Just in case it was some kind of mistake, he tried again, but again it rang without answer. “Dave, it’s me, Hammell,” he said, deciding to leave another message. “Pick me up in half an hour for a beer, yeah?" He didn’t mention whisky. Too intimidating. "I’d come get you, but I lost my car last night... which I think makes it your fault. We can take a look at that Smoked Trout place, see if it’s really closed. It’s not technically police work if we’re just going for a drink. Call me back.”
Holding the whisky bottle upside down, he shook out the last few drops into a mug that still had a solidified circle of coffee at the bottom, wondering whether that was a bad sign. How can I be an alcoholic if I’m too lazy to walk down the stairs to go the off-licence? Lethargy was preventing him from having a drinking problem, he decided, which probably wasn’t a great sign either now that he thought about it.
He flicked his thumb across the matches he’d lifted from Arthur’s possessions, thinking that pursuing a newly resurrected Red King was surely enough to make anyone need a little snifter. Plus with Toskan gone there was now no buffer between him and the sack. In the back of his mind he’d always known his partner would be first out the door. Hammell just had the better closing record, back when such things had mattered. So as long as Toskan had been there, he’d never been quite on the precipice. Now, though…
Looking out over the city, he happened to catch the vapour trail from a launch as it arced up into the sky. Checking the time, his implant informed him that this was the 23:30 shuttle, headed for an Abaddon-bound liner. Abaddon… Toskan had been right - that had always been his plan, or at least what he told people his plan was. Everyone had to have some kind of plan. But, he wondered, could I really go XS alone?
He shoved the matches into his pocket, deciding that thirty flights of stairs weren’t all that many after all.
The houses were large and new, with facades made entirely from one-way tintable glass and roofs comprised of solar panels to catch the diffuse sunlight. The building materials were all sustainable -recycled aluminium and glass, with wood from forests which had already been replanted. Water was recycled using a communal lake, with human waste used as fertilizer in a large community garden tended by hoverbots. None of the plants and trees were for show. All were required to provide food. Even the flowers were for the bees in the hives to make their honey. In short, it was far too neat and orderly for the likes of Dave Toskan. This had been Meera’s choice.
Stumbling out of the nat and into a light mist, he approached the front door, noticing that the glass wall was set to opaque, which Toskan wouldn’t normally bother to do. If Meera had done it and was inside sleeping, this wouldn’t go well.
He licked his lips nervously as he opened a new bottle, taking a quick gulp as the nat nipped off again, already having been assigned another job.
It’ll go even worse for Toskan, he thought, and that was enough to galvanize him into action. He reached out and pressed the buzzer before stepping back and looking up at the glass front of the building. Seeing no evidence of any lights coming on, he began to knock, quietly at first. After a couple of minutes, a neighbour poked her head out of a window across the street.
“Excuse me,” the woman called over in a clipped accent, “do you realise you’re waking up the entire street?”
“Sorry,” Hammell replied, holding up his hand in apology, realising too late that it was the one holding the whisky. “I’m looking for Dave Toskan.”
“Have you considered the possibility that he isn’t home?”
“Yes,” Hammell said. “I have.”
“And yet you’re still knocking, aren’t you?”
“I am,” Hammell agreed, “for I have also considered the possibility that he is home and is ignoring me because his wife doesn’t want him to come out with me.” If Meera was listening behind the tinted glass, that would surely do it.
“I wonder why,” the neighbor muttered.
“What?”
“He isn’t here,” the woman said quickly. “So, if you please.”
“Wait, where is he?” Hammell asked. “How do you know he’s not here?”
“I don’t know,” the woman sighed, “but a large vehicle was parked outside their house last night. We don't see those kinds of vehicles around here unless people are going extra solar. This is a quiet street. Usually.”
With that, she disappeared behind her own tinted windows and Hammell turned back to the solid, almost seamless glass door. He placed his hand against it and gave it a shove. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t budge. He tried to peer in through the glass but the tint was too good.
