Carnival

by Elizabeth Bear

  His fisheye, however, showed him that the pedestrian was safely out of sight. He released the mirror and touched his wrist, keying the wardrobe back into camouflage mode. Then he stepped forward.

  Lesa Pretoria was there. Back against a wall, her hands spread wide but not raised, exactly, so much as hovering, and Walter beside her, balanced on his hind legs like a miniature kangaroo, with his forelegs drawn under his chest and the feathers on his long, heavy tail fanned wide. They were surrounded by five armed women, and a man Michelangelo knew from the reception the first night: Stefan, a light‑complected fellow with unusually fair hair, more so even than Vincent’s.

  The man had his back to the alley and his bulk hid part of the scene. Beyond him, what Kusanagi‑Jones had taken to be two attackers was revealed as an attacker and a hostage with her arm twisted behind her back, her own confiscated weapon by her ear.

  The hostage was Katya Pretoria. Which explained Lesa’s careful, motionless poise.

  Vincent would have known the instant he saw the bystander hurrying away. He would have read it in her gait, the guilty downcast of her eyes, the haste.

  Kusanagi‑Jones wouldhave to walk in on a mugging blind.

  Or maybe not a mugging. Having Katya as a hostage–miserable, trying with pride not to flinch away from the muzzle of her own weapon–would tend to indicate that something more complex was occurring. Lesa had made casual comment about people kidnapped by pirates, after all, and not in a sense that indicated she was, entirely, joking. And there was the incident with Vincent–

  As Kusanagi‑Jones moved, he obtained a more complete perspective. The stranger was holding the weapon cocked beside Katya’s head. Not actually in contact, but close enough to make the point in a professional manner.

  Lesa’s weapon was still holstered, but the other women were all armed, and only one of them hadn’t drawn. Kusanagi‑Jones didn’t take her for the ringleader, though. More likely a scout.

  A poorly trained scout. She repeatedly glanced over her shoulder at the confrontation, rather than facing the approach, weapon ready.

  Actually, her right hand was bandaged and splinted, and though her weapon was rigged for left‑hand use, he thought that hand flexed awkwardly over the holster.

  Sometimes you got a lucky break.

  Well,Michelangelo thought, at least I’m invisible.

  For now. He thought he could rely on the New Amazonians to figure things out once he acted. And while his wardrobe couldstop bullets, it couldn’t do it forever. It cost in power and in foglets, and the technology needed time to recharge and repair.

  He wasn’t without assets, though. She might be female, but Lesa was deadly enough with a sidearm to win Vincent’s respect, as Vincent had impressed on him after the discussion in Lesa’s office. Katya was another factor. Duelist or not, Kusanagi‑Jones didn’t think she was the sort to just stand there and weep. And, of course, the khir. Kusanagi‑Jones could only guess from old media how useful it might be in a fight, but he knew police and military had used dogs as attack animals before Assessment, and the khir was bigger than any image of a dog he’d seen.

  He hoped they hadn’t overstated the case.

  If Lesa was the…gunslinger…Vincent had intimated, she’d initiate something when she saw an opening. Which meant Kusanagi‑Jones needed to giveher that opening, while being alert for any moves she might make on her own, and standing ready to abort and follow her lead. He just hoped she didn’t do anything hysterical, or freeze up because of the gun to her daughter’s head.

  He was getting blasted tired of trying to second‑guess people smarter than he was. And it wasn’t made any easier when they were women.

  If this was the same crew that had attempted to abduct Vincent–as the lousy perimeter guard’s bandaged hand tended to indicate–they might be armed chiefly with nonlethal weapons. They would want everyone alive.

  Which would be why the woman controlling Katya was using Katya’s weapon. Because itwould be loaded with lethal rounds, and Lesa would know that. If one meant to threaten, it never hurt to reinforce your intention with a little evidence.

  If one meant to act, however, sometimes the element of total surprise came in handy.

