by Ian McDonald
‘Get him out of here!’ Rafa yells.
Marina has already fled the court arena. She presses the back of her head against the wall, hoping that its solidity and cool will press down the pulses of nausea. Escoltas rush past her to escort the Cortas to their waiting transport; a glass partition separates the Corta side of the corridor from the Mackenzie. Their blades huddle around the Mackenzie court party but Marina can see Duncan Mackenzie wipe blood from his mother-in-law’s face.
‘Oh Carlinhos,’ she whispers. ‘I could have loved you.’
The first Corta Hélio extractor goes dark within ten minutes of Carlinhos Corta’s victory in the Court of Clavius. Thirty seconds later, the second goes offline. Within three minutes the entire North Imbrium samba-line has gone dark.
In the passenger pod of VTO moonship Pustelga, Rafa, Lucas, Carlinhos and Heitor Pereira’s familiars light up. On the train back to Hypatia Junction, Sombra alerts Wagner Corta. In the moto to the Meridian apartment, Beijaflor and Hetty key in their clients.
Corta Hélio is under attack.
The hire of a VTO moonship is hefty even for a Dragon but Rafa knew that whatever the result on the killing floor of the Court of Clavius he would need to get the family to safety fast. By the time the ship drops on to the pad at João de Deus, West and East Imbrium and Central Serenity are all down.
‘We’ve just lost West Serenity,’ Heitor Pereira says as the ship lowers the pod on to the tractor. ‘I have South Serenity, I’ll link you in to it.’
Helmet feed appears on everyone’s lenses: a devastated samba-line. The camera pans across wreckage and scrap, metal and plastic shards strew far across the regolith; five extractors dead, a rover smashed open like a skull by falling construction beams.
‘Are you getting this?’ a woman’s voice shouts. Her familiar-tag identifies her as Kiné Mbaye: Mare Serenitatis. ‘They’re killing us.’ Behind her a flash in the sky, a blast of light. An entire structural truss spins towards the camera. The woman swears in French. The camera goes dead. The name tag turns white.
‘Carlinhos!’ Rafa shakes his brother. After the explosive rage and madness of the court-arena Carlinhos collapsed into catatonia. His seconds wrestled him down to the zashitnik stables where a medical bot patched up his abdominals, his biceps and shot him full of tranquiliser. His seconds showered off the blood, shoved him into street clothes, bundled him on to the Pustelga. ‘What’s happening?’
Carlinhos tries to focus on his brother’s face.
‘We’ve lost the entire South Serenity samba-line,’ Heitor Pereira says. His face is grey. Airlocks link and equalise, the passengers enter the elevator lobby. ‘Thirty lives.’
‘Carlinhos! You’re the duster.’
‘Show me,’ Carlinhos says. He reviews Kiné Mbaye’s footage three times as the elevator arrives. ‘Stop all the samba-lines.’
‘What’s happening—’ Rafa begins but Lucas cuts him off.
‘I’ve given the order.’
‘It won’t hold them off for long. They’ll just recalculate the trajectories.’ Carlinhos looks at each of the faces in the elevator car in turn to see if any of them have worked it out. ‘They’re firing BALTRAN capsules at us. You can see one in the South Serenity report if you slow it right down, just before the impact. That flash, it’s not a flash, it’s a BALTRAN capsule impact.’
‘There’s nowhere we can hide,’ Rafa says.
‘This isn’t something you just make up on the spur of the moment,’ Lucas says. ‘You have to plot the locations of every single one of our extractors, book the capsules, target the launchers. They’ve had this planned for a long time.’
‘Who?’ Heitor Pereira asks. Lucas rounds on him.
‘Who do you think, you old fool?’
São Sebastião Quadra Kondakova Prospekt, the elevator says.
‘What can we do?’ Rafa says.
‘Outbid them,’ Lucas says. ‘No one beats General Money.’ He issues commands to Toquinho. There is a pause. There has never been a pause before.
Access to Corta Hélio accounts is temporarily unavailable, Toquinho says.
The elevator doors open.
‘Explain,’ Lucas says.
Our bank systems are under a denial of service attack, Toquinho says.
The elevator lobby rocks. All the lives on Kondakova Prospekt look up, the instinct of people who live in caves.
‘What we need right now,’ Rafa says. ‘A quake.’
‘Not a quake,’ Carlinhos says. ‘Shaped charges.’
