Caine Black Knife aoc-3

by Matthew Stover

  “Five days? Sir, please-if you’ll only make the call to Businessman Vilo-”

  “Wait, wait; you haven’t heard the best of it, Michaelson.” Kollberg’s voice heats up, and a sheen of sweat slickens his upper lip. His eyes go squirrel-bright. “We will arrange for a Khryllian reconnaissance-in-force to be moving out into the fringes of the Boedecken; though I cannot guarantee the actual makeup, there is a strong chance that you should see at least five Knights, possibly as many as ten, and up to one hundred fifty armsmen-”

  “What good does that do anybody?”

  “You’ll encounter them less than three days out from the vertical city. You’ll tell them that the Black Knives have a captive Knight of Khryl. .”

  Kollberg leans closer. His breath smells of lavender and orange mints.“Imagine the rescue, Michaelson. Imagine. Ten Knights. One hundred fifty lancers. Falling upon the Black Knives like a steel thunderbolt. . with you as the advance scout, having received a Khryllian Healing for all your wounds. With you penetrating the camp to locate the prisoners, to prepare them for rescue. With you finally using all the skills of the Monastic assassin you are, to eliminate pickets and preserve the element of surprise. .”

  “I can see why you like it.”

  “And this is why you’ll like it, Michaelson. This is why I went to Businessman Vilo; this is why I risk my career on an emergency transfer for an unknown Actor. A never-was.”

  Kollberg leans even closer. Under the sick-sweet pastilles, you can smell on his breath the blood-sugar problems that are bringing on his type 2 diabetes.

  “Can you say: first-handers?”

  And now you can’t breathe at all, and I’m sure it’s not from the smell. “Are you serious?”

  “Oh, yes. Oh, I am. I’ve been showing clips of your Adventure to a few. . select connossieurs. . already. As soon as you make contact with the Khryllians, we’ll be putting you on live. For the whole rest of the Adventure. Live.”

  “Live. .” you echo. Your lips hang. You can no longer feel your toes, or your fingertips.

  “Because I see something in you, Michaelson. I saw it from the moment that buck stood up on the badlands. I know star power. You have it. And I saw it first.”

  As you stare at him, all you see now is the sweat beginning to collect in droplets on his face. “If you only knew how long I’ve been waiting to hear somebody tell me that.”

  If he only knew how what should have been the sweetest moment of your life somehow leaves your mouth full of dust and bitter ash.

  “I’m going to make you, Michaelson. I’m going to make Caine the star you deserve to be. And in the process, I’m going to make myself into the top Administrator in the whole damned Studio System. It all starts right here. But you have to play, Michaelson. I can make you go back, but I can’t make you be the Caine you need to be to make this work.”

  You lower your head and stare again at the spike. And I can only guess what you are thinking.

  Are you remembering that the whole time you’ve been back in the Studio-the whole time you’ve been back on Earth-from the tiny Winston Transfer chamber to the emergency infirmary to the recovery room to here, you have been given not so much as a glance outside? Because this is all you say here: all you have ever said: all you will ever say:

  Not one window.

  No glimpse of the world you were born into. The universe you had left, and to which you have been returned.

  It is at this moment that something within you unlocks. I feel it in your chest: as though an iron band fastened around your heart snaps open at the touch of a key in your mind. “I get it,” you say slowly. “When you rescued me, you weren’t saving my life. You were saving your career.”

  Kollberg actually grins. “Michaelson, you died the day you passed your Boards. If you’d given yourself up for dead back then, you’d already be a star.”

  You do not answer, for truth requires no reply.

  “All right,” you say after a moment. “All right.”

  Your left hand can make a fist. Your right can, too, and though the nerve-block handles the pain well enough, the slide of your wrist tendons around the nail twists you full of nausea.

  That is the nausea’s source.

  Isn’t it?

  “All right. It is what it is.”

  Kollberg offers a moist chuckle. “Most things are.”

  You nod toward the screen. “Give me back the vertical city, will you?”

  Kollberg clicks, and the schematic grows itself around the constellation of fourteen stars.

  “Those are the surviving humans?”

