Ghost Black

by Matthew S. Cox

  Risa glanced at the raven. “He can hear and see me.”

  It tilted its head in a manner one might expect from a bird.

  “Don’t give me that. I know you’re intelligent.”

  Muninn emitted a scratchy caw. “You didn’t ask anything. There was nothing to say.”

  “Fine.” She stared at the wall. “There are people I care about that I do not want getting involved in any bad blood. I have doubts a man like you is willing to let me walk away after being so close to killing him that I’m tempted to turn around and do just that.”

  “He says you are welcome to try, but he won’t go so easy on you this time.” Black feathers ruffled. “Of course, he suggests another deal if you are that concerned. Owe him a small favor.”

  “I’m not an assassin.” She closed her eyes and seethed.

  “Oh, but of course you aren’t.” Muninn made a noise startlingly close to a chuckle. “He agrees; no hits.”

  Do I want to sign a deal with the Devil? She again pictured Kree’s face. If it kept her from getting caught in the middle of revenge, what choice was there? “Alright. I’ll owe him a small favor that does not involve a targeted or indiscriminate killing.”

  The raven mimicked his master’s bow.

  Risa pushed the blue button and waited for a door to rattle out of her way on a pair of motorized chains. Up until now, she’d regarded Staanek as little more than annoying. Some idiot trying to trick local gang punks into collecting the bounty the UCF put on the head of an ‘MLF terrorist.’ A problem she thought would go away when General Everett was finished. Risa sighed.

  I keep sliding deeper. Am I ever getting out of this hole?

  14

  Street Cred

  No one bothered Risa on her journey from the bowels of Primus City to Tier 1. The last time Lars Staanek had interfered with her day, by virtue of a pack of thugs using a strange little girl named Chaia as bait, it had been in Elysium. Picturing that eerie too-pretty blonde kid got her thinking about Kree.

  The idea of her… daughter in the MLF safehouse unsettled her. Whatever General Everett had planned wouldn’t be good. I don’t even know if I can trust him either. She hovered at the glittery silver doors to the shuttleport, debating between flying or going back down to drag Kree out of there. No matter how much the child screamed, it had to be done sooner or later.

  Preferably sooner, before all hell broke loose.

  A soft hiss came as the starport doors parted for a group of four men and a woman, all in designer black suits with cobalt blue trim at the cuffs and collar, and in the woman’s case, skirt. Aside from one man focusing on an in-head Vidphone call, they shot her annoyed looks. She could fly to Elysium, which had the added benefit of being near Pavo’s apartment, and rattle the proverbial timbers of street thugs in an effort to track down Lars. That’ll take days… and who knows how many people will get shot before someone talks.

  Risa entered the starport atrium, squinting at a blast of super-cooled air conditioning and the smell of sweet coffee. About ten paces in from the door, a pair of young girls in crimson Mars Cadet uniforms smiled from behind a table full of cupcakes. They all looked the same, but a quarter of the table was sectioned off with a sign ‘Ͼ10 each.’ The majority sat behind a sign reading ‘Ͼ35.’

  “Hey lady,” yelled one of the tweens. She had Marsborn white skin, but her hair was lemon-blonde. “Wanna buy a cupcake? We’re trying to raise money for the One-Winged Angels.”

  Risa felt like a fish on a hook, but walked over. “Never heard of it. What’s with the price difference?”

  “One-Winged Angels is a charity set up to help take care of wounded war veterans.” The taller girl grinned. Like Risa, she had ebon hair and green eyes. She clasped her hands behind her back and swayed slightly from side to side. “Did you know that there are three-hundred-and-ninety-seven-thousand military personnel medically retired from duty due to injuries sustained in the conflict with the Allied Corporate Council? Over half of them are considered homeless.”

  The blonde girl sighed. “Our government sends them off to protect us, but too often, they refuse to cover the cost of cybernetic prosthetics if the person is mentally unfit to continue fighting.”

  “All the cupcakes we made are tiramisu. The more expensive ones have a cream filling with espresso liqueur. Those”―the black-haired girl pointed at the ten-credit ones―“don’t have alcohol.”

  “Are you two alone?” Risa bought one of the ‘good’ ones.

