Altered Carbon

by Richard Morgan

'Kovacs.' Ortega shook her head. 'Look at yourself. You're a mess. Right now you couldn't take on an Oakland pimp, and you're talking about covert assault on one of the West Coast Houses. You think you're going to crash Kawahara's security with broken ribs and that face? Forget it.'

  'I didn't say it was going to be easy.'

  'Kovacs, it isn't going to be. I sat on the Hendrix tapes long enough for you to pull that shit with Bancroft, but that's as far as it goes. The game's over, your friend Sarah gets to go home and so do you. But that's it. I'm not inter­ested in grudge matches.'

  'Do you really want Ryker back?' I asked softly.

  For a moment I thought she was going to hit me. Her nostrils flared white and her right shoulder actually dropped for the punch. I never knew whether it was the stungun hangover or just self control that stopped her.

  'I ought to deck you for that, Kovacs,' she said evenly.

  I raised my hands. 'Go ahead, right now I couldn't take on an Oakland pimp. Remember?'

  Ortega made a disgusted sound in her throat and started to turn away. I put out my hand and touched her.

  'Kristin . . . ' I hesitated. 'I'm sorry. That was a bitchy crack, about Ryker. Will you at least hear me through, once?'

  She came back to me, mouth clamped tight over what­ever she was feeling, head down. She swallowed.

  'I won't. There's been too much.' She cleared her throat. 'I don't want you hurt any more, Kovacs. I don't want any more damage, that's all.'

  'Damage to Ryker's sleeve, you mean?'

  She looked at me.

  'No,' she said quietly. 'No, I don't mean that.'

  Then she was pressed up against me, there in that grim metal corridor, arms wrapped hard around me and face buried in my chest, all without apparent transition. I did some swallowing of my own and held her tightly while the last of what time we had trickled away like grains of sand through my ringers. And at that moment I would have given almost anything not to have had a plan for her to hear, not to have had any way to dissolve what was growing between us, and not to have hated Reileen Kawahara quite so much.

  I would have given almost anything.

  Two a.m.

  I called Irene Elliott at the JacSol apartment, and got her out of bed. I told her we had a problem we'd pay heavily to unkink. She nodded sleepily. Bautista went to get her in an unmarked cruiser.

  By the time she arrived, the Panama Rose was lit as if for a deck party. Vertical searchlights along her sides made it look as if she was being lowered from the night sky on ropes of luminescence. Illuminum cable incident barriers crisscrossed the superstructure and the dock moorings. The roof of the cargo cell where the humiliation bout had gone down was cranked back to allow the ambulances direct access and the blast of crime scene lighting from within rose into the night like the glow from a foundry. Police cruisers held the sky and parked across the dock flashing red and blue.

  I met her at the gangway.

  'I want my body back,' she shouted over the whine and roar of airborne engines. The searchlights frosted her sleeve's black hair almost back to blonde.

  'I can't swing that for you right now,' I yelled back. 'But it's in the pipeline. First, you've got to do this. Earn some credit. Now let's get you out of sight before fucking Sandy Kim spots you.'

  Local law were keeping the press copters at bay. Ortega, still sick and shaking, wrapped herself in a police greatcoat and kept the local law out with the same glitter-eyed intensity that kept her upright and conscious. Organic Damage division, shouting, pulling rank, bullying and blurring, held the fort while Elliott went to work faking in the monitor footage they needed. They were indeed, as Trepp had recognised, the biggest gang on the block.

  'I'm checking out of the apartment tomorrow,' Elliott told me as she worked. 'You won't be able to reach me there.'

  She was silent for a couple of moments, whistling through her teeth at odd moments as she keyed in the images she had constructed. Then she cast a glance at me over her shoulder.

  'You say I'm earning juice from these guys, doing this. They're going to owe me?'

  'Yeah, I'd say so.'

  'Then I'll contact them. Get me the officer in charge, I'll talk to whoever that is. And don't try to call me at Ember, I won't be there either.'

  I said nothing, just looked at her. She turned back to her work.

  'I need some time alone,' she muttered.