One woman, one man, smartly dressed in the fashion of the moment, disembark from the 28 express and pass through the airlocks into Twé Station. They move through the press of passengers with poise and direction; they seem to have a clear destination through Twé’s notorious labyrinth. They are guided. At a public printer they pick up two pre-ordered plastic knives; notched and edged and keen to harm. This woman and man are assassins, hired to locate Lucasinho Corta and gut him. Their familiars lock on to Jinji. The boy is public and exposed. They track him through the tunnels and agraria, across high walkways over precipitous farm tubes; along the ramps that spiral up through the residential zones, every step closing the distance between them.
Lucasinho Corta has spent the morning in his room waiting for news from the Court of Clavius, shredded by guilt. His father has told him time and again that it’s not about the wedding. It’s about the slap. The calculated insult, the call to duel. This is between him and Bryce Mackenzie. The wedding was the pretext.
I’m coming, Lucasinho said.
You’re not, Lucas ordered.
I need to see, Lucasinho said.
No one needs to see, Lucas said. Stay in Twé. You’re safe in Twé. I’ll let you know.
Lucasinho tried to sit, tried to walk about, tried to play games, tried to scan the social networks, tried to bake something. He couldn’t settle. He couldn’t concentrate. He felt sick with dread. Then Jinji lit with a message from Lucas. Carlinhos won. Nothing more.
Carlinhos won. Lucasinho feels light. He feels released. He feels elated. He has to tell someone, has to see someone. A familiar message won’t do. Abena meet me. He almost runs through the tunnels of Twé. The assassins flicker information between their familiars. The target is moving. So much simpler than having to hack apartment security. They’ll cut him off at Nkrumah Circle and take him there, in public. They imagine their channels are secure. There. Their hands close on their concealed knives. They move to bracket Lucasinho.
Danger, Jinji says. Danger, Lucasinho Corta! Lucasinho freezes, spins in the middle of Rawlings Plaza trying to see which of those hundreds of people wants to kill him. He sees the man step towards him, the hand on the knife. He’s close. He doesn’t see the woman behind him.
But the robot in the roof sees her. AKA AIs saw patterns in the arrival of these two passengers, the activity of the Kuffuor Street printer and the evolving events on the surface. They tasked a security bot, a clever spider that scuttled unseen through the cluttered ceilings of Twé’s crowded tunnels, tracking the assassins as they tracked Lucasinho Corta. The bot targets locks and attacks. It leaps on to the woman assassin’s neck and sinks a neurotoxin needle into her neck. Even as her lungs lock rigid the bot springs from her, somersaults over Lucasinho’s shoulder into the face of the male assassin. His hands never even make it to cover and protect before the thing is clinging to his face. AKA BTX toxin has been engineered to be fast and sure. The bodies drop on either side of Lucasinho Corta as the spider scuttles away into the under-architecture of Rawlings Plaza. AKA does not like to involve itself in the politics of the other Dragons but when it must the policy of the Golden Stool is to act quickly and decisively.
You’re safe now, Jinji says. Help will soon be here.
Wagner has developed an affection for the quiet pillar at the end of the platform in Hypatia Junction. It’s a place between worlds – the full world and the dark world; now it’s become a place between times: past and future.
Every Dragon, even a half-Dragon like him, lives under the shadow of violence but he never saw a human die at the hand of another. He can still smell the blood. He always will. He imagines he reeks of it and that everyone on the train could smell it. Wagner knows the wolf in him, but in the court-arena he saw a thing inside Carlinhos beyond wolves, a thing Wagner does not know and which scares him because it has always lived there inside Carlinhos and he never saw it. It makes every moment and experience they’ve shared as brothers false.
When Dragons fight, where does the wolf stand?
Sombra lights: a call from Analiese.
‘Wagner, where are you?’
‘Hypatia.’
‘Wagner, go back to Meridian.’
‘What’s wrong, Ana?’
‘Go back to Meridian. Don’t come here. Don’t come home.’
The low urgency of her voice, her hushed pitch, the secrecy in her sibilants, all these rasp his concentration and stand the hairs up on Wagner’s arms and neck.
‘What is it, Ana?’
Her voice drops to a whisper. ‘They’re here. They’re waiting for you. Oh God they made me promise …’
‘Ana, who …’
‘The Mackenzies. They made me, they said you’re either family or you’re not. Don’t come back, Wagner. They want every Corta dead.’