  “Our moms went downstairs to the Tier 2 Mall. We’re okay here. It’s only Tier 1 and…” The blonde pulled up her thigh-length crimson skirt enough to reveal a small pistol strapped to her leg.

  “Right…” Risa offered an uneasy smile. “Don’t be too quick to use that thing. Regret is a crappy roommate.”

  She wandered off into the giant shuttleport facility, tuned out to the ambient din of a hundred conversations and intermittent announcements in a too-placid electronic voice. Every so often, beeps and bongs from waiting passengers’ NetMinis announced boarding times. Risa approached a solid brick-shaped bench, silver paneled with a red cushion, and sat.

  Raziel, are you still out there?

  She rested her elbows on her knees, holding the cupcake in both hands. After a moment of silence, she picked at the thin plastic, peeling it off the confection. The scent of alcoholic coffee wafted to her nose.

  Guess that’s a no. I was going to ask for your help again. Genevieve is afraid to go outside.

  After emptying her lungs with a sigh, Risa bit into the cupcake, and cringed at the overwhelming sweetness. The wave of sugar passed, replaced by a tidal wave of coffee. She opened a call with her headware to RedLink, and threw Ͼ240 at a ticket to Elysium. The tiny tiramisu survived two more bites. Despite the strong flavor of alcohol, she didn’t feel much.

  Thank you for keeping my eyes. I had them put back in.

  She hung her head, and waited two minutes. When no response came, she called Garrison.

  His virtual head and shoulders appeared as if hovering in front of her; given her current posture, it made him appear to be lying on the floor. 「Hey Bit. Where are you?」

  Risa sat up, more to not feel like she spoke to a man lying down than because her mood improved. 「Shuttleport. I’m heading to Elysium. How’s the situation at, uhh, home?」

  「Quiet. No word from any direction yet.」

  The uneasiness in her gut intensified. 「That’s good. Heitzenroeder gave up the name of the person who arranged the broken clock. Lars Staanek. I think he’s in Elysium… or at least someone there knows where he is.」

  Garrison rubbed his chin; with her new headware, she gritted her teeth at the sound of his beard bristles scratching. 「That name sounds familiar.」 Soft beeping from holographic keypresses emanated from the other end of the call. 「Oh, that’s right. A few of our people have heard rumors a man by that name is throwing around a ‘bounty’ on you. Uhh, last count a hundred grand alive, ten-k dead. We don’t have much solid, but I’ll get the ’net team looking.」

  No wonder he’s only getting idiots. 「I guess I didn’t piss him off enough. Thanks. Can you put Kree on?」

  He nodded. A second later, a basketball-sized planet Mars with ‘MVCC’ stamped into its surface replaced his holographic figure. Glowing green words ‘call on hold’ orbited it. A voice-only ad from Mars Video Communication Corporation flooded her ears with a rapid-talking woman offering cheap unlimited calls to Earth for Ͼ625 a month. ‘Unlimited,’ of course, had an asterisk next to it, connected to fine print at the bottom of the image too tiny to read.

  Kree appeared a few seconds later. At her size, the hologram showed her from the waist up instead of a bust. One of Garrison’s olive-drab T-shirts covered her like a dress, though it hung far off her right shoulder to the point where the wisp of a girl was a bounce away from slipping entirely out the neck opening. 「Hi.」

  「Hey kiddo. I’m still helping my friend. I’ve got to take a tr
ip to Elysium.」

  Kree’s dark-blue eyes widened.

  「I can’t bring you with me this time. It’s not safe for a kid.」

  She deflated with a relieved exhale. 「Okay. When are you coming back?」

  「I don’t know for sure, but I’ll definitely be back for dinner. Hopefully sooner.」

  Kree nodded. She shifted and walked to her right, though the hologram remained static in front of Risa. The child flopped on the floor, allowing a corner of the cot in Garrison’s office into the image. 「Can you stay on the call?」

  The loneliness in the girl’s voice pulled at Risa’s chest. Kicking and screaming, she’s out of there as soon as I get back. 「Okay.」

  For twelve minutes, Kree explained how her new video game worked. She’d found it free on an abandonware site. The space-exploration game came out in 2407, making it five years older than the child playing it. About twenty percent of it consisted of piloting a space ship, the rest wandering around ‘alien ruins’ around mazes of underground tunnels. Her description of blown-apart aliens made Risa worry the graphics were too gory for a six-year-old.

