“Did you hear voices?”
Was the buzzing in his head actually voices? He thought about it for a while, trying to remember if anything had been distinct. It hadn’t. It was probably just a part of the headache thing, like the way migraine sufferers see lights. But why had his dad asked the question? Voices in your head aren’t a sign of an allergic reaction; they’re a sign of psychosis.
He closed his eyes and tried to sleep again, but it was too late—his mind was too busy to drift off. He opened his eyes and looked across the room at his coat. After about fifteen minutes, he got up and had another shower (on the basis that there was no telling when he’d be able to do it again). Then he retrieved his clothes from the cleaning box. It had worked—they were like new. He put them on, fastened his pocket watch in place and regarded himself in the small bathroom mirror. Not too bad. Cleaned up fairly well, if he did say so himself, though his hair was all over the place and his face seemed a little too pointy. The different colored eyes thing was a bit weird, though. It was kind of disconcerting, even for him, and they were his eyes.
He turned around, then turned back and looked at himself again. What had the old monk seen? Was it the eyes? Or something else. Or perhaps nothing at all. After all, he’d lost a lot of blood and was only moments from death. Sam thought about the other deaths he’d witnessed: the swift, the lingering, the violent and the peaceful. Each one was unique, but in their final moments some of them were elsewhere. His dad had died in a freezing cave, high in the mountains, yet was comforted by the belief that he was back in the San Francisco house, lying in his own bed with Marion making bread downstairs.
Whatever or whoever the old man thought he saw, Sam was certain it wasn’t him. It must have been a memory, dredged up from the mental records of a long life. A final nightmare.
Sam sighed, walked back into the main room and looked at his coat. He carefully took it down and stared at the Muthascreen. It was supposed to be voice-activated, but he knew that was out of the question. If there was one thing his dad had really pounded into his skull, it was that none of them should ever use their voices to communicate with any net screen, Mutha or not. He reached into one of the deep pockets in the back skirts of his coat where he kept the junk he hardly ever used, but might need at some point (like now, for example), and pulled out a worn rectangle of plastic. He unfolded it carefully and lay it on the dresser beneath the screen.
It was an old QWERTY keyboard. No one had used them for decades, but there were still a few floating around, mementoes of grandparents and simpler times. Sam had hooked his up to a simple wireless adapter. He turned it on and touched a key.
“Welcome to Mutha.”
The voice was female, soft and full bodied. It was supposed to sound reassuring, and for most people it was, but it always sent a shiver up Sam’s spine. It was the same voice he had heard in muffled argument with his father through the heavy study door of the San Francisco City house when he was five, right before they’d packed up all their belongings and run for the Wilds. And it had been the same voice, reaching out of anything with a chip: in desert gas stations, small town cafes and flea-bitten motels. Always soft, always wheedling. Urging his dad to return to the fold, go back to San Francisco, resume his work, it had all been a terrible misunderstanding, it would all be alright. But Elkanah had always responded the same way: packed up his family and headed deeper into the Wilds until the voice could no longer reach them. Or so they had thought.
“How can I help you?” The tone was solicitous, concerned, anxious to be of use.
“Carolyn Bast,” typed Sam. “Devastation Engineering and Tactical Havoc.”
“I see you are using an old text input device,” cooed the screen. “Would you prefer your response verbally or in text?”
“Text,” typed Sam, eager to silence the voice.
A picture of a sleek, low-lying office building appeared on the screen along with a headshot of a woman with close-cropped blond hair, her face half-turned away from the camera. She was attractive in a steel-hard way, her eyes pale and cold and a slight smile playing about her thin lips. She appeared to be wearing standard business clothes but they didn’t seem to fit well, as if she were more used to wearing something else.
“Carolyn Bast. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Devastation Engineering and Tactical Havoc, Inc.”
Sam examined the picture and guessed that she probably didn’t spend too much of her time languishing behind a desk.
He read on. Apparently Ms. Bast was born in the city of New York and began her career in the regular armies of the great cities of the Plains where she worked her way up the ranks to Brigadier General. She then elected to leave the regular army and work in the private sector where she distinguished herself in handling the security of many corporations before founding her own company eight years earlier.
Elected to leave…
Sam drilled down and stumbled across some old news reports of atrocities in a few outposts of the Wilds, near where new natural gas deposits had been discovered. After a few days, words like “exaggerated” and “so-called” began to appear in the coverage and within a few more, all reference ceased. And so, apparently, did the military career of Carolyn Bast.
Except that her first non-military security job was with a company closely related to the would-be developer of those same natural gas fields.
Sam sat back. He didn’t need to read any more—the story was all too familiar. After the Fourth Collapse, all pretense at controlling the activities of the suppliers of energy and other commodities had ceased. The charade of a central government had been abandoned at around the same time and the great city states had become more and more powerful. The world had changed, and anyone unlucky enough to be neither wealthy nor strong was left with the simple choice of eking out a living in the Wilds or submitting themselves to the rule of the few in cities in which they would only ever be very small cogs in a machine they could barely comprehend.