‘Ana—’
‘I’m family. I’m all right. I’m all right, Wagner.’ He hears a fearful, stifled sob. ‘Go!’
I’ve lost the connection, Sombra says.
‘Get her back.’
I’m not able to do that, Wagner.
Families mill on the platforms. Children’s voices echo and the echoes encourage them to shout louder. Noodle cartons blow in the strange winds of the under croft, evading trash bots. Up there, Cortas and Mackenzies battle. Down in the station, people change trains for work, family, friends, love, pleasure. If they saw the man huddled against the pillar with his knees pulled in to his chest, would they ever imagine that he’s fighting for his life?
Analiese is back there. He doesn’t know what’s happened to her.
Go, she said.
Wagner gets up from his pillar and crosses the platform to the opposite track. Exile then, in the company of wolves.
Kondakova Prospekt trembles again. Dust dislodged from the high roof drops in sparkling clouds as soft as grace. The street comes to a standstill. The people look up first, then at each other.
Breaches at Santa Barbra and São Jorge main locks, each familiar relates to its client. Elevator security is compromised.
‘They’re coming through the roof,’ Rafa says.
Armed and hostile units at the main station.
‘Show me,’ Carlinhos orders. São Jorge shows him bodies in anti-stab body-armour disembarking from the train locks and forming up into squads on the platform. They wear crossed blades and taser holsters. A mundane invasion, on the 87 Limited. Passengers frown in confusion: is an episode of Hearts and Skulls being filmed? Train passengers and civilians are not legitimate targets. ‘How many?’
Fifty. Ten in the Santa Barbra lock and the São Jorge lock. Five each in the São Sebastião elevators. São Sebastião Quadra shakes to another blast. We’ve lost integrity on the emergency lock. My cameras are down.
The sunline flickers. The sunline never flickers. A terrible fearful moan washes up and down Kondakova Prospekt. The greatest fear is to be trapped in the dark, and the air leaking away. Enemy personnel in São Sebastião Quadra. Enemy personnel advancing on Kondakova and Tereshkova Prospekts.
‘They’ll slaughter us down here,’ Carlinhos says. ‘Heitor, I want two escoltas on Lucas and Rafa. Rafa …’
‘I need to be with my kids. They could be in Boa Vista …’
‘You can’t access the station from this side of the quadra. Take the perimeter tunnel and come out at West 12th. Use the Serova Prospekt entrance. Lucas.’
‘I’m sounding the general evacuation alarm.’
‘Good man. But you need to get out of here too.’
‘I stay with the family.’
‘You’re not the fighter here, Luca. They will cut you apart, man.’
‘They tried to kill Lucasinho, Carlo. They tried to kill my boy.’
‘You’re Corta Hélio now. Sorry Rafa. Save the company. You have a plan?’
‘I always have a plan.’
‘Go on go go.’
The skyline flashes. Seven short flashes, one long. General evacuation. The thing you fear worst; it just happened. Radiation, unconfined fire, depressurisation, roof-fall, breach. Invasion. Get safe, get to the refuges, get out. A thousand familiars on Kondakova Prospekt and on every level and prospekt and quadra of João de Deus echo the alarm. The quadra keeps a moment of shocked stillness then explodes into movement. Motos swerve and steer their passengers to the nearest muster point. Pedestrians breaks into runs; fliers swoop down to the safety points shown to them by the familiars. Shops, cafés, bars, clubs empty. Panicked drunks stare at the sky as if it is falling. School teachers gather their classes and hurry their weeping charges to the refuges. Where’s Mãe, Pai? Parents call out for their children, lost children cry in panic, bots locate the waifs and lost and shepherd them to safety. Families will be reunited after, if there is an after. In the noche and semana quadras, the sleepers, the early morning people, the shift folk are shocked awake. Fear, fire, fall! Offices, apartments empty; feet pound on levels and walkways. Bodies pour down staircases, drop from the lower levels in low-gravity leaps.
Figures in combat armour advance up Kondakova Prospekt, ignoring the people fleeing around them. Behind them, the offices of Corta Hélio explode, one after another, sprays of construction plastic, cheap wood and soft furnishings.
‘São Jorge, print me my armour.’
Available at West Fifteen public printer in three minutes.
‘Heitor, give me my knives.’