  Kree pointed at some of the planets on the star map and matter-of-factly said, 「Those are too scary, so I don’t go there.」

  Risa jumped when her NetMini buzzed to announce her shuttle boarding. She hurried along to the indicated terminal, following virtual navigation arrows all the way to her designated row inside the craft. The illusion created by her headware call reoriented itself to appear as though Kree knelt in the empty seat next to her. The eighteen-minute flight passed in a flash while listening to Kree ramble about the game.

  「I’m landing now, kiddo. Gotta go. See you in a few hours.」

  Kree pouted. 「’Kay.」

  Risa felt like a monster. This, of course, leaked into her attitude toward Lars, making her hate him even more. She jogged down the boarding tunnel into the Elysium terminal and air tinted with the scent of honeysuckle. Immense white pots throughout the arrival terminals bloomed with all manner of living plants.

  Since Raziel’s either ignoring me or offline… A few seconds later, the visage of a teenage girl with olive skin appeared by virtue of her headware placing another call. Tamashī gawked at her and spoke in rapid Japanese. White text scrolled along, translating:

  「Heavenly feces! What did you do green to your eyes?」

  Risa laughed, both in her head and aloud. No one reacted; random laughter or shows of emotion had long ceased startling people used to cyberware. 「Slow down. The translator is butchering you.」

  Tamashī leaned closer, until her face took up the entire virtual projection, making her eyes the size of grapefruits. 「Wow. Wow. Wow. They’re so pretty. Intera?」

  Risa explained.

  「Oh… you meat-graded. I guess that’s nice.」 The woman’s enthusiasm leaked away on a deflating sigh. 「What’s up? You coming to hang out?」 She held up a chocolate-covered cookie stick. 「I got more pocky.」

  Risa hurried down a long, curved corridor past small shops and cafés, heading for the exit. 「I’d love to, but I don’t have time. I need your help.」

  「Maybe…」 Tamashī pointed the pocky at her. 「But you owe me a sleepover. Bring that kid you keep talking about.」

  「You’ve been spending too much time with the body of a thirteen-year-old. It’s affecting your brain.」 Risa grinned. 「Fine. I need to find a prong named Lars Staanek.」

  「Fourteen, and no problem. You got any images or video of this guy?」

  「No.」 Risa slowed for a security scan tunnel. A ten-foot slab of onyx-hued glass behind her depicted a blue-line skeleton, with all her cybernetics, and her laser pistols, rendered in white. A younger man in MDF armor did a double take and stood from behind the monitoring station. 「Oh, shit. I gotta go. I’ve been ‘randomly selected.’」

  「Right. I’ll call you when I find him.」 Tamashī winked, and ended the call.

  She put on a pleasant smile and approached a plain plastisteel table with a number of brown plastic bins. “Morning, officer.”

  “That’s some fancy hardware you got, miss…”

  “Thanks. They’re natural.”

  The man coughed, and shot a nervous glance at the two other MDF officers working the security scanner. “I… uhh, that was not intended as an inappropriate remark. What’s the purpose of your visit to Elysium? Which corporation do you work for?”

  She thought back to stories that used to float around the safehouse when she was younger about how police were once prohibited from asking such questions without ‘probable cause.’ Suppose nine-million credits of cyberware is probable cause? “I’m looking for a man who may or may not exist. I believe he paid off a black market arms dealer to murder a close friend of mine. Once I find him, I’m going to do your job for you.” Risa smiled.

  The man blinked.

  “Seriously though, I’m only going home. Unit 144C on Tier 4, in the Colossus Apartment block. It’s registered to Sergeant Pavo Aram, MDF. He’s my boyfriend.”

  “Uhh.” The man stared at her for a moment. “That came out awful smooth for being a load of dustblow. You sure you’re not doing a hit? What corporation do you work for?”