  Kusanagi‑Jones moved forward. The wardrobe’s camouflage function was designed to bypass automated security. Mere human senses never stood a chance as he picked his route between the attackers. The target was of average height, for a New Amazonian. Her dark brown hair was cropped short and brushed forward into a coxcomb, dyed cherry‑red at the tips. She held Katya’s weapon with confidence, and her voice carried.

  “Please place your hands on your head, Miss Pretoria, and turn to face the wall.”

  Lesa seemed to be obeying, slowly and with deliberation. Her hands rose, her eyes unswerving on the gunwoman’s face. Walter’s leash still slid looped around her left wrist, and the khir hissed as she turned, its nostrils flaring. Michelangelo wondered how long it could balance on its hind legs–it showed no signs of strain yet–and he wondered also why the cherry‑haired woman didn’t just drop it. Whatever need kept them from harming Lesa, he couldn’t imagine it applied to her pet.

  That was, he hoped, secondary. He found a position behind the gunwoman before Lesa finished her hesitation‑march pirouette. His moment would come when Lesa’s back was fully turned. The target’s attention should shift, momentarily, from controlling Lesa and Katya to ordering her troops.

  That would be the moment when Katya would be at the least risk from his intervention. And he saw it coming in the shifting of the target’s weight, the instant when she drew a deeper breath, preparatory to speaking.

  New Amazonia had specified that the negotiators come unarmed, all security to be provided by Penthesilean forces. And so Vincent and Kusanagi‑Jones had carried no obvious weapons. But a utility fog was, by its very nature, adaptable technology, and they carried data under diplomatic seal. And among those data were licenses for weapons banned on every Coalition world.

  The cutting wire that formed between Kusanagi‑Jones’s hands as he raised them wasn’t actually a monofilament. It was composed of a single chain of hand‑linked foglets, and it was neither as strong nor as sharp as a monomolecular wire.

  It didn’t need to be.

  He formed his arms into an interrupted loop, as if to capture her in a surprise embrace, and brought the wire down.

  It caught the target below the elbows. Slight resistance shivered up the invisibly thin wire as it made contact, and Michelangelo jerked down.

  The target made no sound. For a hopelessly long time–a third of a second, longer–she stared in shock at the abrupt termination of her arms. Both her hands fell, and Michelangelo had just enough time to hope the pistol didn’t discharge from the shock when they hit.

  And then the target’s heart beat and blood sprayed from her stumps, soaking Katya and spattering Lesa, Walter, and the wall. A thin moan filtered through her teeth, cut off abruptly as Michelangelo slit her throat, passing the wire through flesh with a quick, sliding tug that didn’t sever her spine because he snapped the filament off before it pulled completely through.

  He stepped clear as she fell. Shock would buy him split seconds, but there were five more enemies to account for. With any luck, Katya would reclaim her weapon and help even the odds.

  Michelangelo surrendered to the mercy of trained reflexes. He spun, moved to the next target, slipping in blood. Its pewter stink and the reek of urine rose as he took a second woman down, striking nerve clusters in the neck and solar plexus. A bullet sank into his wardrobe, the sting unbalancing, but he recovered as she fell. Lesa’s gun spoke; the fair‑haired man grunted as Walter plowed into his chest.

  It would be good to have at least two for questioning. Michelangelo used feet and fists and elbows, gouged and kicked. A tangler splashed against a wall, shunted aside by his wardrobe. He heard a second one discharge, but it wasn’t close. He didn’t see where; it was a blur of motion in his fisheye, and he was dist
racted by the passage of blows with a gap‑toothed woman whose hair lay in flat braids behind each ear.

  She couldn’t see him, but she could fight. Air compression or instinct, she parried six blows, each one flowering blue sparks as his wardrobe shocked her. She gave ground as he advanced. She would have caught the seventh on the cross of her arms if she hadn’t slipped in blood.

  The grin was a rictus as she raised her hands, seared patches showing on her forearms, one foot coming up, bracing to roll her over and aside. Too slow. Michelangelo stepped forward between her knees and kicked her hard, in the crotch.

  Her expression as she coiled around the pain was almost worth three very long New Amazonian days of being treated like a child‑eating monster, and a not very bright one at that.