  Just the words sounded like a luxury to me.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  I watched him pour a drink from the bottle of fifteen-year-old malt, take it to the phone and seat himself carefully. The broken ribs had been welded back together in one of the ambulances, but the whole of that side was still one huge ache, with occasional, flinty stabs of agony. He sip­ped at the whisky, gathered himself visibly and punched out the call.

  'Bancroft residence. With whom do you wish to speak?' It was the severely-suited woman who had answered last time I called Suntouch House. The same suit, the same hair, even the same make-up. Maybe she was a phone con­struct.

  'Miriam Bancroft,' he said.

  Once again, it was the sensation of being a passive observer, the same sensation of disconnection that I had felt that night in front of the mirror while Ryker's sleeve put on its weapons. The frags. Only this time it was much worse.

  'One moment, please.'

  The woman disappeared from the screen and was replaced by the image of a windblown match flame in synch with piano music that sounded like autumn leaves being blown along a cracked and worn pavement. A minute passed, then Miriam Bancroft appeared, immacu­lately attired in a formal-looking jacket and blouse. She raised one perfectly groomed eyebrow.

  'Mr Kovacs. This is a surprise.'

  'Yeah, well.' He gestured uncomfortably. Even across the comlink, Miriam Bancroft radiated a sensuality that unbalanced him. 'Is this a secure line?'

  'Reasonably so, yes. What do you want?'

  He cleared his throat. 'I've been thinking. There are some things I'd like to discuss with you. I, uh, I may owe you an apology.'

  'Indeed?' This time it was both eyebrows. 'When exactly did you have in mind?'

  He shrugged. 'I'm not doing anything right now.'

  'Yes. I, however, am doing something right now, Mr Kovacs. I am en route to a meeting in Chicago and will not be back on the coast until tomorrow evening.' The faintest hint of a smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. 'Will you wait?'

  'Sure.'

  She leaned towards the screen, eyes narrowing. 'What happened to your face?'

  He raised a hand to one of the emerging facial bruises. In the low light of the room, he had not expected it to be so noticeable. Nor had he expected Miriam Bancroft to be so attentive.

  'Long story. Tell you when I see you.'

  'Well, that I can hardly resist,' she said ironically. 'I shall send a limousine to collect you from the Hendrix tomor­row afternoon. Shall we say about four o'clock? Good. Until then.'

  The screen cleared. He sat, staring at it for a moment, then switched off the phone and swivelled the chair round to face the window shelf.

  'She makes me nervous,' he said.

  'Yeah, me too. Well, obviously.'

  'Very funny.'

  'I try.'

  I got up to fetch the whisky bottle. As I crossed the room, I caught my reflection in the mirror beside the bed.

  Where Ryker's sleeve had the air of a man who had battered his way head first through life's trials, the man in the mirror looked as if he would be able to slip neatly aside at every crisis and watch fate fall clumsily on its fat face. The body was cat-like in its movements, a smooth and effortless economy of motion that would have looked good on Anchana Salomao. The thick, almost blue-black hair fell in a soft cascade to the deceptively slim shoulders, and the elegantly tilted eyes had a gentle, unconcerned expres­sion that suggested the universe was a good place to live in.

  I had only been in the tech ninja sleeve a few hours — seven, and forty-two minutes accordi
ng to the time display chipped into my upper left field of vision — but there were none of the usual download side effects. I collected the whisky bottle with one of the slim brown artist's hands and the simple play of muscle and bone was a joy that glowed through me. The Khumalo neurachem system thrummed continually at the limit of perception, as if it were singing faintly the myriad possible things the body could do at any given moment. Never, even during my time with the Envoy Corps, had I worn anything like it.

  I remembered Carnage's words and mentally shook my head. If the UN thought they'd be able to impose a ten-year colonial embargo on this, they were living in another world.

  'I don't know about you,' he said, 'but this feels fucking weird.'

  'Tell me about it.' I filled my own tumbler and proffered the bottle. He shook his head. I went back to the window shelf and sat back against the glass.

  'How the fuck did Kadmin stand it? Ortega says he used to work with himself all the time.'

  'Get used to anything in time, I suppose. Besides, Kadmin was fucking crazy.'

