Altered Carbon

Altered Carbon Page 29

by Richard Morgan

  She looked pointedly up and down the empty bridge. 'In that case, why aren't the police here, Mr Kovacs?'

  I thought about the rap sheet and military records that must have come to earth with me, and what it must feel like standing here alone with someone who had done all those things. What it must have taken to come out here alone. Slowly, a reluctant smile crept out of one corner of my mouth.

  'All right, I'm impressed,' I said. 'Now tell me how to neutralise the damn thing.'

  She looked at me seriously, and the rain began to fall. Heavy drops, dampening the shoulders of her coat. I felt it in my hair. We both glanced up and I cursed. A moment later she stepped closer to me and touched a heavy brooch on one wing of her coat. The air above us shimmered and the rain stopped falling on me. Looking up again, I saw it exploding off the dome of the repulsion field over our heads. Around our feet, the paving darkened in splotches and then uniformly, but a magic circle around our feet stayed dry.

  'To actually remove the locater will require microsur­gery similar to its placement. It can be done, but not without a full micro-op theatre. Anything less, and you run the risk of damaging the neural interface, or even the spinal nerve canals.'

  I shifted a little, uncomfortable at our proximity. 'Yeah, I figured.'

  'Well, then you've probably also figured,' she said, bur­lesquing my accent, 'that you can enter either a scrambling signal or a mirror code into the stack receiver to neutralise the broadcast signature.'

  'If you've got the original signature.'

  'If, as you say, you have the original signature.' She reached into her pocket and produced a small, plastic-sheathed disc, weighed it in her palm for a moment and then held it out to me. 'Well, now you have.'

  I took the disc and looked at it speculatively.

  'It's genuine. Any neuro-electrical clinic will confirm that for you. If you have doubts, I can recommend — '

  'Why are you doing this for me?'

  She met my eye, without flinching this time. 'I'm not doing it for you, Mr Kovacs. I am doing this for myself

  I waited. She looked away for a moment, across the Bay. 'I am not a stranger to corruption, Mr Kovacs. No one can work for long in a justice facility and fail to recognise a gangster. The synthetic was one of a type. Warden Sullivan has had dealings with these people as long as I have had tenure at Bay City. Police jurisdiction ends outside our doors, and Administration salaries are not high.'

  She looked back at me. 'I have never taken payment from these people, nor, until now, had I acted on their behalf. But equally, I have never stood against them. It has been very easy to bury myself in my work and pretend not to see what goes on.'

  ' "The human eye is a wonderful device," ' I quoted from Poems and Other Prevarications absently. ' "With a little effort, it can fail to see even the most glaring injustice." '

  'Very aptly put.'

  'It's not mine. So how come you did the surgery?'

  She nodded. 'As I said, until now I had managed to avoid actual contact with these people. Sullivan had me assigned to Offworld Sleeving because there wasn't much of it, and the favours he did were all local. It made it easier for both of us. He's a good manager in that respect.'

  'Shame I came along then.'

  'Yes, it presented a problem. He knew it'd look odd if I was taken off the procedure for one of his more compliant medics, and he didn't want any waves. Apparently this was something big.' She placed the same derisive stress on the words as she had on my figured earlier. 'These people were jacked in at high level, and everything had to be smooth. But he wasn't stupid, he had a rationale all ready for me.'

  'Which was?'

  She gave me another candid look. 'That you were a dangerous psychopath. A killing machine turned rabid. And that, whatever the reasons, it wouldn't be a good idea to have you swimming the dataflows untagged. No telling where you could needlecast to once you're out of the real world. And I bought it. He showed me the files they have on you. Oh, he wasn't stupid. No. I was.'

  I thought of Leila Begin and our talk of psychopaths on the virtual beach. Of my own flippant responses.

  'Sullivan wouldn't be the first person to call me a psychopath. And you wouldn't be the first person to buy it either. The Envoys, well, it's . . . ' I shrugged and looked away. 'It's a label. Simplification for public consumption.'