  “None.” She smiled, clasped her hands behind her back, and leaned close enough to whisper. “I’m probably putting you at risk by saying this, but I’m undercover with C-Branch.”

  “Riiight.”

  “Don’t believe me?” She straightened. “Call it in. Have your boss verify me with Major General Donald Everett.”

  A warbling voice, too muted to make out words but loud enough to recognize as Pavo, mumbled in the man’s open-faced helmet. His military bearing relaxed. “Oh, never mind. Pav says you’re good.”

  “Is he giving you too much information?” She shifted her weight onto her right leg, which accentuated her hip, and raised one eyebrow.

  Again, the man stammered, and waved to the side. “N-no. Just go before I get written up.”

  Risa waved at the officers and strolled into the terminal proper. This place is built on so much deceit they don’t recognize truth when it flashes its tits in their face. The Elysium starport sat on the surface, one facility used by both intercity shuttles as well as larger, interplanetary ships. A multifaceted dome of thousands of hexagonal windows covered the main area, laced with flower-bearing vines. Whenever something big came in to land, the cyan-white glow of ion thrusters lit up the atrium, and the ground rumbled.

  A pack of grade-school children made soft ‘oohs’ as an enormous civilian starship glided overhead, gleaming silver against the sky. The ship had such length, it took a full two minutes to pass by. Cruise liners didn’t often come in to land like that, so she figured it for a maiden launch. Risa looked away as the plastisteel hull caught the sun and glinted. Son of a bitch. She rubbed her face, having forgotten how painful glare could be. Nishihama Oracle cybereyes automatically filtered flashes like that out. Once she recovered the ability to see, she made her way to the nearest Morning Bean, got an orange creamsicle tea latte, and took a seat in a narrow two-person table by the window looking out into the concourse. Already had enough caffeine today.

  Tamashī buzzed back in ten minutes later. 「Bad news. I can’t find a damn thing on this guy. He’s completely off the grid. I pinged a couple people I know who don’t spend all their time in the virtual world. Only two recognized the name, but they only heard he’d been throwing credits around for some bounty. Sorry.」

  「Dammit.」 Risa clenched her hand into a fist on the table.

  Tamashī frowned. 「You don’t have to come to a sleepover since I didn’t find anything.」

  「I will… as soon as I can. Things aren’t exactly stable right now. I’m sure Kree would love to co-op Colony Commando with you. Maybe you’ll be able to keep up with her.」 A tall dark-skinned man passed outside, with dreadlocks down to his ass. He looked like a corporate type, but the sight of him gave her an idea. 「I’ll call soon. Thanks for trying.」


  Tamashī held up two fingers, smiled so hard her eyes closed, and cried out in a chirpy voice. 「Dōitashimashite!」

  White text translated to ‘you’re welcome.’

  Hard to believe that woman is old enough to be my mother.

  Risa slugged down the last bit of tepid tea, tossed the cup at a floating trash bot, and raced out into the street. A short jog brought her to a stairway leading to Elysium’s underground portion. The Tier 1 mall looked much cleaner than its equivalent at Primus, and had about half the people. I guess humans don’t want to go underground when there’s sky. She frowned. More evidence I’m messed up. I prefer the dark. She touched her cheek under her eye. Maybe not so much. Her protector―complete darkness―was no longer a friend. Without the ultrasonic sensors in her metal eyes, her Wraith couldn’t work. The dark would blind her as sure as anyone who wanted to hurt her, but she had spent many years in vents as a child before getting them.

  Screw it; I’m retiring.

  She threaded her way among the sparse crowd, giving a wide berth to a trio of wingnuts looking for gullible fools to join their cult worshiping some artificial intelligence, and hustled down a subterranean street tinted blue by newer plastisteel. Somewhere along the line, she’d learned that the tint indicated a higher content of indirium, a metal so far found only in asteroids, much tougher than normal plastisteel. Of course, the downside was weight.

  A mental nudge initiated another call. Forty seconds later, a midnight-dark face framed by a cascade of snow-white dreadlocks appeared. Luminous amber eyes mesmerized her; she’d never seen him without a ViewPane covering most of his head. The apparition created by her headware stood like a ghost among pedestrians unaware of his presence.