  Lesa’s gun was silent, and as Michelangelo kicked his latest target in the temple to keep her quiet, he saw her snared in webbing, writhing against the strands in an effort to free her weapon hand. Walter was down, too, sprawled on his side with a gash through feathers and scales across his ribs. Katya pushed herself to her feet, so drenched in blood as to be barely recognizable, but with her sidearm clutched in one sticky hand. The last two assailants left standing were casting left and right for any sign of their invisible attacker.

  Katya lifted clotted hair from her eyes left‑handed as she brought her weapon up. “Stand down,” she said.

  The women stepped forward. Michelangelo kicked the one on the left under the chin; they ducked sideways as the other woman discharged a chemical firearm. The three‑shot burst stuttered against his wardrobe, transferred shock emptying his lungs.

  “Stand down!” Katya yelled, before he regained his balance, but the other woman didn’t lower her weapon. He turned, moved toward her–

  –and Katya shot her through the heart. Michelangelo didn’t even see an impact. Flechette rounds, maybe. She went down anyway, looking shocked, and hit with a liquid thud.

  “Shit,” Katya said, wiping her bloody mouth on a hand that wasn’t any better. “Shit.”

  Kusanagi‑Jones spared a glance around the battlefield. “Nice shooting for a girl who doesn’t duel.”

  Katya put a hand down and pushed herself to her feet, then planted both hands on her knees and stood doubled over, panting, for a moment. “Mom made sure I knew what I was doing with weapons. It isn’t her fault I think shooting people for points of honor is stupid. Michelangelo?”

  “It’s me,” he said, snapping off his wardrobe’s filters as she came upright.

  She blinked, looked down at the weapon in her hands, and back up at him. “Wow.”

  “Good trick, huh?”

  She swallowed and didn’t nod. Instead she came toward him, pistol hanging from half‑curled fingers, shaking so hard her shoulders trembled. He looked down, frowned, checked one more time for enemies in a position to do damage, and uncomfortably dialed his wardrobe down to offer the girl a hug.

  Not even shaking, shuddering,from the nape of her neck to the soles of her feet, and the only reason her teeth weren’t clacking was because her jaw was clenched so tightly the muscles stood out under her ears. “Never killed anybody before?”

  She shook her head.

  He squeezed her roughly and backed away, pushing her in the direction of the downed khir. “Gets easier. I’ll untangle Miss Pretoria.”

  She went, silently. He checked the casualties one more time while picking his way between them to get to Miss Pretoria. It never hurt to be sure.

  And Katya was a good kid, for a girl. He was even more impressed if this was her first fight.

  He left the wardrobe dialed down. He’d need to touch Lesa to get the tangler off. “This won’t take long,” he said, picking through licenses as he crouched beside her, looking for the right antiadhesive formula.

  He was loading it when Katya shot him in the back.

  18

  AT DINNERTIME, THE HOUSEHOLD DISCOVERED MICHELANGELO was missing, and Vincent was subjected to a brief, cursorily polite interview with Elena on a wicker‑furnished sun porch overlooking the central courtyard.

  “He left with Lesa,” Vincent said, shading the truth.

  Elena, seated with her back to the courtyard, the evening’s balmy air blowing the scents of fireworks and wilted flowers around her, frowned over her datapad.

  “Lesa’s not answering her com,” she said with the air of one bestowing state secrets. “And Walter, one of the household khir, is missing.”

  “Let me guess,” Vincent said, unable to keep the dryness out of his voice. “Lesa’s especial pet.”

  “It would be a mistake to think of khir as pets, exactly.”

  She had kept him standing, and he consciously arranged himself at parade rest, weight on his heels, body relaxed, spine hanging from his skull like a string of beads straightened by gravity. “Though you collar them?”

  “We identify who the responsible humans are. But the khir are perfectly capable of resettling if conditions don’t suit them. They have their own packs and family arrangements. It’s considered unwise to intervene.” She pushed idly at the iced drink resting on the low table before her, tracing fingertips down the glass‑beaded side. “This was their city first. In any case, in the light of yesterday, we must consider foul play.”