Could Toskan really have gone? he wondered. He had a vague recollection of a conversation about Abaddon in the bar. Could last night have been his goodbye? Was that why Hammell had woken up this morning with The Bad Feeling? Leaning up against the door, he dug out poor Arthur’s matchbook, rubbing his thumb on the acid-burned name of the bar. The drone had given no indication that The Happy Trout was open, but then again it hadn’t tried the door. It would be really dumb to go after Roy Brown alone…
Pulling out the corresponding cigarette packet, he considered whether the acid could have penetrated the wrapper and whether smoking an acid-laced cigarette would be bad for his health. It wasn’t likely to be good. Nevertheless he lit one up, letting out a puff of smoke as he felt a concerning fizziness in his mouth. Smoking was actually fairly disgusting, he decided, and it killed you, but similarly banning everything dangerous was making for a dull world.
He was only halfway through the cigarette when the policenat appeared, descending directly in front of the house. Of course. The friendly neighbour wasn’t so friendly after all.
He ground the butt out with his heel, waving away the smoke in the vain hope of avoiding a fine and a misdemeanor charge. As he waited for the androids to emerge, he glanced up the street, an insane idea occurring of just running. Providence would be operating at its peak around here. He’d probably been pinged fifty times since he arrived. Even if he got away tonight, tomorrow morning he’d be taken for questioning the moment he entered the station. It was a crazy idea and he was stupid to even consider it. So he didn’t. He just turned around and did it, howling as he vaulted Toskan’s fence.
Chapter 11
The public nat approached from the air and Hammell had to admit that this form of travel did have its benefits. He had a real sense of what was happening on the border from up here. It was difficult to see down through the haze, but he could just make out the giant machines below as they rapidly reinforced the Reservation Line. Chicken wire mesh was being replaced with a pair of stone walls four metres high, separated by a no-man’s land between. The checkpoints too were being beefed up, with observation towers rising up either side of new heavy-duty gates. Hammell began to think that somebody else must have had an inkling that the Red King was back. It made what he was doing seem even more foolhardy.
The nat began descending automatically, the megaAI in charge of the transport network making sure it didn’t fly over without first passing through security. The gates were being guarded now by police androids - Hube was out of another job - and Hammell rubbed his head, annoyed with himself. Running had been stupid, it was a crime. Then again, the androids in the policenat hadn’t technically accosted him, so there was still a chance he might get away with it…
Security on the ground was even tighter than it had appeared from the air. The gate was an imposing metal structure, manned by two tactical models of the type known as hammerheads, fully armoured and armed with a variety of non-lethal weapons. The flimsy aluminium hut had been replaced by a drop-in military grade container. The observation towers covering the checkpoint on all sides sported heavy gun emplacements. Even if Roy Brown was out there, it seemed like overkill.
“Can we help you, I.A. Hammell?” one of the androids asked as it approached the nat’s open window. No messing about this time, it had pinged him from afar. As it peered in at him, its hand resting
on its holster, the guns on the towers slowly turned to point at him.
Not very reassuring. Clearing his throat, he explained in his best sober voice that he was entering the Reserves on official I.A. business. To his surprise, the androids not only didn’t arrest him, but they stepped aside without further questioning. I.A.s still had some privileges, it seemed.
The first gate opened and the nat crawled across the cleared strip of land between the gates and out into the desolate streets, where Hammell instructed it to take off again. The megaAI overrode him, stating that there were no official flight lanes out here and no power grid, meaning no warning lights on tall structures. He considered arguing, forcing it to fly high enough to avoid all obstructions, but it wasn’t worth the trouble. His destination wasn’t far.
He hadn’t been out this way after sundown since before the Reserves existed. In the daytime there was a certain eeriness, but at night the desolation bordered on sinister. The deeper in he got, the darker it became, until even his iEye was struggling. He switched it to IR mode, but the lag made him feel queasy as the nat bumped its way over the untended roads, so he soon switched it back.