  'Oh, and we're not?'

  I shrugged. 'We didn't have a choice. Apart from walking away, I mean. Would that have been better?'

  'You tell me. You're the one who's going up against Kawahara. I'm just the whore around here. Incidentally, I don't reckon Ortega's exactly overjoyed about that part of the deal. I mean, she was confused before, but now — '

  'She's confused! How do you think I feel?'

  'I know how you feel, idiot. I am you.'

  'Are you?' I sipped at my drink and gestured with the glass. 'How long do you think it takes before we stop being exactly the same person?'

  He shrugged. 'You are what you remember. Right now we only have about seven or eight hours of separate per­ceptions. Can't have made much of a dent yet, can it?'

  'On forty-odd years of memory? I suppose not. And it's the early stuff that builds personality.'

  'Yeah, they say. And while we're on the subject, tell me something. How do you feel, I mean how do we feel about the Patchwork Man being dead?'

  I shifted uncomfortably. 'Do we need to talk about this?'

  'We need to talk about something. We're stuck here with each other until tomorrow evening — '

  'You can go out, if you want. Come to that,' I jerked a thumb upward towards the roof, 'I can get out of here the way I came in.'

  'You really don't want to talk about it that badly, huh?'

  'Wasn't that tough.'

  That, at least, was true. The original draft of the plan had called for the ninja copy of me to stay at Ortega's apartment until the Ryker copy had disappeared with Miriam Bancroft. Then it occurred to me that we'd need a working relationship with the Hendrix to bring off the assault on Head in the Clouds, and that there was no way for the ninja copy of myself to prove its identity to the hotel, short of submission to a storage scan. It seemed a better idea for the Ryker copy to introduce the ninja before departing with Miriam Bancroft. Since the Ryker copy was undoubtedly still under surveillance, at the very least, by Trepp, walking in through the front door of the Hendrix together looked like a very bad idea. I borrowed a grav harness and a stealth suit from Bautista, and just before it started to get light I skimmed in between the patchy high-level traffic and down onto a sheltered flange on the forty-second floor. The Hendrix had by this time been advised of my arrival by the Ryker copy and let me in through a ventilation duct.

  With the Khumalo neurachem, it had been almost as easy as walking in through the front door.

  'Look,' the Ryker copy said. 'I'm you. I know every­thing you know. What's the harm in talking about this stuff?'

  'If you know everything I know, what's the point of talking about it?'

  'Sometimes, it helps to externalise things. Even if you talk to someone else about it, you're usually talking to yourself. The other guy's just providing a sounding board. You talk it out.'

  I sighed. 'I don't know. I buried all that shit about Dad a long time ago, it's a long time dead.'

  'Yeah, right.'

  'I'm serious.'

  'No.' He flicked a finger at me the way I had pointed at Bancroft when he didn't want to face my facts on the bal­cony of Suntouch House. 'You're lying to yourself. Re­member that pimp we met in Lazlo's pipe house the year we joined Shonagon's Eleven. The one we nearly killed before they pulled us off him.'

  'That was just chemicals. We were off our head on tetrameth, showing off because of the Eleven stuff. Fuck, we were only sixteen.'

  'Bullshit. We did it because he looked like Dad.'

  'Maybe.'

  'Fact. And we spent the next decade and a half killing authority figures for the same reason.'

  'Oh, give me a fucking break! We spent that decade and a half killing anyone who got in the way. It was the military, that's what we did for a living. And, anyway, since when is a pimp an authority figure?'

  'OK, maybe it was pimps we spent fifteen years killing. Users. Maybe that's what we were paying back.'

  'He never pimped Mum out.'

  'Are you sure? Why were we so hot to hit the Elizabeth Elliott angle like a fucking tactical nuke? Why the accent on whorehouses in this investigation?'

  'Because,' I said, sinking a finger of whisky, 'that is what this investigation has been about from the beginning. We went after the Elliott angle because it felt right. Envoy intuition. The way Bancroft treated his wife — '

  'Oh, Miriam Bancroft. Now there's another whole disc we could spin.'

  'Shut up. Elliott was a pretty fucking good sounding shot. We wouldn't have got to Head in the Clouds without that trip to Jerry's biocabins.'