  “Mmm.”

  “How do you track them?”

  “By their thoughtmitters, of course.”

  You only stare.

  Kollberg’s lower lip bulges. “I’m sorry-was this a mystery?”

  Again you can’t quite manage a deep breath. “They’re all Actors? All of them? The porters-everybody?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Pretornio?”

  “Livia Murphy, out of New York.” Kollberg manipulates his control, and the screen flares with a view of the Black Knife camp seen through a veil of blue-white flame, while hidden speakers burst to life with the crackle and spit of burning fat and the bone-conducted distortion of Pretornio’s voice, chanting her Old High Lipkan.

  Another twist of the control cancels the audio, and Kollberg sighs. “Quite the pity, actually. Had any of her own Studio’s Administrators a hint she was capable of such power, she may have had a more. . extensive career.”

  “Holy crap. .” You lie motionless on the bed, cold and once again numb. “It is a snuffer. .”

  “Oh, please.” Kollberg looks disgusted. “Grow up, Michaelson. The Studio doesn’t produce snuffers. That’s an urban legend.”

  “All Actors,” you murmur. “Every one of them. .”

  “Of course. How do you think your bloody expedition was organized? You think it’s easy to place Actors on real treasure hunts?”

  “Why didn’t-but we didn’t know-”

  “Because you’re Actors.” Kollberg flicks a piece of imaginary lint off the sleeve of his Administrator’s chlamys. “Even with unbreakable conditioning-blocks and the most expensive training in the history of Earth, you just can’t stay in bloody character. Look at you and Bergmann-the instant you’re alone together, you’re reminiscing about your damned school days. I mean, really.

  Do you have any idea how much editing we’ll have to do in that sequence?”

  “Bergmann? You mean Marade?”

  He nods. “Olga Bergmann, out of Vienna. By the way, the sex was superb; we’re keeping that. Very nicely played, on your part; you have an eye for neurotic weakness. If she lives through the rescue-and you do, of course-we’ll slot you for some team-up Adventures. Banging the big Nordic blondes always goes down well. Oh, and speaking of going down-next time, make sure she gives you head. I’ll speak to Vienna about it. You can sixty-nine if you want, but really it’s better if she just does you. You’ve heard of the sexual position sixty-eight? ‘Give me a blowjob, and I’ll owe you one.’ Ha-hrm. Especially if she’s on her knees. That’s nuclear when it’s a powerful woman; the more submissive, the-”

  “Administrator, for Christ’s sake-”

  “Entertainer.” Kollberg leans on the word. His little piggy eyes have receded into his face. “The proper response to a direct order is ‘Yes, Administrator,’ or, informally, ‘Yes, sir.’ ”

  He waits.

  Vomit burns the back of your throat.

  Kollberg says, “Let’s give a try, shall we? Entertainer?”

  Your jaw locks down so hard your teeth ache. Your throat clamps shut. You manage to say, “Yes, Administrator,” anyway.

  You’ve done harder things. Can you remember any right now?

  Your gaze goes from the spike through your wrist to the fleshy curve of Kollberg’s cheek and back again. The real difference between him and Crowmane , you monologue, is he’s too fucking smar
t to give me a free shot.

  And, of course, that Kollberg has offered you something to lose. “Yes, Administrator.” It’s easier the second time. It gets easier every time. “All right, Administrator.”

  “Now. Let’s start again.”

  You grind words out between your teeth. “I still need to talk to Marc Vilo.

  Please, sir.”

  Kollberg shakes his head. “I thought I explained-”

  “You did. But you don’t understand, Administrator. I’m not trying to get out of this. I’m not trying to get out of anything.”

  Kollberg settles back into his chair and folds his hands over the soft curve of his belly. “I’m listening.”

  “We’re on the same side here, Administrator. You want Caine to be a star. I want Caine to be a star. More than anything. More than being alive. Being an Actor-that’s all I’ve lived for since I was ten years old. And you-well, I don’t know you. But you’re what, forty? And you’re still putting together crapass straight-to-cube Adventures with packs of no-names? Your career’s not going exactly the way you hoped either, I bet.”

