I held up my palms to stop him. "Okay, time out, let's see if I get this. Somewhere, in some volcano somewhere, there's going to be a shaman slotting around with this barrier thing—"
"More than one shaman is necessary," the gray-faced guy put in. "There are forces of stability that naturally counter any premature weakening of the barrier. Those forces must be overcome."
Premature? Interesting word. I'd think about that later.
'"Okay, amendment noted. So a whole drekload of shamans are slotting around with the barrier, trying to siphon in some mana. And instead of power, what they'll get is this cosmic nasty that'll . . . what? What'll happen?"
"Suffering," the shaman said, his voice sounding cold and distant. "Death. Devastation. Initially limited to the islands, but believe me, it will spread."
I nodded as if I understood. "And this cosmic nasty's going to make life drekky for you guys too, I assume?"
His eyebrows rose. "Members of the Hive? No," he said firmly. "The entities that come through won't waste any efforts on us. Not until more convenient prey is no longer available."
I didn't like the sound of that at all ... if I believed this miserable slag, of course. And did I? The jury was still out. "Uh-huh," I said neutrally. Then I leaned in close and poked him in the chest with my finger. "Then why the frag are you telling me this, huh? The way you're talking, it sounds like this is going to be no skin—or chitin or whatever—off your hoop. So why bother? Why not just sit back and watch the fragging fun?" My rage was back, a cold fire burning in my chest. I could feel my pulse pounding in my temples. "Hey, it'll probably be a pretty good fragging show, won't it? Maybe you'll pick up some pointers on how to spread suffering, death, and devastation, right?" I paused theatrically. "Or maybe that's the fragging point, huh? You don't want someone else pissing in your pool, is that it? Anyone the cosmic nasty scrags is one less for you to possess or kill or turn into a fragging monstrosity, right? Frag, you just don't want the competition!"
The shaman was totally unmoved. Flecks of my spittle glistened on his cheeks and forehead—I'd leaned in real close—but he didn't seem to notice or care. "Our intention isn't to spread death and suffering," he said quietly.
"Tell that to the people in Chicago!"
"It wasn't we who detonated the nuclear device," he responded calmly—and ail the more infuriatingly because he was right, of course. "All our actions were in self-defense."
"Yeah, right, they were!"
"You don't know us, Mr. Montgomery . . ."
"And I don't want to!" I spat back.
". . . But believe this if you can. We are not your enemy. We bear no ill-will toward metahumanity. Quite the opposite, in fact, as your sister can vouch."
"Don't you mention my sister, drekwipe!"
"Our goals and our agenda are our own," he went on, undismayed. "Sometimes they may conflict with yours; most of the time they're totally unconnected with yours. And sometimes—as in this case—our best interest and yours coincide."
"And I'm supposed to take that on faith, is that it?" I wanted to know.
"That's up to you," the shaman said simply.
I paused. My mind was in chaos, churning thoughts conflicting wildly with each other. I wished there was some god I could believe in, some Great Referee to whom I could yell "Time out!" No luck. The Insect shaman was still watching me with his glassy eyes and expressionless face. I couldn't remain angry at him, I found, not without some kind of response from him. It was like trying to hold a grudge against a footstool or a fragging doorstop. I sighed again. "Okay, hoa," I said quietly. "Just for the sake of argument, let's say I swallow the line you're feeding me. What then? What do you want from me?"
He answered at once. "Use your influence to stop this before it goes too far."
I laughed in his face. "Influence? Chummer, you've got the wrong slag here, let me tell you. I've got about as much influence as a fragging pawn in a chess game, as much as . . ." My imagination failed me, so I just waved my hands about eloquently. "Zilch, in other words. Zero. Zip. Null. Get me?"
"You have influence," he stressed. "You don't wish to acknowledge it for your own reasons, but you have it."
"Yeah, right," I snorted. "I'm as significant in this as tits on a bull."
"Oh?" The shaman's eyebrow rose again. "That's not how it seems to others, Mr. Montgomery." He glanced pointedly around the suite, his gaze settling in turn on each of the security personnel. "This isn't the residence of someone lacking in influence."