None of which explained why Carolyn Bast had stolen the Paradigm Device. It couldn’t be of any interest to anyone in Century City. According to his mother, only a handful of people had even known of its existence, and most of those were dead. Sam remembered his dad saying that most of the ones who had known about it hadn’t been privy to its function—they just knew that it was dangerous. Bast seemed little more than a successful thug, so presumably she had a client.
Sam tried to remember all the people who knew. His mom, Marion, had told him, but he’d only been ten at the time and although he had dutifully repeated the names back, they hadn’t really meant anything. He hadn’t understood why they were important, but the recitation had pleased his mother, and for as long as she was around they stuck. But then she was gone, and Sam was alone and there were more important things to learn and retain.
He sat back, lost in times past, remembering warm nights and caring embraces, hot milk at bedtime and laughter in the morning.
Which was why he didn’t notice it at first—the scratching at the back of his brain again as if someone were trying to get in. It was more subtle this time, more careful, but it wasn’t long before Sam felt it and it was joined by the whispering and the inevitable headache. He shook his head and reached back to where his coat hung on the back of the chair, but as he did so the Mutha screen went blank, then blue, then words appeared:
“Hello, Samuel.”
Sam jumped up as if he’d been hit, knocking the chair over. He dropped to his knees, scrabbling in the coat pocket for the pill box. He finally found it and, hand shaking, opened it and removed a tablet. He threw it into his mouth and waited for the effect, but even as the scratching and whispering faded, he heard the voice. The one that had haunted his father and destroyed first his career and then his life.
“I’ve missed you.”
And then silence. Sam sat quietly for a moment. It was the muthscreen, right? Just audio, not… He stood up and walked to the window. He needed air.
He drew
the curtains and breathed deeply. There was a yellow strip of light on the horizon. Dawn. He had to get out of the city. Back to the Wilds. Back to where he belonged. He’d never thought he belonged there, but now he understood that he did.
It knew his name. How could it know his name? He hadn’t used it anywhere in Century City. How could it know his name?
He closed his eyes and let the cool breeze play over his face.
Wait a minute...
Even as the thought came to his head, his heart sank.
I closed the window!
He opened his eyes just in time to see the dark figure swing through the window from above. The boots hit him square in the chest, sending him staggering backwards to the floor. Then his attacker was on him, his full weight on his chest and two razor sharp knives at his throat like scissors.
Sam closed his eyes. So this was how it ended. At least it would be quick.
But nothing happened.
He opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was the tattoo. It seemed to writhe on her face in the pale dawn light. The second was the dark sparkling eyes. The third was the disappointment.
“Shit.”
Sam grinned.
“You just can’t stay away, can you?”
“I don’t believe it.”
Alma slid the knives into sheathes behind her back. She examined Sam narrowly.
“You look different.”
“I had a shower. Two, actually.”
“Are you trying to be funny?”
“Not particularly. I really have had two showers. Washed my clothes, too.”
One side of Alma’s mouth tipped up in what Sam could have sworn was almost a smile. He reached up and touched her face. She slapped his hand away and recoiled.
“What did you do that for?”
“Well, you’re not moving, so I thought maybe this was what passed for foreplay in New Zealand.”
“Aotaearoa.”
“Whatever.”
Alma stared at him.
“You’re still not moving.”
She stood up and strode straight to the bathroom, checked it out, then checked the closets and under the bed.
“There’s no one else here,” said Sam.
“Where’s your little friend?”
“Next door.”
“Is the box here?”
“No.”
She stopped and glanced at him.
“Not as stupid as you look, then.”
“Not really possible.”
The half-smile glimmered for a split second and was gone again.
“I suggest you leave…now.”
Sam stood up, straightened the chair and picked up his coat.
“Funnily enough, that’s exactly what I was thinking right before you arrived. But probably not for the same reason.”
“And your reason is…?”
“It’s personal. What’s yours?”
“I was sent to get the box and kill you.”
“Huh. I was right.”
“About what?”
“There was some talk in the bar last night about Carolyn Bast bringing in a killer. Stone-cold assassin was the phrase used, I think.”
“And you assumed that was me?”
“I had a feeling.”
“Well, you’re right. And I have a reputation to protect, so you’d be doing us both a favor if you just vanished.”
“How old are you?”
“What?”
“Well, you seem a bit…young to have that kind of a rep.”
“I’ve seen sixteen summers,” she replied indignantly.
“That’s not really—”
“I was raised in the Makahua and lived with death as my friend. I took my first life at twelve. It is what I do. It is what we all do.”
“Did.”
She stared hard at him, then turned and checked the room again, leaving Sam to regret saying anything. He knew what it felt like to lose everything but at least he was still in the country where he was born. Most of the Hakadun fighters had been wiped out in the final days of the Antipodean Wars and their once-beautiful country left barren and bleak.
She strode to the window, looked down, then closed it and drew the curtains.
