by Gwynn White
“We won’t have to be here long,” he said. “Jazz is already on his way by now.”
“Are you sure Conrad meant for you to go to the Marquis? On a Saturday night, every Maro in the Upper will be there.”
“That’s what he said in the vid.”
“The absinthe bar in Prague? That was some kind of code for the Marquis de Sade?”
“No. Though that was a great place,” he said. He removed the bottle of scotch from his deep outside pocket. “The scotch, a ‘two-hundred-year-old, very hard-to-get red label.’”
“That’s code for the Marquis de Sade?”
“No. Well, yes, that’s exactly what it is. The red label part, anyway.” He looked at the bottle. “And the two-hundred-year-old part.”
“How so?”
“Well, you see, there’s this gentleman named Bronson who’s a fixer for the Maro Plane. Conrad wasn’t so much referring to the Marquis as he was to Bronson. Conrad would’ve had to go through him to safely excavate anywhere in that spectrum. Nothing is moved through the Maro Plane without going through Bronson.” He lifted the bottle. “Like this scotch.”
“Or the Jasper Stone.”
“Right, exactly. And we’ll find him at the Marquis. He was already on my list. Conrad confirmed my suspicion.” He stopped in front of a stoop. “This is me.”
Abby led Leta up the few short steps. A sidewalk sleeper was nestled up against the door. The large man wore the heavy canvas coveralls of a sublevel worker and a thick hooded coat. In the low light, the stains spattering his clothes appeared to be painted on in wide swaths. A sweet pungent odor told Abby the marks were feces. He gestured for Leta to snug against the wall, sucked the side of his mouth back into his cheek, then knelt down.
“Hey, buddy,” he said.
The sleeper didn’t stir.
Abby reached out a finger to poke the man then deferred. “Hey, buddy,” he said again.
This time there was a grunt, then a roll.
“I’m sorry. I gotta open the door.”
The man muttered something from beneath his hood and pulled himself toward Abby’s feet. Abby stepped to the side, sucked his tongue to the back of his throat, and let the sleeper pass. When the man was clear, Abby absently punched a code into the console. The vestibule filled with light and the lock bolt clicked free. He pushed the door open to enter the building, flooding the wall and the console with yellow light.
“Abby,” Leta said over his shoulder.
“Yeah?” he said, turning back.
She nodded her head toward the number pad. Having tapped the console so many times before, he hadn’t bothered to look at the keys. From his angle, he couldn’t see what she was referring to, so he leaned slightly back. A red glint hit the corner of his eye. There above the keypad was the same mark that’d followed him all day, from the sublevel to the train to Arcadia to Conrad’s office, and now to his door: the blood symbol.
He froze for a moment, holding the door, deciding what the symbol could mean. The meaning came to Abby with a slight quiver in his jawbone and a precog flash of movement.
Bureau training and nano enhancement kicked in.
The hand near his blade had no time to draw. He ducked, spun, and swung, thrusting the hand of the sleeper away from him, as well as the short blade he held in it. A second later and the sleeper would’ve planted five inches of scarlet fire into the base of Abby’s skull.
Abby’s left hand fluidly followed his right. He planted a solid blow to the massive sleeper’s solar plexus. The sleeper had brought the element of surprise; that now gone, he had nothing.
Abby’s block and blow stunned the giant, caused him to hesitate.
Abby didn’t suffer such weakness.
Immediately after cycling his right arm up to block, he recoiled his shoulder and thrust his weight through an open palm, sending the large man out to the street, back on his ass. The sleeper’s hood fell back. His eyes glowed fire and his quivering skin went bright. The Maro popped and the glowing red pigment of his meaty head was no longer hidden.
The tightly curled horns burned indigo, the sign of a Red’s temper. Abby stepped into the street with swagger.
The Maro snorted, snarled, propped himself up with his hands, then hopped up onto his feet. He spread his lips wide and gnashed his sharp fangs. His knees were bent and his arms cocked, his blade hand ready to strike.
