The Bridge Chronicles Trilogy

by Gary Ballard

  With the songs finally finished, Baku stood and walked to the bar, slapping one of the naked women on the ass playfully as he filled up a glass with a greenish liquid that Bridge guessed was real absinthe. “I’ll call you next week to set up a meet with this kid,” the Persian began. “But now you gotta do something for me.”

  “I am your servant,” Bridge replied with a smarmy smile.

  “Somebody wants to see you. They’re waiting in a car downstairs for you.”

  A cold ball of apprehension slammed into Bridge’s stomach. “A car? Am I taking a trip?”

  Baku shook his head. “Not that kind of car, Bridge. They called me right after you did, brau. All they want is to talk.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Go on downstairs and you’ll see. Don’t give them any shit and we’ll be square.”

  Bridge’s eyes narrowed into slits. “They must have some serious juice to get you to let a favoto let ar like this call us square. Should I be looking for the parachute exit?”

  Baku’s voice was uncharacteristically soft, almost a caring whisper. “I really wish you wouldn’t. It’s no big deal, brau. Just a talk.”

  Bridge nodded, his course set. He didn’t like being herded, and he liked the idea that his movements were being tracked so closely at a time when the streets were exploding even less. But he didn’t have much choice in the matter. He motioned to his bodyguards and said his goodbyes to the music executive. The ride down seemed all too short, and sweat broke out under his armpits.

  “Who do we know with the juice that could pull that kind of favor?”

  “A veritable ocean of potential enemies,” Aristotle replied.

  “Yeah, true. But who would?” Neither Aristotle nor Mu had any idea.

  The doorman ushered Bridge from the building with a sarcastic good night, a knowing smile plastering his face. The car waiting for him was a stretch limo, its back door flanked by two nano-juiced bodyguards in black suits, white shirts and black ties. Each guard wore sunglasses, but Bridge could tell they didn’t need them. Their arms were cybernetic, which led him to believe that their eyes were cybernetic as well. The shades might otherwise contain HUDs that carried the picture of their target, but they were likely there for show as the eyes would have all the HUD’s the two would need. They completed the illusion with one ear piece with a curly wire leading down their neck into their jacket, but like the glasses, those were merely for show. These were local Secret Service types, so the limo’s passenger would be government. Bridge’s mood worsened as he realized which member of government would likely be in the back of the car.

  The back door opened and the Secret Service guards indicated that Bridge should get in. The passenger leaned forward to greet Bridge.

  “Nice to finally meet you, Mr. Bridge,” Mayor Arturo Soto said. “Would you care to join me for a leisurely ride?”

  Bridge was caught. He could find no excuse to get out of this very awkward conversation. His fear evaporated as his mind tumbled through the possibilities. Had Soto wanted Bridge arrested, a simple phone call would have done the job. “Bridge, you cannot get in the car with him,” Aristotle hissed.

  “Why not? This is the fucking mayor, brother. He’s not going to hurt me.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “No, but think about it. He wants me dead, then he doesn’t put himself anywhere near the crime. He hires a motherfucker with a sniper rifle sniper who puts a slug in my dome before I even hear the shot. Or he calls CLED and gets me arrested on some bullshit charge and tossed in the deepest hole he can find. He doesn’t offer me a ride in his limo.”

  “I would be more amenable if we could accompany you,” the bodyguard said.

  “I’m sure you would,” Soto interrupted. “But this is a private conversation. Don’t worry, mother, I’ll bring him back safe and unharmed.” The smile on the politician’s face oozed charm.

  “I’ll be fine,” Bridge said. “I’ll call you with a meeting place when we’re done.” Bridge tossed Mu a hand gesture, an infinitesimal signal in the burgeoning cant the technomancers were developing, that told the wizard to back off both physically and electronically. Mu could have planted a nanobot spell that relayed the entire conversation to anyone he desired, recorded the whole thing and spit it out in a viral blast to anyone with a GlobalNet connection, which was, of course, everyone. Bridge didn’t care much for blackmail and Soto was entirely too slick for it to have been effective anyway. Had Bridge tried such an operation, he would move himself from the mayor’s dislike list to his hit list, a movement that gained Bridge nothing but more enemies.

  Bridge slid into the limo’s middle seat gracefully, with casual indifference to the opulence paid for with taxpayer dollars. Had Bridge actually been a taxpayer, he might even have felt a tinge of outrage at the luxury. “Nice ride, ese,” Bridge quipped, intentionally using the Spanish phrase to get the mayor’s goat. He leaned over and opened the mini bar. “You got any tequila?”