"Them? They're not following my orders. They're the Ali'i's people."
The shaman nodded. "And the Ali'i listens to what you have to say. You're significant in his interpretation of events. Otherwise, he wouldn't have arranged this meeting.
"The same with Yamatetsu Corporation," he pressed on firmly. "If someone listens to your words or follows your actions, then you have influence. And there are others, aren't there, Mr. Montgomery?" he asked. "There are others who consider you significant."
"To the extent of threatening to kill me, yeah," I said sarcastically.
"And that's to a significant extent indeed," the shaman shot back, "as you'll recognize if you'll only think about it. You don't warn off or threaten to kill someone without importance or without influence. You kill them, or you simply ignore them.
"You have influence," he concluded. "Use it."
"I don't know how."
"You will."
I narrowed my eyes. "You really expect me to help you on this?"
The shaman shrugged again. "You want this stopped," he stated, "we want it stopped. Is it really that difficult to understand?"
"So why don't you just"—I gestured vaguely, searching for the right word—"just possess me like you did Theresa? Then you wouldn't have to convince me, would you? I'd just follow orders like a good little drone."
Again, my scorn and anger just rolled off him. "That's not our way," he said quietly. "It must be voluntary ... on both sides. You must accept us, but we must also accept you."
"And I don't 'make the grade'?" The shaman didn't react in any way. So the bugs considered me 4F, did they? Thank God for small favors—if I could believe this slot, at least.
I stared out the window for a few moments. My eyes saw the scenery, but my brain didn't register it. More thoughts—fears, doubts, hopes, dreams—bubbled up from the swamp of my subconscious. I tried to sort through them, separate reason from irrationality. Finally, I turned back to the shaman. "What's in it for me if I do it?" I asked.
He blinked. "The entities will be unable to penetrate the barrier," he said slowly. "They will be unable to prey on—"
I cut him off with a sharp gesture. "No. What's in it for me! Me personally?"
Again the shaman paused. "Payment, you mean?" His tone was confused, as if I'd asked him something he'd never had to consider before.
"More like quid pro quo!" I amended. "I do something that benefits you, you do something that benefits me. Me. Not metahumanity in general. Me. Get it?"
I watched his eyes as he tried to bend his brain around the thought. (Frag if I'd ever needed hard evidence that the Insect spirits were inhuman and alien in their outlook, this was it. The idea of bribery, a surprise? Cut me loose . . .) Finally, he nodded slowly. "Perhaps something can be arranged."
Roughly, I grabbed him by the shoulder, and I dragged him into a corner of the room. Away from the sec-guards, away from Akaku'aka nene. Away from Theresa. "I want her back," I whispered harshly, "My sister."
He blinked again. "What?"
"Look, it's simple. I do this for you, you give me my sister back. Normal, understand? The way she was, with her own thoughts and her own mind and her own soul. You reverse whatever the frag it is you did to her." I crossed my arms. 'That's my price."
The shaman's unblinking eyes were fixed on mine, as if he were trying to see into my mind. "Can we discuss this?" he asked at length.
"No negotiation," I whispered firmly. "That's it. You want me to do
this? Then that's my price. You don't play ball, then I'll use whatever influence I've got to fuck you up, chummer. Anything you do to block these cosmic nasties, I'll throw a fucking wrench into it."
"But the entities—"
"Let 'em come! Doesn't matter squat to me if I don't get my sister back." I leaned in close again. "Scan me, bug-boy?"
He thought about it for a long time—two minutes maybe. It felt more like two hours. I could feel beads of sweat trickling down my spine, soaking the waistband of my trousers. It was all I could do to keep my knees from trembling.
Finally, he nodded once. "Your sister for your cooperation?"
"Yes."
"We have a deal?" I pressed.
"We have a deal."
I thanked whatever gods were listening that he didn't insist we shake hands.
21
Okay, I'd cut myself a deal. Now the question was, how the frag was I going to see my side of it through? (And how the hell could I be sure bug-boy was going to live up to his side? Save that worry for later, I told myself.) The Insect shaman could argue until he was blue in the tits that I had influence. Who knows, maybe he was right, speaking from his own twisted, nonhuman standpoint, but I didn't know how the frag I was going to use it.