  Kollberg’s only response is a squint that seems to suck his eyeballs all the way to the back of his skull.

  “I’m guessing this Adventure’s the biggest you’ve ever done. It is, isn’t it? And sometime before we all got bagged-maybe back when I went walking out that gate-you saw a whole new future open up in front of you.”

  You can’t get your teeth to come apart, but you can unleash a facsimile of Caine’s grin. “I’m reading your fucking mind, aren’t I?”

  Kollberg’s lips squeeze themselves into a liver-colored asshole.

  “Pulling me was the biggest chance you’ve ever taken. That’s why you’re down here. That’s why you’re bullying me into this horseshit escape thing. You bet that brand-new future on me.”

  Words squirt through those lips like a fart. “If I did?”

  “You’re gonna lose.”

  Kollberg lurches forward, red flush climbing his face. “The difference between us, Michaelson, is that I can lose and live. Remember I can put you back right where I found you.”

  And this, My Love, is where you become My Love. This is where I know you are truly Mine. When you let the grin fade. When you let your eyes go soft, and you let your voice drop like a lover’s. When you say, “That’s what I want.”

  “Eh?”

  “Administrator, you’re not a real Studio man. Not really.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I’m not trying to be impertinent, please, Administrator, but-where did you come from? What branch of Service?”

  “Health care,” Kollberg admits reluctantly. “I ran St. Luke’s Ecumenical, in Chicago. But I’ve always enjoyed-”

  “Yeah. Everybody does. But listen: popping in a cube now and then isn’t the same. It doesn’t mean shit. Adventures Unlimited is my whole life, Administrator. I have breathed Adventures in and breathed them out since I was old enough to work secondhander gear. Before I was an Actor, I was a student of Acting. Before I was a student, I was a fan. A real fan. Do you have any idea what that means? What it is to be a fan?”

  “Well, I hardly think-”

  “Fan is short for fanatic. You get it? This isn’t just a hobby for me. Or a career path. This is my fucking religion.”

  “Religion.” That liver-colored asshole drops the echo like a soft turd.

  You let passion rise in your voice: the iron band that had unfastened within your chest goes red, then white, then melts and burns away. “When you’re a fan, it eats your life. There’s nothing else for you, you get it? Administrator, everything I know came from Adventures-shit, the only reason I learned to read was that there just aren’t enough good real Adventures, so I started reading ones people just made up-then I started reading the shit they based those Adventures on, and-well, I just never stopped. It’s all I ever thought about. It’s still all I think about.”

  You turned your face up toward the joining where the ivory ceiling meets the green wall, but you are looking at something I cannot see with your eyes.

  “When I was twelve I got in a knife fight with an older kid. All we had were homemade shanks, all point, y’know? I wasn’t even scared; I’d cubed White Fire, Black Steel maybe twenty times, so I let him slash me over the ribs because I knew it’d only hurt but wouldn’t kill me, and I stabbed him in the thigh-just like Jonathan Mkembe, get it? And he ran away. Jesus Christ, Administrator, when I lost my goddamn virginity, you know what I was thinking? I was thinking we were both decent fucks, doing pretty good, considering neither one of us were, y’know, Actors, and I was using pro technique, y’know, because I’d already fucked maybe seventy or eighty women secondhand-and she’d done more than that. . The biggest thing that ever happened to me? When I was maybe ten or eleven years old, I met Nathan Mast. You know who he was?”

  Kollberg shakes his head. “I don’t see where you’re going with this, Michaelson.”

  “Doesn’t matter. He used to be famous, back before I was born. He was one of Mkembe’s sidekicks for a while. The point is, he was living in the Mission District Sorrows-the Single Room Occupancy Temp flops. He was a broke-down old ragface.”

  “Pathetic.”

  “Not for me. It was the greatest day of my life. You know why? He was just an ordinary fucking guy. You get it? He wasn’t a god. He wasn’t Superman. He was just like any other Temp ragface. Just another loser.”

  “So?”

  “So he was just like me.”

  Kollberg squints. “Ah.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And so-”

  “And so that was the day I discovered I had a shot at this. I’ve been getting ready for it ever since. I’m not going to fuck it up.”