  If Bridge’s attempts to rankle the politician were successful, he gave no indication at all. Soto sat back with smug indolence, his arm stretching comfortably across the back seat. “I hear that you are partially to thank for my election victory,” Soto began. “I never got a chance to offer my regards.” His eyes narrowed into the stare of a predator. The smartass comeback Bridge had readied stuck in his throat. “Of course, I hear that you are also to thank for the pall of illegitimacy hanging over that victory.” The tone was set. This was no more a friendly visit than it was a prelude to an attack. Bridge would have to tread carefully.

  “You’re welcome, your honor… your imminence… what is the proper honorific? I always get confused.”

  “Mr. Mayor will do,” Soto replied.

  “So, Arturo, do you want to talk about what kind of a fuckup your boy Thames committed to make it necessary to do what I did?”

  Soto waved his hand dismissively. “I’m not here to rehash the past. While your stunt certainly created a stir, it ultimately hasn’t hindered my administration in the slightest.”

  ‘Score one for the cocksucker,’ Bridge thought. The dancing had begun the minute Bridge stepped in the car, and so far, Soto had made it quite clear he would lead. Bridge’s attempts to get under the man’s skin had bounced off Soto’s so far impervious shell, while the politician had clearlyn had cl illustrated Bridge’s impotence. Bridge poured a two-finger draught of a fine bottle of whiskey from the mini-bar and sipped it casually. “Then to what do I owe the pleasure of riding in your fine tax burner and drinking some really outstanding whiskey on the regular jackoff’s dime?”

  “Juan Ricardo,” the Mayor said with startling directness. “The man you call Stonewall. I want him.”

  Bridge stopped cold in mid sip, savoring the taste of the alcohol as it burned his tongue, then letting the burn slip down his throat. He carefully placed the glass down in an opulently paneled cup holder and crossed his arms. “He doesn’t swing that way,” Bridge replied in a flat, humorless tone.

  “Your attempts to draw me out by insulting my manhood are in vain, you realize. I know he’s your friend. I know that he has helped you out on occasion and you have done so in return. I know that he is now the leader of the so-called Los Magos gang that has infested our subways, a gang that is even now engaged in the first stages of a very dangerous, very loud street war with El Diablos. I know that you were enlisted to broker peace between the two factions, a peace that proved elusive. I know that he aided you during the unfortunate circumstances surrounding my election.” Bridge shouldn’t have been all that surprised. After all, most of what he got involved with was at least common knowledge to CLED and anyone on the streets. His activities weren’t exactly illegal; even under Chronosoft law, the police couldn’t really arrest someone for ‘knowing a guy.’ What really surprised Bridge was that the mayor had placed enough eyes on Bridge to gather information into one conversation.

  “And I know that whatever happened in Boulder last year, he w
as with you.” The statement tossed Bridge’s stomach into a cyclone of nervous activity. He had supposed his trip to Boulder wasn’t a state secret. The knowledge could have been had, but it would have taken some digging. If the mayor’s people had done that digging, it meant that Chronosoft had that information as well. Every LGL in the world wanted to figure out what had happened in Boulder for one reason or another. The coinciding appearance of the technomancers so soon after the strange events in Boulder, as well as the Glowbugging business that could cause so many problems for the energy utilities those corporations ran made any knowledge of the Boulder incident priceless. The price could be in money or lives, and the corporations wouldn’t have cared either way. Tying Bridge to that event was more dangerous than any other business he could be involved in.

  “What do you want with Stonewall?”

  The triumphant gleam in Soto’s eye shot waves of anger through Bridge. Neither man liked being on the bottom in a negotiation, and both were well aware of the other’s position. “This street war is bad for business. It’s bad for your business, it’s bad for the corporation’s business, but most importantly, it’s very bad for the Local Governance License. You may not be aware of this, but the LGL program comes up for audit next year. One of the measures of its success is the ability to quell civil unrest and lower crime rates. Letting these Families run roughshod over the entire city, letting them shoot each other up like this is the Gaza Strip, letting them control one of the major branches of public transportation… well, it looks bad. As mayor, one of the pillarsf the pi of my campaign was rebuilding our city after the destruction these savages caused in the riots.”

  The vague outline of the mayor’s plan began to form in Bridge’s mind. “Rebuilding. You’re moving all those people out, all those evictions… you’re taking the land. You’re going to redevelop it all, aren’t you?”

  “We’re not just redeveloping, we are resurrecting! We’re reshaping the city into the kind of place it should be. Safe, clean…”

  “Corporate.”