The nat’s headlights were revealing the path ahead, but from the back Hammell could see little and he found it disconcerting not knowing what might be out of the window just a few metres away. Turning on the nat’s air navigation sidelights, he found there was just enough light for him to make out the facades of buildings, but seeing the vacant black windows and broken open doors did nothing to relieve his growing sense of unease.
Just before reaching the river, he saw it. At the end of a long, unbroken row of three storey terraced buildings was a familiar faded white and gold sign. As he got closer, Hammell could see that the windows had been painted out and their old once-white frames had rotted in place. The bricks were dusty and crumbling and the warped wooden door looked like it hadn’t been opened in decades. Like the rest of the street, The Happy Trout was a ruin.
The moment he stepped out, the nat was off again, as if it couldn’t wait to get the hell out of here. He watched it go, wondering how he would get home. If he called another nat, would it be allowed through the checkpoint without a passenger? He wasn’t sure, and, slightly worryingly, neither was his implant.
Approaching the dark, decrepit door, he reached out and tried the handle. It creaked and scraped but it opened. “Well well well, what do you know?” he murmured to himself. “Cameras, infrared heat sensors, high sensitivity microphones… Who would have thought to try the door?”
He double-tapped his index finger against his thumb to turn on his finger glowlight and stepped into a narrow corridor adorned with curling, faded posters of old jazz musicians. Directly in front of him was staircase leading down into almost total blackness. To his right, through a set of open saloon style doors, was the main bar. A thick layer of undisturbed dust covered the floor and counter top, and the tables and chairs were all shrouded with white sheets, as were several figure-shaped objects, he assumed statues or large wooden ornaments of some kind. He couldn’t think of a way to make the place look any creepier.
No fucking way, he told himself as he stared into the pitch black, but his feet took him down the steps all the same. Taking a swig from his whisky bottle, he felt his way along the cool stone wall, heading into a darkness so absolute that it sucked away the meagre glow from the end of his fingertip. Only the grainy greenish IR image from his iEye allowed him to see the thick set of wooden doors in front of him. He put his shoulder into them, expecting resistance, but they swung open easily and he tumbled through.
Gawping, he looked back over his shoulder, unable to quite comprehend what had just happened. A moment ago he had been the last man alive, now he was in the centre of society. He blinked stupidly and tapped off his light as people turned to look at him. Stealthily slipping the whisky bottle into his trench coat pocket - he knew how pubs tended to be if you brought your own - he set off for the faux mahogany square counter in the centre of the room, trying to look unfazed.
The underground bar looked exactly the way a dive bar should look: Dimly lit and seedy. At least half of the lights were not working and there was carpet halfway up the walls and pillars, for reasons Hammell couldn’t even begin to fathom. The room was lined with booths, with a few tables dotted around the main floor, some of which were occupied. All in all, he counted twenty five people. Twenty-five illegals, he thought. Twenty-five Red Hands.
Seating himself on a stool at the bar, he hung his coat on a hook between his legs with an unsteady hand, wishing now that he’d invited Asha Ishi. He glanced down at his hand as he flexed it, but he didn’t dare open his iPalm here.
The sweaty mountain of a landlord - such a man could only be the landlord - finished unloading a tray of glasses and waddled over as slowly as humanly possible, giving Hammell time to wonder how they had blocked the drone from detecting all this. In spite of his anxiety, he couldn’t help but feel some sort of pride. Providence had missed this place. It had taken a stupid, obsolete, about-to-be-fired I.A. to find it.
“What do you want?” the fat man growled as he smeared a loose strand from his comb-over across his forehead, where it stuck fast. As well as being slow, greasy and more obese than anyone Hammell had ever seen, the man was also rude; a trait not actually despised by Hammell in a bartender.
“Whisky,” he replied. “Japanese if you have it.”