Heitor Pereira opens the ceremonial case. The light of the sunline flashes from Carlinhos Corta’s lunar steel blades. A squad of Corta Hélio security arrive breathless; unequipped, confused, too few.
‘You, you, with Rafa and Lucas. Heitor, take five escoltas and fall back.’ Carlinhos can’t afford five escoltas. But he’s seen the bodies among the flying debris of the exploded offices. The Mackenzies are destroying Corta Hélio substance and soul. ‘Put a general call out: every Corta Hélio employee musters with you. Get them to the East Sebastião refuge. The Mackenzies won’t touch them there.’
‘You think?’
‘Refuges are sacred. Not even the MacKenzies would blow a refuge. Go.’
Heitor Pereira beckons his troops to him. They lope up Kondakova Prospekt, hands on hilts. They are a brave sight and a hopeless one. João de Deus is too big, too diverse, spread across too many timezones and the Mackenzies are already all through it. João de Deus is lost.
‘Rafa!’
Lucas is already a level up, climbing steep ladders with his two bodyguards against the downpour of refugees. For the schemer, the man is handy.
‘Get out of here!’
‘Carlo!’
Lucas calls down from two levels up. The streets and prospekt are emptying now; abandoned motos crowd the refuge locks, purposeless bots scurry back and forth.
‘I can burn them. The Mackenzies. Robert, Jade, Duncan, Bryce: all of them. I can burn them all.’
‘We’re not like them, Luca.’
Lucas nods, then he is swooping hand over hand up the ladders. Rafa takes a last look and ducks down a cross-street. Carlinhos straps on his impact armour. He slides the knives into magnetic scabbards.
‘We buy time,’ Carlinhos tells his squad. Eight escoltas. The Mackenzie blades are twenty abreast, sweeping up Kondakova Prospekt. ‘A fighting withdrawal. Buy that time dear. Okay, with me.’ He breaks into a jog. His fighters form a wedge. Carlinhos cries a howl of defiance and his voice rings from the walls of empty São Sebastião Quadra.
Rafa runs. His jacket and tie flap. His shoes are
all wrong. Emergency lights pulse-rotate yellow. The floor of the orbital tunnel is littered with discarded water bottles and drums and tassels in the colours of the orixas. The Long Run has finally come to an end.
*
Before they leave the apartment Ariel stuffs her and Marina’s bags with cash.
‘Lucas said the accounts were locked,’ Ariel says. ‘This works anywhere.’
‘On the train?’
‘I booked the tickets ten minutes ago.’
Corta Hélio is collapsing. João de Deus is under attack. Carlinhos is fighting, Rafa is trying to get to Boa Vista. No one knows where Lucas is. Wagner is in Meridian, Lucasinho in Twé. Ariel and Marina are going to join him there and seek sanctuary. Marina can’t believe how fast it all came apart.
Twenty levels, one kilometre to Meridian Station. A hundred deaths could be waiting out there. Motos are fast but motos can be hacked. Elevators and escalators can hide a dozen blades. Any or all of the hundreds on the street could be hired knives. Right now, drones could be targeting this apartment, assassin bots and neurotoxic insects climbing up the ductwork.
‘Get your legs,’ Marina says. ‘We walk.’
Ariel freezes halfway to the ladeira.
‘Come on,’ Marina shouts.
‘I can’t,’ Ariel says. ‘My legs won’t work.’
Marina had covered every threat and hack except the most personal and debilitating.
‘Get them off.’ The very next hack could command the legs to walk Ariel straight into a ring of blades.
‘I can’t disconnect them.’ Ariel hisses with effort and fear. Marina pulls her knife.
‘Sorry about this.’
The first cut sends the skirt to the ground. The second and third sever the flex cables to the power supply. Servos unpowered, the legs buckle. Ariel flails, falls, Marina catches her.
‘Get them off me, get them off me,’ Ariel cries, fumbling at the dead prostheses.
‘I don’t want to cut you.’ Marina works carefully, quickly with the point of the knife, nicking plastic locks and catches. The concentration is furious. ‘Keep still!’ Two connectors to go. Ariel’s apartment is off a quiet side alley but it can only be a matter of moments before those who hacked the bot legs come looking to see why their plan has not succeeded. And this is a blind alley. ‘Got you.’ Marina prises the legs open. Ariel drags herself clear.