  “Someone has to foot the bill. They should get a say in how their money is being spent.”

  “And I suppose all the construction projects go through your companies, right?”

  “Not officially, no. That wouldn’t be proper.”

  “It’d be fucking illegal, even with the LGL’s lax laws regarding conflict of interest.”

  “Yes, well, good thing those contracts aren’t going to companies I own, then isn’t it?”

  “That’s it? That’s what this is all about? One great big land swindle? One real estate paper circle jerk that lines your pockets?”

  “The profit is secondary to the vision. This city has been a cesspool for too long. The riots are what happen when you don’t drain the pool often enough. It’s time to drain the pool, skim off the shit and start over.”

  Bridge chuckled. “Too bad there wasn’t a hurricane to wipe the map for you.”

  “One makes do with what one has.”

  “This gang war is the perfect excuse then. Let the spics kick up a little dust, so you can send CLED in to take them out and steal all their land. Not even going to provide them with some smallpox blankets? How can you do that to your own people?”

  The calm veneer cracked for the first time since Bridge had gotten in the car. A tortured sneer erased Soto’s carefully crafted mask of indifference. “My people.” He growled. “You mean the Mexicans? I wasn’t born in Mexico, I was born right here. I grew up with two parents who did everything they could to hide their own heritage and they made damn sure I did too. You know why? Because they knew this country didn’t give a shit about a couple of wetbacks and their spic kid, legal or not. No matter how nice my clothes were, I was one more beaner sucking off the government tit. This country doesn’t give a fuck about culture, or people, Mexicans or blacks or whites or Chinese. All it gives a fuck about is money because money is power. My people lived in Boyle Heights and they got shot, their houses burned, their streets turned into a war zone by both the cops and those Mexicans you claim are my people. Why? Because they didn’t have the money to buy their own security, they didn’t make enough money for the cops to come down to come dhe streets every two minutes. Those same people you claim I should give a shit about will stab me in the back the minute things go to shit.”

  “Fuck the other guy before he fucks you first,” Bridge rambled absentmindedly while staring out the window.

  Soto smiled. The placid expression returned. “All you have to do is offer this Stonewall character up. Let us know where he’ll be, when he’s vulnerable. CLED will take care of the rest.”

  Bridge tossed the rest of the drink back quickly. “I’ll see what I can do.” He spotted a battered street term out the window. Suddenly, he felt the irresistible urge to get out of the car, to be somewhere else as quickly as he could. “Drop me off here. I’ll catch a cab where I need to go.” The car slid gracefully to a stop at the corner.

  “Glad to see we could come to some sort of understanding, Mr. Bridge,” Soto said with an oozing satisfaction as he opened the door. “I know that tinge of loyalty you’re feeling is a strong one. Best to ignore it. It will only get you into trouble.”

  Bridge nodded, barely hearing a word the mayor said. He stood in a daze and waved as the car pulled away. He needed to think, and a long solitary cab ride would be the trick. He called Aristotle and Mu and told them to head home without him. When the cab came, he rolled down the window and slumped in the back seat, letting the cool night air flow over his face.

  Over forty-five minutes later, he closed the front door of his apartment. The living room was bathed in shadows, the only light spilling in through the tiny slits in the front blinds. The hallway to the back bedroom was lit with the tiny sliver escaping through the door, which stood slightly ajar. He rubbed the stubble on his chin as he walked towards the room, buried in thoughts. Had he not been so preoccupied, he’d have noticed the eerie silence over the whole place. Absent were the whirring fans of a crèche cooling system. He should have heard the fans from the front door, but they were silent. Angela should have greeted him in holographic form as he came in. She very rarely slept outside the crèche this late at night.

  But he noticed none of this. His thoughts were too heavy. It wasn’t until he saw Angela’s crèche that he noticed the missing ambient noise. The shiny black coffin was inert, no fans blowing, no lights on the surface indicating power and information flowing in and out of the pill-shaped box. The lid sat slightly ajar, but none of its internal lights shone from its innards. A hand hung limply from the opening. A female hand.

  An explosion of pain and light filled Bridge’s vision and he slumped to the floor.

  Chapter 9

  March 9, 2029

  11:51 p.m.