The man stared at him blankly. “You being funny?”
“No.”
The landlord gave him a dirty look and then set to work at his own particular pace. Hammell watched him shuffle away, wondering how he could let himself get in such a state. Healthy living was so ingrained now - eat in moderation, exercise regularly - that it was rare to find someone who was genuinely overweight. Even Toskan, who Hammell generally thought of as fat, was merely a touch on the chunky side. Even Yun was more just immense rather than fat. The landlord however was truly enormous, showing a level of disdain for social norms that Hammell found almost admirable.
Dragging his eyes away from the wobbling flesh, he cast them over the room in a manner he hoped appeared leisurely. There were actually thirty people. He’d missed a few tucked away in hidden alcoves. In the corner of the room was an ancient Jukebox, which was quietly playing some jazz number from a hundred or more years ago. Secret booths and hushed talk made for a furtive, disreputable vibe. What is this place? Hammell wondered, finding himself approving. Even the underlying sense of danger was adding something to the atmosphere.
Overtly thought questions would normally result in some kind of response from his implant, but nothing popped up in his head. He often wouldn’t notice his implant working and would discard the information absently, but the lack of it was jarring, like a suddenly stopped sneeze. He tried to get on a network and discovered that his connection was down. That wasn’t unheard of underground, though modern tunnels and basements tended to have signal boosters nowadays. He supposed The Happy Trout pre-dated such things. Still, it meant that there was no way to contact Asha Ishi, or anyone else. He was on his own down here.
The bartender plonked a filthy glass down in front of him and free-poured a huge measure of a dark brown liquid from an unmarked bottle. Hammell automatically held out his hand for a print scan.
“Not from around here, are you?” the bartender grunted as he forced the cork back in.
Hammell withdrew his hand and looked across the bar at another man waiting to be served, seeing the piece of paper in his hand. A printed bill! he realised. Actual physical currency! The implications were enormous. Printing their own currency meant this couldn’t be just a small cluster of people hiding away like vagabonds amidst the ruins. It meant a whole hidden sub-society. He wondered how many of them were out here…
I have to get hold of one of those notes, he thought to himself. The quality of the print, the information on where it could be redeemed, and its security features would give a good indication of how advanced this sub-societ
y was.
The landlord began tapping his fingers on the bar impatiently and Hammell’s mind turned to his more immediate issue. The sensible thing would be to say that he’d changed his mind, walk calmly back up the stairs, connect to a network and call in reinforcements. But his mouth began to water as he looked down at the glass. One way or another, I’m drinking that whisky.
“You should leave,” the barman hissed as he leaned across the counter, and Hammell realised the man was nervous.
He knows I’m an outsider, and an outsider is a threat. It emboldened him to think that the Red Hands might be worried about him too. He scratched his chin, sensing that he just needed to keep his mouth shut and the landlord would solve the problem for him.
Sure enough, the obese man quickly cracked. “Ok, look, it’s on the house. Just drink it fast and get out!” He walked away and then spun quickly back around. “And don’t tell anyone!”
As the landlord served his other customer, Hammell took a sip of the whisky, feeling pleased with himself. Free alcohol always tasted better - except, as it turned out, in this case. The liquor hit the back of his throat and he almost choked it straight back up again. Twenty-five year old single malt this was not. It tasted like pure alcohol that had been collected from an ash tray. Not such an advanced sub-society then.
He inhaled deeply and picked up the glass again. Whisky was whisky, even if it came from a homemade still, as this apparently had. Taking another smaller sip, he fought to keep it down, and then got to work. Without a network connection, he couldn’t check the patrons against police records, but he could still ping their beacons and store the information for later. He began doing so, discretely but systematically, starting in one corner and working his way around the room. He came to a booth where two ragged looking men were seated and saw that the landlord was with them, looking over at Hammell as he talked, which was a little disquieting. The men in the booth began to stare too, which was even more disquieting.
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