  Vincent folded his arms, firming his mouth. Nothing as daunting as Michelangelo’s frictionless mask, but he wouldn’t be much of a diplomat if he couldn’t lie with a straight face. “I find it surprising they would have left without security.”

  “They didn’t make you aware of their destination, then?” The furrow between Elena’s eyebrows creased deeper. She sat back abruptly, flicking moisture off her fingers like a cat. “I assumed the lack of security meant it had something to do with”–a dancing gesture, back and forth–“private matters.”

  “Between you and me?”

  She nodded.

  “It might have,” he said. “I presume Lesa passed along the substance of our conversation last night.”

  “She said you were unforthcoming enough about your partner’s politics to make her curious.”

  “I was,” he said.

  Elena sat forward. “I’ll have contact codes for your mother, documents, a timetable. Coordination is going to require discretion and effort.”

  “Elder Pretoria,” he said, leveling his voice with far more effort than he allowed to show in it, “what about Angelo and your daughter?”

  “Katya and Agnes have taken out search parties,” she said. “I’ve informed Miss Delhi and the rest of her security team, and no doubt they are scouring the city as well. In the meantime, it’s not as if our other business will wait.”

  “In the meantime,” he replied, “I don’t suppose you’ve made any progress in locating the missing statue.”

  “Phoenix Abased?”She studied her fingernails. “I believe security directorate is looking into it.”

  “If it’s not located,” he said, “I may have some difficulty convincing the Coalition Cabinet that it’s wise to repatriate the rest of the liberated art. To a city that can’t manage to keep track of the jewel of the collection for twelve hours, once it’s released to their authority.”

  “That would be unfortunate,” she said. “Because New Amazonia would no doubt interpret that as further evidence of the Coalition’s perfidy. And I think even Claude would find it challenging maintaining generalized acceptance of neutrality or appeasement under those circumstances.”

  “The Christ,” he said, biting his lip to keep the grin under control. “That’s worthy of my mother.”

  Elena tipped her head. “It’s hard to imagine a higher compliment.”

  Lesa had said it. Only a member of Parliament could have pulled off the theft. One such as Elena Pretoria, the Opposition leader. “So you have a plan to foment revolution. Convenient. What do you plan to do about Robert?”

  She spread her fingers wide. “He’s just a stud male. An unusual male, but a male. His chances of successfully accusing three wel
l‑placed women are slim. Unless he had hard evidence–which I don’t believe–his testimony is easily discredited. It’s a minor scandal how much Lesa spoils him, anyway.”

  The chill that crawled across his shoulders might have been the sunburn. “So you’re unconcerned.”

  “Honestly,” she said, “given Claude’s blunder in challenging Miss Kusanagi‑Jones, I find it hard to see how our situation could be better. Assuming, of course, that they are located quickly.”

  “Assuming.” He took it as leave to go when she lifted her drink and turned to the window. She could mask her worry from her family, but not from him, and it made them both uncomfortable.

  Still, he managed to avoid panic until after nightfall, when a commotion in the courtyard roused him from unprofitable ceiling staring, watching the reproduced image of the Gorgon slowly color the darkening periwinkle of a crepuscular sky. He rolled off the bed quickly and hurried to the arch, his injured leg lagging. The pain medication helped, but couldn’t obscure ongoing twinges.

  He came out under the real sky, washed by city lights until it shone less bright than the reproduction inside, and paused with his hands on the balcony railing. A stem of carpetplant stuck between his toes, and he momentarily forgot the ache of his knee and the seared shivers crossing his tender back. Below, several dark heads gathered, women rushing barefoot from the house, and a doorway in the courtyard wall–a sort of garden gate without a garden–stood open on the street beyond, two girls observing through the crack with gamine eyes.

  He spotted Elena easily as she strode into the courtyard, the others giving way before her, except for one. Katya Pretoria stayed crouched beside an exhausted, bedraggled khir. The animal’s head curled up on a long neck, trembling, but otherwise it lay spread on its side, and Vincent could see the white glare of bandages against scaled, feathered hide.

  “Dammit,” he said, stepping back. “Dammit, dammit, dammit.”