  Copper. Spit it out. Wet. Fur. Scratching face. No. Carpet. Bedroom carpet. Dust smell. Dirty. Have to vacuum. Open eyes. Dark. Can’t see. Wait. Light. Pain. Light is pain. Room. Room spinning. Window. Ceiling. Fan. Slow turning. Revolution. Floor. Ugly brown carpet full of dust. Spit copper. Blood. It’s blood. On the carpet. Blink. Can’t see. Tears. Spit. Hands. Push up. Fall. Push up. Head swimming. Window. Crèche. Woman’s hand. Floor. Carpet. Up on hands again. Legs not working. Work. Get up. Blood. Raise hand to mouth. Blood. Headache. Bruise. More blood. Crèche. Not working. Legs moved. On your knees. Get up. Someone here. Foot in chest. Pushed on back. Ceiling. Face. Black face. Dreads. Blurry. Crèche. The crèche isn’t working. Angela’s crèche isn’t working and that’s her dead lifeless hand spilling from it.

  Bridge’s senses returned slowly, a kaleidoscope of swirling images and swimming vision as he slowly regained consciousness. He ended up on his back with his attacker standing calmly over him. His limited perceptions could only focus on one thing at a time, and that thing was Angela. She was in her crèche, and she wasn’t moving. As clarity inexorably returned, the chain of events that led to this ordered themselves into a linear narrative that Bridge could compre
hend.

  The crèche, otherwise known as the SukeMura Sensory Deprivation GlobalNet Interface, was, for all intents and purposes, a sealed coffin-like environment. The user lay in its pill-shaped interior and had their senses removed one by one. A liquid suffused with a light anaesthetic absorbed through the skin removed the sense of touch, covering the body, face and head completely. Earplugs and an oxygen mask covered the face, eyes and ears, cutting off sound, sight and smell while providing oxygen. An intravenous drip provided nutrition on those long runs, and small electrodes provided tiny shocks that prevented muscular atrophy. A waste catch covered the genitals, removing the need for bio breaks. The crèche was an environment that isolated consciousness from its earthly shell, and the SukeMura plug provided an avenue to the great data ocean that was the GlobalNet.

  Without electricity, the crèche became a watery coffin in fact as well as in appearance. Bridge had experienced the jolt of power loss during the riots and it had been terrifying. Oxygen stopped flowing, and water would begin seeping into the facemask with the slightest movement. All the senses that had been removed would fire back up instantly. Perception snapped from whatever fantastic vista the NetBody had been experiencing to the darkened, claustrophobic feeling of being buried alive while also drowning. The best crèche models, like the one Angela lay in, had multiple battery backups. All backups took seconds to warm up, enough time to extricate oneself from the crèche before suffocation or drowning, precious seconds of sheer, thrashing, panicked terror. The locks were designed to pop open as soon as power was interrupted, whether the backups engaged or not. Angela’s model could have kept her in power for at least an hour after power loss, more than enough time to escape safely.

  Unless someone stopped her, that is. Bridge imagined her last moments. She could have held her breath a minute and a half, maybe two minutes tops. She would have thrashed about initially; taking precious seconds gous secoetting her physical bearings without thinking there was any danger. She would have checked the power readouts glowing on the goggles that blocked her vision. Those readouts would have been dead, of course, because Bridge could tell, even now as he scooted back to lean heavily against the wall, that the backups had been disabled before the power had been cut. Angela would have immediately realized that the crèche was dead in the water and moved her leaden arms to lift the lid. Bridge imagined the muffled, annoyed curses she would have tossed at the box, irritated at having her work interrupted. Even the first resistance to opening wouldn’t have registered as dangerous through her peevish mood. Only when the lid had refused to budge after a second, harder push would she have started to panic. A quick gasp would have caught in her throat, fogging the oxygen mask as she pulled the last, scattered remnants of air from the interior. Water would have begun to seep in under the mask, and she would have tried to raise her head above the water line, in that miniscule void space between the water level and the ceiling. But even there, the air would be fetid and scant, redolent with the scent of body odor, stale water and the memory of electrical current. She might have lasted whole minutes that way, frantically slamming her hands against the coffin’s lid, burning what little oxygen remained faster and faster with each second. Maybe she wouldn’t have screamed a scream that would have been swallowed up by the thick casing. The carpet showed the signs of the crèche having been moved after long months crushed down by the weight of the equipment, proving that she had struggled mightily. But it would have been in vain. Floating, exploding lights would have crept into the edges of her vision, followed by the dark, textured shroud of unconsciousness crawling across her eyes. All would have gone dark, her eyes rolling back into her head as the last scrabbling breath left her body and her lungs strained to extract any solace from the air. She would have fainted finally, falling back into the water with mouth wide, water seeping into her mouth and nose and filling her dead lungs.