The two circled each other.
Abby gestured toward Leta. “Stay back,” he said, then to the Maro, he asked, “Are you sure you want to do this?”
The Red answered with another snarl then lunged forward and slashed the scarlet fire toward him.
Abby ducked back behind the swinging blade.
“I thought so,” he said.
In a motion too rapid too see, Abby thumbed his coat open, drew his blade, and with an effortless twirl, knocked the scarlet fire from the Maro’s hand.
The Maro back stepped, grunted two short snorts, and raised his brows in disbelief.
“You know,” Abby said, “this is the second time today I’ve been accosted by a Red. I’m starting to think someone’s trying to send me a message.”
The Maro was frozen, his eyes darting from Abby’s blade to his face and back.
“Well? What is it?”
“He’s coming for you,” the Maro said, “and there’s nothing you can do to stop him.”
“We’ll see about that. Go on. Get out of here.”
The Maro’s eyes tightened.
“Before I change my mind,” Abby added. He twirled his blade again then shooed the Red off with a nod. The Maro back stepped the first few strides, then disappeared into the night.
27
Though a mammoth ziggurat towered one hundred and fifty stories above, the Low building Abby called home was a humble five floors. He owned the building and several others around that section of Low, considering them antiquarian treasures as invaluable as any other artifact he may have found on a dig. The top two floors had been renovated for his private use, the fourth floor for storage, and the entire fifth floor for his apartment. The apartment was as nice as any MidHi, or even Upper, but no one would’ve known. Abby rarely had visitors and wouldn’t have brought Leta along except that he hadn’t decided how to handle what had happened at the university. He’d told her that the ability to shift beyond spectrum was a Bureau secret. That wasn’t true. The secret was his alone. Since initially asking, she’d said nothing. He considered this as he led her up the stairwell. He substantially outranked her and he suspected protocol was something Leta Serene considered serious. Perhaps an instruction from a superior was enough for her.
Abby didn’t know what was happening inside her head. The path to insight he had with mortals was closed.
When he designed the fifth-floor apartment, he’d installed a security door at the top of the stairs, then, behind the first, a second he’d saved from an old European castle. The ancient door was composed of crisscrossed oak planks that were held together by hundreds of bolts. To add to the decidedly rustic old world look, he fastened a padlock and chain. The padlock only looked old. A blade or hand blade could easily sever it, but the ominous image was the message that interested him. He ran his thumb along the padlock’s sensor then with a firm click of the inner bolt, set the door free. The mass of lumber gently floated inward.
“Welcome,” he said, gesturing for Leta to enter the apartment. He stopped to remove his coat as she slowly walked past him.
“Stella,” he said with a sing-song tone. Light music played and the already dim lights grew slightly brighter. He opened the glass cabinet inside the door. An inner light eased on. He placed his hat on the top shelf, removed the scotch from his pocket, and hung his coat on the hook below. When he shut the glass door, the interior glowed brightly, hiding the contents. In an instant, the fabric would be scrubbed.
“Do I have any messages?” he asked.
A soft feminine voice filled the room. “Four more calls from th
e Bureau came in yesterday. Would you like to hear them or put them with the others?”
“Put them with the others,” he said. He waved Leta to the sofa. “Stella, did you see what happened outside?”
“Yes, Abby. You’ve still got it.”
“Uh huh. Can you send a picture of the Maro to the Bureau?”
“Sure thing.”
“Oh, and Jazz will be here in a minute or two. Please let him in when he comes.”
“Yes, Abby.”
Abby clutched two rock glasses from the sidebar and moved them over to the small table in front of the sofa. “Would you like a drink?” he asked.
“Water, please,” she said.
“Sure.” He set down the scotch and the glasses and entered the kitchen.
“Abby,” Stella said. “Jazz is approaching the building now. I will let him in when he arrives.”