  'They say a lot of you turned. That twenty per cent of the serious crime in the Protectorate is caused by renegade Envoys. Is it true?'

  'The percentage?' I stared away through the rain. 'I wouldn't know. There are a lot of us out there, yes. There's not much else to do once you've been discharged from the Corps. They won't let you into anything that might lead to a position of power or influence. On most worlds you're barred from holding public office. Nobody trusts Envoys, and that means no promotion. No pro­spects. No loans, no credit.'

  I turned back to her. 'And the stuff we've been trained to do is so close to crime, there's almost no difference. Except: that crime is easier. Most criminals are stupid, you prob­ably know that. Even the organised syndicates are like kid gangs compared to the Corps. It's easy to get respect. And when you've spent the last decade of your life jacking in and out of sleeves, cooling out on stack and living virtual, the threats that law enforcement has to offer are pretty bland.'

  We stood together in silence for a while.

  'I'm sorry,' she said finally.

  'Don't be. Anyone reading those files on me would have — '

  'That isn't what I meant.'

  'Oh.' I looked down at the disc in my hands. 'Well, if you were looking to atone for something, I'd say you just have. And take it from me, no one stays totally clean. The only place you get to do that is on stack.'

  'Yes. I know.'

  'Yeah, well. There is just one more thing I'd like to know.'

  'Yes?'

  'Is Sullivan at Bay City Central right now?'

  'He was when I went out.'

  'And what time is he likely to leave this evening?'

  'It's usually around seven.' She compressed her lips. 'What are you going to do?'

  'I'm going to ask him some questions,' I said truthfully.

  'And if he won't answer them?'

  'Like you said, he's not stupid.' I put the disc into my jacket pocket. 'Thank you for your help, doctor. I'd suggest you try not to be around the facility at seven tonight. And thank you.'

  'As I said Mr Kovacs, I am doing this for myself.'

  'That's not what I meant, doctor.'

  'Oh.'

  I placed one hand lightly on her arm, then stepped away from her and so back out into the rain.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The wood of the bench had been worn by decades of occupants into a series of comfortable, buttock-shaped depressions, and the arms were similarly sculpted. I moulded myself lengthwise into the curves, cocked my boots on the bench end nearest the doors I was watching, and settled down to read the graffiti etched into the wood. I was soaked from the long walk back across town, but the hall was pleasantly heated and the rain rattled impotently on the long transparent panels of the tilted roof high above my head. After a while, one of the dog-sized cleaning robots came to wipe away my muddy footprints from the fused glass paving. I watched it idly until the job was done and the record of my arrival on the bench was totally erased.

  It would have been nice to think my electronic traces could be wiped in the same way, but that kind of escape belonged to the legendary heroes of another age.

  The cleaning robot trundled off and I went back to the graffiti. Most of it was Amanglic or Spanish, old jokes that I'd seen before in a hundred similar places; Cabron Modificado! and Absent without Sleeve!, the old crack The Altered Native Was Here!, but high on the bench's backrest and chiselled upside down, like a tiny pool of inverted calm in all the rage and desperate pride, I found a curious haiku in Kanji:

  Pull on the new flesh like borrowed gloves

  And burn your fingers once again.
r />   The author must have been leaning over the back of the bench when he cut it into the wood, but still each character was executed with elegant care. I gazed at the calligraphy for what was probably a long time, while memories of Harlan's World sang in my head like high-tension cables.

  A sudden burst of crying over to my right jolted me out of the reverie. A young black woman and her two children, also black, were staring at the stooped, middle-aged white man standing before them in tattered UN surplus fatigues. Family reunion. The young woman's face was a mask of shock, it hadn't hit her properly yet, and the smaller child, probably no more than four, just didn't get it at all. She was looking right through the white man, mouth forming the repeated question Where's Daddy? Where's Daddy? The man's features were glistening in the rainy light from the roof — he looked like he'd been crying since they dragged him out of the tank.