“Perhaps you should wait a short while. Until there are more people on the street.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“Sometimes my mouth works ahead of my brain.”
Alma looked at him and the half smile flickered again.
“The men of the Makahua do not apologize.”
“More fool them,” said Sam, smiling. “It usually works like a charm.”
“Do you take anything seriously?”
“I take lots of things seriously. It doesn’t mean I can’t have a laugh as well. The world’s a pretty ridiculous place when you think about it.”
He hung his coat over the Muthascreen again, taking care to obscure the whole thing. When he turned around she was standing right in front of him.
“Is that why you took the box? For a laugh?”
“Jeeze, you move quietly! You should wear a bell like a cat. No, I didn’t take the box for a laugh. I didn’t take it at all.”
“Then how—?”
“There was an old man. A monk, I think. He took it, but I think maybe Carolyn Bast had taken it from him, or from his monastery. Anyway, he’d got it back, but he was shot. Dying. He gave it to me.”
“He was being chased?”
“Yes. There wasn’t really time to think. I wanted to try to save him but he refused.”
“How could you have saved him? You carry no weapons.”
“How do you know that?”
“You had none in town, nor in the camp in the Wilds when anyone with sense would have been armed to the teeth.”
“Maybe I don’t believe in them.”
Alma stared at him for a moment then rolled her eyes. “Oh, I see, you think you’ve seen enough violence.”
“Maybe.”
“Okay. So you took the box. Do you know what it is?”
“Yes.”
“And…?”
“They didn’t tell you, did they?”
Alma hesitated for a moment and when she spoke Sam had the feeling it wasn’t what she’d been going to say.
“It wasn’t necessary. My orders were to retrieve the box and dispose of the man that took it.”
“Right,” he said, staring into her face in a vain attempt to discover some sign, some flicker that would explain why she’d bothered lying.
“So,” said Alma, staring back calmly. “What are you going to do with it?”
Sam shrugged. “Hide it, I guess. Somewhere no one will ever find it.”
“Your eyes are different colors.”
“What?”
“It’s very disconcerting. Where are you going to hide it?”
“I’m…I don’t know. Somewhere with a blue sky. And stars at night.”
“There’s no such place.”
“So everyone says.”
A shaft of light crept across the floor between them as the new day finally arrived.
“But you don’t believe them?”
“Dunno,” said Sam. “It’s just…I like the thought that somewhere there’s a place that’s still okay, that didn’t get messed up.”
“There isn’t. Get over it.”
Sam glanced at her, then strode across the room and pulled the curtains wide. At night the city had looked beautiful but in the cold light of early morning it lost much of its luster. The yellow sky loomed over the utilitarian concrete housing blocks, while the sleek black skyscrapers took on an air of ambivalence rather than majesty and the distant refinery spewed black smoke into the clouds…as if things weren’t bad enough already.
“There has to be something better than this,” he muttered.
“We should go,” said Alma. “I’ll go first. You wait fifteen minutes then leave by the back of the hotel. I’ll take out the cameras
but they’ll have them up and running again pretty soon.”
“Right,” said Sam, returning to the dresser and retrieving his coat. He folded up the old plastic keyboard and returned it to his pocket. “You know it’s been listening, right?”
Alma smiled her sideways smile, and held up a small octagonal pendant that hung on a chain around her neck.
“You’re joking! A jammer? Where on earth did you get that?”
“Carolyn Bast makes sure all her operatives have one. Perk of the job.”
“Can you get me one?”
“No.” She opened the door and glanced up and down the corridor.
“Remember—fifteen minutes.”
“Why are you doing this? Helping me.”
“I’m not sure,” whispered Alma. “I guess…I don’t like them. This Bast woman and her people…they have no honor. I am Hakkadun. For us, honor is all, and…”
She hesitated for a moment, then looked straight into his eyes. Sam thought he glimpsed something in the depths of hers. A sadness that she hid far away in the recesses of her soul.
“You are taking a dangerous thing to a place that probably doesn’t exist because you believe it is the right thing. It’s good to know there are still some people as crazy as you, Sam Cooper. So I will not kill you.”
He stepped toward her, wanting to say something else, to explain that he wasn’t that person. Not really. But she opened the door and disappeared down the corridor, moving swiftly and without a sound. Sam sighed, glanced around the room to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything, then stepped into the corridor and knocked on Nathan’s door.
There was a long pause before a bleary-eyed Nathan opened it a crack.
“What? I’m sleeping.”
“Well, wake up,” said Sam, pushing his way into the room and closing the door. “We’ve got to go.”
“Right now?”
“Fifteen minutes. Enough time for you to have a shower.”
“But…”
“Really. A shower. Now. You are seriously rank.”
Nathan sloped off to the bathroom, too hungover to protest. Sam put his coat over the Mutha screen and wandered out to the balcony. He could feel the acrid factory output in the back of his throat and sighed. One day. That was all he wanted. Just one day of blue skies and one night of stars before he died.
Paradigm Page 7