“Are you hungry?” Abby asked. “I can have some food sent over from the bar. Unfortunately, I don’t seem to have anything in here.”
“I’m fine. Really. Where is the white owl on the table from?”
“That’s from Greece,” he said. He offered Leta the glass of water. “The owl was a companion of Athena and is a symbol of wisdom.”
“All of this stuff is very interesting,” she said.
Abby glanced at her then to the furnishings.
“I forget how this place looks to visitors. It’s quite an array.”
“Oh, and the bust over there. Who is he?”
“Marcus Aurelius. He was the last of the good emperors.”
“Which empire?”
“Roman.”
“I didn’t know there was a Roman syndicate in the SoEuro Meg.”
“He ran the Roman empire a few millennia ago. The empire stretched across Europe, northern Africa, and into at least three planes.”
“Oh.” Leta sipped her water. “You know a lot about old things, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” Abby said. “I’m old. I like old things.”
28
The heavy lumber door opened to a man in a thin-collared tuxedo. In his hand, he held an aluminum briefcase. Abby couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Jazz out of his street clothes, cleaned, shaved, and with his hair combed back. Though age mods kept each of them youthful, Jazz appeared to be far younger cleaned up, closer to the forever ago boy Abby served beside in the war. But no degree of grooming could hide the traces of his true nature, that mischievous pirate smile and the wisp of sandy blond mop draped over his forehead that couldn’t have appeared more on purpose.
“You going to invite me in?” Jazz asked.
“Yeah,” Abby said. “Thanks for coming on short notice.”
Jazz squinted an eye as he passed his old friend. “Are you okay? I hate to be the one to tell you, but you’ve been a little bit odd.”
Abby waved him off. “I’m fine. Were you able to get the stuff?”
Jazz lifted the thin metal case. “Everything you requested.”
“Everything?”
“Everything.”
Jazz stopped abruptly when he saw Leta. He smiled widely and with the art of a ventriloquist, chin-chipped, “She’s hot.”
Abby put his index finger to his ear. “She can hear you.”
“Of course she can,” Jazz said, still smiling widely. He broke away from Abby in a swagger. “Hello,” he said aloud.
Abby rolled his eyes. “Leta, this is Jazz. Jazz, this is Leta. She is the agent Captain Yun assigned to babysit me.”
“A splendid babysitter.”
“Commander Co—” Leta began.
“Oh. Stop right there,” Jazz said. He gave Abby a snicker. “They’re so proper when they’re new.” He returned his attention to Leta. “Captain. I haven’t been a Commander since before your mother was born. Jazz will be fine, and it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Though Leta smiled, Abby didn’t have to ask or probe to see if she felt uncomfortable. The disappointment on her face was transparent as she returned to her seat. Jazz was an old friend, the oldest, but at times his candor was a bit much—even for Abby.
Fortunately, Jazz was easily distracted. Few things called to him more than a beautiful woman, and a fine instrument was one. As abruptly as Jazz had focused on Leta, he was drawn to the corner of the room. He leaned the aluminum case against the wall.
“Where did you find her?”
“In the market,” Abby said. “She’s mid-twentieth century, made in Japan. I saw her and I thought of you.”
“Do you think she’s authentic?”
“The serial number is hard to read. But yeah, I do.”
Jazz glanced over at Leta. “Do you know what this is?”
“A saxophone?” she asked.
He lifted the brass horn from the corner stand. “This is an alto sax, and a beauty too.” He bent his brow toward Abby. “May I?”
“Please do. She’s been waiting for you.”
“Thanks.” Jazz licked his lips and placed his mouth close to the reed, then stopped and asked, “Do you have anything?”
Abby gestured toward the scotch on the table and said, “If you’ll excuse me. I’ll start cleaning up.”
As Abby walked from the room, he heard Jazz say, “Oh, this is good.” Then, “You, Captain, are in for a treat. Stella, I’m sending you an organ accompaniment.”
“Certainly.”