  I rolled my head to an empty quadrant of the hall. My own father had walked right past his waiting family and out of our lives when he was re-sleeved. We never even knew which one he was, although I sometimes wonder if my mother didn't catch some splinter of recognition in an averted gaze, some echo of stance or gait as he passed. I don't know if he was too ashamed to confront us, or more likely too set up with the luck of drawing a sleeve sounder than his own alcohol-wrecked body had been, and already plotting a new course for other cities and younger women. I was ten at the time. The first I knew about it was when the attendants ushered us out of the facility just short of locking up for the night. We'd been there since noon.

  The chief attendant was an old man, conciliatory and very good with kids. He put his hand on my shoulder and spoke kindly to me before leading us out. To my mother, he made a short bow and murmured something formal that allowed her to keep the dam of her self-control intact.

  He probably saw a few like us every week.

  I memorised Ortega's discreet destination code, for something to do with my mind, then shredded that panel of the cigarette packet and ate it.

  My clothes were almost dried through by the time Sullivan came through the doors leading out of the facility and started down the steps. His thin frame was cloaked in a long grey raincoat, and he wore a brimmed hat, something I hadn't seen so far in Bay City. Framed in the V between my propped feet and reeled into close-up with the neurachem, his face looked pale and tired. I shifted a little on the bench and brushed the bolstered Philips gun with the tips of my fingers. Sullivan was coming straight to­wards me, but when he saw my form sprawled on the bench he pursed his mouth with disapproval and altered course to avoid what he presumably took for a derelict cluttering up the facility. He passed without giving me another glance.

  I gave him a few metres start and then swung silently to my feet and went after him, slipping the Philips gun out of its holster under my coat. I caught up just as he reached the exit. As the doors parted for him, I shoved him rudely in the small of the back and stepped quickly outside in his wake. He was swinging back to face me, features contorted with anger, as the doors started to close.

  'What do you think you're — ' The rest of it died on his lips as he saw who I was.

  'Warden Sullivan,' I said affably, and showed him the Philips gun under my jacket. 'This is a silent weapon, and I'm not in a good mood. Please do exactly as I tell you.'

  He swallowed. 'What do you want?'

  'I want to talk about Trepp, among others. And I don't want to do it in the rain. Let's go.'

  'My car is — '

  'A really bad idea.' I nodded. 'So let's walk. And Warden Sullivan, if you so much as blink at the wrong person, I'll shoot you in half. You won't see the gun, no one will. But it'll be there just the same.'

  'You're making a mistake, Kovacs.'

  'I don't think so.' I tipped my head towards the diminished ranks of parked vehicles in the lot. 'Straight through, and left into the street. Keep going till I tell you to stop.'

  Sullivan started to say something else, but I jerked the barrel of the Philips gun at him and he shut up. Sideways at first, he made his way down the steps to the parking lot and then, with occasional backward glances, across the uneven ground towards the sagging double gate that had rusted open on its runners what looked like centuries ago.

  'Eyes front,' I called across the widening gap between us. 'I'm still back here, you don't need to worry about that.'

  Out on the street, I let the gap grow to about a dozen metres and pretended complete dissociation from the figure ahead of me. It wasn't a great neighbourhood and there weren't many people out walking in the rain. Sullivan was an easy target for the Philips gun at double the distance.

  Five blocks on, I spotted the steamed-up windows of the noodle house I was looking for. I quickened my pace and came up on Sullivan's streetside shoulder.

  'In here. Go to the booths at the back and sit down.'

  I made a single sweep of the street, saw no one obvious, and followed Sullivan inside.

  The place was almost empty, the daytime diners long departed and the evening not yet cranked up. Two ancient Chinese women sat in a corner with the withered elegance of dried bouquets, heads nodding together. On the other side of the restaurant four young men in pale silk suits lounged dangerously and toyed with expensive-looking chunks of hardware. At a table near one of the windows, a fat Caucasian was working his way through an enormous bowl of chow mein and simultaneously flicking over the pages of a holoporn comic. A video screen set high on one wall gave out coverage of some incomprehensible local sport.