Let's say he was right, that some shamans were going to jack around with this barrier—whatever the frag it was—in one of the sites of power in the islands. Fine, take that as a given.
Which site of power? Puowaina? Haleakala? Hona-whatever Bay? Or one of Christ-knew-how-many others?
And when were these shamans going to do the dirty deed? Tonight? Tomorrow? Next month? Or had they already started?
So what the frag was I supposed to do, huh? Use my "influence" to arrange for all the sites of power to be staked out, round the clock, forever and ever amen? Yeah, right.
I sat on the couch in room 1905, New Foster Tower, staring out the window. The sun had gown down maybe an hour before. A couple of the brightest stars—or maybe they were comsats—were visible against the black velveteen sky; the rest couldn't compete with the artificial fire of the city.
Kono and Lupo had taken Theresa and the Insect shaman away a couple of hours before. They didn't say where they were going, and I didn't ask. Theresa promised she'd be in touch, and that was good enough for the moment. On his way out the door, bug-boy had given me a strip of paper from a pocket 'puter's thermal printer—a local LTG number where I could contact him.
That left Louis Pohaku and Akaku'akanene to keep me company. Since I didn't particularly feel like company at the moment, I was relieved when they settled down to do their own thing. The bodyguard quietly field-stripped and reassembled his weapon, then seemed to tune out and go to sleep. The shaman just settled down into full lotus in a corner and stared blankly into space—maybe talking to geese or some damn thing.
It was maybe ninety minutes after sunset that Pohaku surged to his feet—no warning—fragging near scaring me to death. Silently he crossed to the window, staring out and down. City lights reflected in his eyes as he frowned out into the night.
"What?" I asked him.
"Trouble," he said quietly.
I was on my feet and beside him in an instant, straining my eyes to see what was worrying him. Nothing. No fire-flowers blooming from Sand Island ... or anywhere else, for that matter. If I pressed my forehead right up against the transpex, I could look down to the right onto Kalakaua Avenue and watch the cars—mainly corp limos, probably—cruising along it, forming streams of lights. White on one side, red on the other. I blinked. Way down Kalakaua, to the west, there seemed to be a major knot of red taillights.
No, I realized suddenly, the knot of red wasn't the tail-lights of cars. The color was subtly wrong, as was the way it waxed and waned.
Fire. Maybe a burning barricade, maybe the aftermath of a car bomb, I didn't know. Only now that I knew what to concentrate on, I could hear the distant, almost subliminal ululation of sirens. And something else—maybe the crackle of gunfire, I couldn't be certain. One thing I knew—there was trouble in paradise tonight.
Beside me Pohaku was shaking his head. "Lolo, " he muttered to himself ... then noticed my attention, and translated. "Stupid."
If I'd thought the bodyguard had reacted fast before to some cue I'd missed, I hadn't seen anything yet. A knock sounded, and before my brain had even fully registered the sound, Pohaku was flattened against the wall beside the door, SMG out and off safety.
Akaku'akanene was alert, too, back from her avian conversations. Pohaku shot her a quick nod, and the woman closed her beady eyes. After a moment she opened them and announced, "Hiki no. "
Apparently that meant "okay" or "copacetic" or something similar, because I could see Pohaku relax. His gun was still at the ready, but his finger was on the trigger guard now, not on the trigger itself. He reached out to unlock the door, then stepped back well out of the way.
I was about to grouse "Who's fragging room is this anyway?" or some such drek—until I saw who my visitor was.
Visitors, to be precise, but only one of them counted. He flashed me a wry smile as his personal bodyguards shut and locked the door behind him.
"E ku 'u lani, " I began . . .
Gordon Ho waved that off. "I told you, that's not appropriate for the moment." His smile took on a new edge. "Since we're both outcasts, why don't you call me Gordon?" I could see from the way his bodyguards stiffened that they didn't like it, but frag them if they couldn't take a joke. "I'm Dirk, then," I told him. I paused, "So, not to put too fine a point on it—"
"What the frag am I doing here?" he finished for me. He took off his jacket—an armored leather number, quite a change from his feathered regalia—tossed it to a sideboy, and slumped down on the couch. For the first time I noticed how drek-kicked he looked.