  'Ahhh.' He made a disgusted gesture and tipped his own glass back. 'You believe what you want. I say the Patch­work Man's been a metaphor for Dad because we couldn't bear to look too closely at the truth and that's why we freaked the first time we saw a composite construct in virtual. Remember that, do you? That rec house on Adoracion. We had rage dreams for a week after that little show. Waking up with shreds of pillow on your hands. They sent us to the psychs for that.'

  I gestured irritably. 'Yeah, I remember. I remember being shit scared of the Patchwork Man, not Dad. I re­member feeling the same when we met Kadmin in virtual too.'

  'And now he's dead? How do we feel now?'

  'I don't feel anything.'

  He pointed at me again. 'That's a cover.'

  'It is not a cover. The motherfucker got in my way, he threatened me and now he's dead. Transmission ends.'

  'Remember anyone else threatening you, do you? When you were small, maybe?'

  'I am not going to talk about this any more.' I reached for the bottle and filled my glass again. 'Pick another subject. What about Ortega? What are our feelings on that score?'

  'Are you planning to drink that whole bottle?'

  'You want some?'

  'No.'

  I spread my hands. 'So what's it to you?'

  'Are you trying to get drunk?'

  'Of course I am. If I've got to talk to myself, I don't see why I should do it sober. So tell me about Ortega.'

  'I don't want to talk about that.'

  'Why not?' I asked reasonably. 'Got to talk about something, remember. What's wrong with Ortega?'

  'What's wrong is that we don't feel the same about her. You aren't wearing Ryker's sleeve any more.'

  'That doesn't — '

  'Yes, it does. What's between us and Ortega is com­pletely physical. There hasn't been time for anything else. That's why you're so happy to talk about her now. In that sleeve, all you've got is some vague nostalgia about that yacht and a bundle of snapshot memories to back it up. There's nothing chemical happening to you any more.'

  I reached for something to say, and abruptly found nothing. The suddenly discovered difference sat between us like a third, unwanted occupant of the room.

  The Ryker copy dug into his pockets and came up with Ortega's cigarettes. The packet was crushed almost flat. He extracted a cigarette, looked ruefully
at it and fitted it into his mouth. I tried not to look disapproving.

  'Last one,' he said, touching the ignition patch to it.

  'The hotel probably has more.'

  'Yeah.' He plumed out smoke, and I found myself almost envying him the addiction. 'You know, there is one thing we should be discussing right now.'

  'What's that?'

  But I knew already. We both knew.

  'You want me to spell it out? All right.' He drew on the cigarette again and shrugged, not easily. 'We have to decide which of us gets obliterated when this is all over. And since our individual instinct for survival is getting stronger by the minute, we need to decide soon.'

  'How?'

  'I don't know. Which would you prefer to remember? Taking down Kawahara? Or going down on Miriam Bancroft?' He smiled sourly. 'No competition, I suppose.'

  'Hey, this isn't just a roll on the beach you're talking about. This is multiple copy sex. It's about the only genuinely illicit pleasure left. Anyway, Irene Elliott said we could do a memory graft and keep both sets of experi­ence.'

  'Probably. She said we could probably do a memory graft. And that still leaves one of us to be cancelled out. It's not a meld, it's a graft, from one of us to the other. Editing. You want to do that to yourself? To the one that survives. We couldn't even face editing that construct the Hendrix built. How are we going to live with this? No way, it's got to be a clean cut. One or the other. And we've got to decide which.'

  'Yeah.' I picked up the whisky bottle and stared gloomily at the label. 'So what do we do? Gamble for it? Paper, scissors, stone, say the best of five?'

  'I was thinking along slightly more rational lines. We tell each other our memories from this point on and then decide which we want to keep. Which ones are worth more.'

  'How the hell are we going to measure something like that?'

  'We'll know. You know we will.'

  'What if one of us lies. Embroiders the truth to make it sound like a more appealing memory. Or lies about which one they like better.'

  His eyes narrowed. 'Are you serious?'

  'A lot can happen in a few days. Like you said, we're both going to want to survive.'