days during which they rarely left the bed, Anna knew that this was going to be different. She was wary at first: Kia likewise had no plans to settle into a serious relationship, and Anna was loath to be the first to suggest that this might grow into something more than just a brief, passion-filled fling.

  Mutually, they had sought each other’s company. After a month of seeing each other every day, it was Kia who suggested that Anna move in with her. Kia had lived in a tiny apartment in West
Village, hardly big enough for her alone, never mind Anna as well. Anna had been in the process of moving into the roomy second-floor suite in East Village, and it seemed sensible that Kia should move in with her.

  It had been the first time that she had lived with anyone in eight years, and despite her own doubts - and the counsel of friends who forecast a quick separation - it seemed to work. Anna had found in Kia someone who understood her, who cared and sympathised. She loved Kia for her headstrong eccentricity, a mad exterior that concealed a serious sensibility she divulged only to those she trusted.

  The affair had lasted almost a year now, far longer than she or any of her friends thought likely, and as far as Anna was concerned it could go on forever.

  She paid the driver, stepped from the cab and pushed her way across the crowded sidewalk. She left the noise of the street behind her as she stepped through the sliding glass entrance of the towering jet-black obelisk, the headquarters of Mantoni Entertainment.