  'Tea,' I said to the young waiter who came to meet us, and seated myself opposite Sullivan in the booth.

  'You aren't going to get away with this,' he said unconvincingly. 'Even if you kill me, really kill me, they'll check the most recent re-sleevings and backtrack to you sooner or later.'

  'Yeah, maybe they'll even find out about the unofficial surgery this sleeve had before I arrived.'

  'That bitch. She's going to — '

  'You're in no position to be making threats,' I said mildly. 'In fact you're in no position to do anything except answer my questions and hope I believe you. Who told you to tag me?'

  Silence, apart from the game coverage from the set on the wall. Sullivan stared sullenly at me.

  'All right, I'll make it easy for you. Simple yes or no. An artificial called Trepp came to see you. Was this the first time you'd had dealings with her?'

  'I don't know what you're talking about.'

  With measured anger, I backhanded him hard across the mouth. He collapsed sideways against the wall of the booth, losing his hat. The conversation of the young men in silk stopped abruptly, then resumed with great anima­tion as I cut them a sideways glance. The two old women got stiffly to their feet and filed out through a back entrance. The Caucasian didn't even look up from his holoporn. I leaned across the table.

  'Warden Sullivan, you're not taking this in the spirit it's intended. I am very concerned to know who you sold me to. I'm not going to go away, just because you have some residual scruples about client confidentiality. Believe me, they didn't pay you enough to hold out on me.'

  Sullivan sat back up, wiping at the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. To his credit, he managed a bitter smile with the undamaged portion of his lips.

  'You think I haven't been threatened before, Kovacs?'

  I examined the hand I'd hit him with. 'I think you've had very little experience of personal violence, and that's going to be a disadvantage. I'm going to give you the chance to tell me what I want to know here and now. After that we go somewhere with soundproofing. Now, who sent Trepp?'

  'You're a thug, Kovacs. Nothing but — '

  I snapped folded knuckles across the table and into his left eye. It made less noise than the slap. Sullivan grunted in shock and reeled away from the blow, cowering into the seat. I watched impassively until he recovered. Something cold was rising in me, something born on the benches of the Newpest justice facility and tempered with the years of pointless unpleasantness I h
ad been witness to. I hoped Sullivan wasn't as tough as he was trying to appear, for both our sakes. I leaned close again.

  'You said it, Sullivan. I'm a thug. Not a respectable criminal like you. I'm not a Meth, not a businessman. I have no vested interests, no social connections, no pur­chased respectability. It's just me, and you're in my way. So let's start again. Who sent Trepp?'

  'He doesn't know, Kovacs. You're wasting your time.'

  The woman's voice was light and cheerful, pitched a little loud to carry from the door where she stood, hands in the pockets of a long black coat. She was slim and pale with close-cropped dark hair and a poise to the way she stood that bespoke combat skills. Beneath the coat she wore a grey quilted tunic that looked impact resistant and match­ing work trousers tucked into ankle boots. A single silver earring in the shape of a discarded trode cable dangled from her left ear. She appeared to be alone.

  I lowered the Philips gun slowly, and without acknowl­edging that it had ever been trained on her she took the cue to advance casually into the restaurant. The young men in silk watched her every step of the way, but if she was aware of their gazes, she gave no sign. When she was about five paces from our booth, she gave me a look of enquiry and began to lift her hands slowly out of her pockets. I nodded, and she completed the movement, revealing open palms and fingers set with rings of black glass.

  'Trepp?'

  'Good guess. You going to let me sit down?'

  I waved the Philips gun at the seat opposite, where Sullivan was cupping both hands to his eye. 'If you can persuade your associate here to move over. Just keep your hands above the table.'

  The woman smiled and inclined her head. She glanced at Sullivan, who was already squeezing up to the wall to make space for her, and then, keeping her hands poised at her sides, she swung herself elegantly in beside him. The economy of motion was so tight that her pendant earring barely shifted. Once seated, she pressed both hands palm down on the table in front of her.

  'That make you feel safer?'

 

‹ Prev Next ›