  “Fine, then. I’m very glad to hear it. Now, the garrison commander at North Rahnding is a Knight Captain by the name of Purthin Khlaylock-”

  Administrator, you’re hearing me, but you’re not hearing me. What I’m trying to get through to you-without any disrespect at all-is that I know more about this shit than you do. Than you possibly can. That’s nothing against you, Administrator. Adventures are just your job. They’re my whole life. There is nothing in my life I care about more than story. There is nothing I know more about than the difference between a good one and a bad one. You’re betting my life and your future on what happens in the next day or two. Let’s go balls-out to make it the Greatest Fucking Show on Overworld. Come on, Administrator. What do you say?”

  Kollberg’s lips go back to asshole. “Are you trying to tell me you have a better idea?”

  You draw a long, deep breath. The word inspiration has never been so appropriate on so many levels, for with the air comes your true spirit. Your power.

  My Power.

  “What I’m telling you is that Caine can’t run away.”

  “Eh?”

  “I know you’ve gone to a lot of trouble to set up this escape, and I appreciate it-”

  “It’s not an escape, Michaelson. It’s a rescue. That’s why you’re not going firsthand until you make contact with the Khryllians-”

  “Yes, sir. And if you can get the Khryllians coming, you can have them coming all the way to the city, right? Why bother leaving at all?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “What if-instead of supposedly crawling out of the vertical city-I were to supposedly crawl into the city? Deep into the city?”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “I’m with you on the nobody cares about continuity. You’re right. Fuck logic. It’s fantasy; who gives a shit as long as it juices your shorts, right? So:

  what if I were to crawl into, say, where the Black Knives stashed all our weapons. . ?”

  Again you bring your voice down like a lover’s. “Think about it, Administrator-think about Caine alone in the dark, surrounded by ogrilloi, yanking out these spikes-then finding the bladewand. .”

  Kollberg’s eyes light up. “I can see it. I can see it!”
<
br />   “So a few extra things could have been stashed among the gear as well, huh? You could manage that, right? Another magick weapon or two, maybe some real Healing salve instead of the fake crap. . a few things that nobody told anybody else they had. Now Caine’s got them all.”

  “Right. . right. .” Kollberg frowns. “No, wait, it won’t work-the Black Knives have already distributed your belongings. They’re all over the camp.”

  You shake your head in crisp dismissal. You have him now, and you know it; the battle is won. The rest, as you will come to enjoy saying, is mop-up.

  “Doesn’t matter. Look, we were after the Tear of Panchasell, right? So other people must have been looking for it too-so I’ve crawled in someplace and passed out among the bones of some centuries-dead treasure-hunters. You can manage some dusty old bones, can’t you? Now I’m armed. Shit, with the Winston scanners, you could locate the Tear itself, can’t you?”

  Kollberg’s sideways half-shrug half-nod is a shade too noncommittal.

  “Oh.” Your lips might make a smile if they weren’t so thin and flat against your teeth. “You already have.”

  “Well-”

  “It’s really there? It’s not just a legend?”

  Kollberg sighs. “It’s really there.”

  “Cool. You can drop me in right on top of it-how’s that for dramatic? Semiconscious, I’ve crawled in and passed out right next to the legendary treasure that we’ve given our lives to find?”

  Kollberg’s lower lip sucks in between his teeth. “It’s. . not bad. .”

  “So there I am among the bones, next to the Tear of Panchasell. . maybe with a hot-shit magick weapon, or something else to give me an edge, huh? I can move okay, even wounded, but if I can get close to Marade, I can get Healed too. Or drop some Healing shit in among the bones-whatever you’ve got on hand; I don’t care. I’ll make it work. All I need is hard intel on where everybody is and how to creep their positions-you can do that through their POVs-and Winston scans can get me the layout of the camp, with guards and whatever. I need to know where the top bitches are, and I want to know who’s got the fucking bladewand, and we can work out the rest of the details as we go along. Whatever else I need, you can just kinda slip in there, where I can be conveniently surprised to find it. . just exactly when I need it most. .”