Slow, syrupy notes of the sax drifted through the closed bedroom door. The music pleased him. He unbuttoned his white shirt and rested his eyes. The music took him back to a time when Jazz’s sax and a taste of scotch brought solace.
The complexity of the time made life simple.
Naked, he gathered his clothes and placed them into the closet’s nearly full light cabinet. He closed the door and the inside went bright.
“Stella,” he said softly.
“Yes, Abby?”
“When is Anya coming?”
“Anya comes to clean on Tuesdays. Today is Saturday.”
“Hmm. Can you please bring some of that music in?”
He went into his bathroom—a room mirrored on all sides—and entered the steam shower: another light cabinet not much different than the clothes closets. The back of his neck and below to the bottom of his back, sensitive since the installation of the prosthetic, felt sharply pinched as the dim light surrounding him flared bright. A shroud of hot vapor followed the blast and immediately soothed the phantom pain. A mix of steam and water hit him from every direction. Minutes passed as he absorbed the sweet cleanse and let the rhythmic pulse calm his muscles and his mind.
The solitude of the shower stall amplified the notes of the saxophone.
When the flow of the jets timed out, he remained motionless.
Breathing had become slow and thick, and each droplet racing down the length of his body sent the magnified sensation of a thousand light fingers, tracing him where he stood.
Finally, he let himself step from the shower.
He reached for a towel then froze to watch a large stream slowly trickle down the side of his face onto his neck. He straightened his shoulders, up and back. What he saw in the mirror baffled him—a young body, an old man. He adjusted himself to see the reflection of his back in the mirror on the opposing wall. There was no trace of the implanted prosthetic. Mortal medical engineers, then in turn microscopic engineers, had cosmetically repaired his flesh a century before. Still he imagined a thin scar, a seam running down his spine that, if separated, would reveal what lay beneath. What would that be? he asked himself. The old man he truly was, or maybe the organic machine he’d become. What was the measure of nano and soul that deemed a man real or syn?
The tempo of the horn outside the room changed, the notes becoming shorter, faster, closer together. Abby felt the frenzied sax in the core of his belly, mingling with the scotch.
He placed his thumb at the base of his spine, the root of imagined pain, then straightened himself again. There was no pain. He lifted his head, stret
ching himself further erect. His lungs filled full then released. There was no pain, imagined or otherwise. He felt young, like he was supposed to be the young man in the mirror. Relief swept through him. Whatever happened at the university, when he shifted, jumped, phased, whatever, had rejuvenated him.
A smile. The concept alone was freeing.
Then a jolt, a convulsion, his image in the mirror flew back.
29
Abby’s chest felt crushed, his lungs void of air. The parallel of the mirrors to his front and back produced an infinity of reflective images. The ocular mods embedded in his brain became cluttered with augments as they rapidly compensated, calculated, focused, and accounted for each individual Abby, while the nearest of the images elastically pulled close and away from him, snaking sharply to the right, the left, up, and down—a thrill ride of angles that forced him to lean from side to side.
Another free ride from the hallucinogen perception disorder called the echo.
The organ was a stammering maelstrom punctuated by stabbing blows from the sax.
He thrust his arms out to clutch the counter, missing with the first swipe but the second finally catching the still surface before vertigo forced him to the floor. His forearms tensed as he squeezed himself toward the sink, an attempt to stop the room from spinning. The inside of his gut wrenched. With what forearm strength he could muster, he maneuvered himself to his left and above the bowl of the toilet. Vomit burned into his throat and filled his mouth, held back by his tightly clutched jaw. The bowl slipped back and forth beneath him. He began to choke, fighting to hold back the vile fluids. With a thrust to his side, he threw his left hand down onto the bowl then let his upper body fall forward. He caught himself with his other hand then, with a hand on each side and his head hovering above, he released all that he was holding back. The hot, sharp, acrid, and unpleasant-tasting bile spewed from deep in his gut.