"I've got to be somewhere!" he pointed out, "and since I'd already assigned a significant percentage of the people I really trust to this room, I thought, 'why not?' " He sighed, rolling his head as though to relieve tension in his neck. "You wouldn't happen to have some Scotch, would you?"
I realized I hadn't checked for a minibar—which indicated just how distracted I was at the moment. Pohaku had scoped the place out, however, and opened a wooden cabinet next to the trideo to reveal a well-stocked bar. "Make that two," I told him. "Triples, while you're at it." Then I planted myself in an armchair across from Ho.
Pohaku assembled the drinks almost as quickly as he'd responded to trouble and handed them over to us—Ho first, of course. I sipped and let the peaty liquor work its magic on my tangled synapses. The erstwhile King Kamehameha V was doing the same thing, and I could almost see some of the tension melt away from his face. What the frag had he been up to before coming here? Where does a king in exile—by definition, one of the most recognizable of all people—go to avoid notice?
And what would happen to him if he was noticed? I suddenly wondered. "Protective custody?" Or a necktie party on the streetcorner? I guessed it depended on who noticed him first. No wonder he was looking a little ragged around the edges.
We held our peace, the two of us, for maybe five minutes and a hundred milliliters of single-malt scotch. Then Ho sighed and remarked, "Well, it's starting to get . . . interesting ... out there."
I'd decided I wasn't going to be the first to talk biz, but now that he'd broached the subject, I leaned forward. "What the frag's happening out there?" Quickly, I filled him in on the fire—or whatever—we'd spotted from the window.
Ho nodded wearily. "Anticorp violence," he said quietly. "It's breaking out all over the city ... all over the island, if what I heard is true."
"How bad?"
"Disturbingly bad," he admitted. "It's not well organized—not yet—but in some ways that makes it even more difficult to counter."
I nodded agreement. If civil disobedience, which was what we were talking about here, was organized, you could often quell it by snagging the leaders. (Or at least so they taught us at the Lone Star Academy.) B
ut if it was spontaneous mob action? Mobs are creatures with a few hundred legs and no brain (again, a quote from my Academy days), so there's no clean and easy way of shutting them down. "So what's happening?" I pressed.
Ho shrugged. "What isn't happening?" he said dispiritedly. "Cars turned over and torched—that's probably what you saw, by the way. Rocks through windows. Molotov cocktails, sometimes. A couple of sniping incidents."
That shocked me. "Sniping? Already?"
The ex-king smiled, but there was no amusement in it. "Matters are degenerating faster than I'd expected," he allowed.
"What about casualties?"
He shrugged again. "I'm not privy to detailed police reports anymore," he pointed out dryly, "but I'd assume they're probably still light."
"That'll change."
"Yes," he agreed. He was silent for a moment, then went on quietly, "I did hear about one incident. A Mitsuhama executive's limousine was blocked by a mob. No overt violence, just threats ... but her bodyguards overreacted and opened fire." I cringed as he continued. "More than thirty of the rioters dead .. . plus the bodyguards and the executive herself, of course, when the mob rampaged. I understand they turned the car over, built a bonfire around it, and roasted her alive."
It's getting out of control. The thought chilled me like an arctic wind on the nape of my neck. "Somebody's behind it," I pointed out. "Somebody's stirring up the mob."
"Of course," Ho said. (He didn't voice the accompanying, "you idiot. " but his expression conveyed it adequately.)
"Na Kama'aina, right?"
"Initially, yes," Ho corrected. "But they've lost control of the situation, too." He smiled grimly. "It seems that their dogs aren't on quite as short a leash as they'd believed."
Realization dawned. "ALOHA," I breathed.
"Of course. Na Kama'aina never really believed in all of that fiery 'corporations out' rhetoric. They were too realistic for that. They only wanted to use it—and ALOHA itself—as a lever, to oust me from the throne." He smiled again, with bitter humor. "Well, they've achieved that part of their plan.
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