Disgust, for all I knew, at the way things were sliding for the entire damned planet.
Old school.
I bought Las a drink in the bar and listened to him curse Kurumaya for a fucking stick-up-the-arse piece of shit, then went to look for the others. I left him in good company—the place was crowded with irritable deComs off the Daikoku Dawn, complaining loudly about the weather and the subsequent lockdown on deployment. Superannuated fastload jazz formed a suitably strident backdrop, mercifully shorn of the DJ dissemination I’d come to associate with it over the past month. Smoke and noise filled the bubblefab to the roof.
I found Jadwiga and Kiyoka sitting in a corner, deep in each other’s eyes and a conversation that looked a little intense to try to join. Jad told me, impatiently, that Orr had stayed with Sylvie in the accommodation ‘fab and that Oishii was around somewhere, at the bar maybe, talking to someone last time she, anyway somewhere over in the direction of her vaguely waving arm. I took the multiple hints and left the two of them to it.
Oishii wasn’t really in the direction Jadwiga had pointed, but he was at the bar and he was talking to a couple of other deComs, only one of whom I recognised as being on his crew. He welcomed me with a grin and a lifted glass. Voice pitched over the noise.
“Get a grilling, did you?”
“Something like that.” I lifted my hand to get attention behind the bar. “I get the impression Sylvie’s Slipins have been pushing the line for a while now. You want a refill?”
Oishii looked judiciously at the level of his drink. “No, I’m okay. Pushing the line, you could say that. Not the most community-minded crew around, for sure. Still, they top the boards a lot of the time. You can live on that for a while, even with a guy like Kurumaya.”
“Nice to have a reputation.”
“Yeah, which reminds me. There’s someone looking for you.”
“Oh?” He was looking into my eyes as he told me. I quelled reaction and raised an eyebrow to go with the elaborately casual interest in my voice.
Ordered a Millsport single malt from the barman and turned back to Oishii. “You get a name?”
“Wasn’t me that spoke to him.” The command head nodded at his non-crew companion. “This is Simi, lead wince for the Interruptors. Simi, that guy was asking around about Sylvie and her new recruit, you get a name?”
Simi squinted sideways for a moment, frowning. Then his face cleared and he snapped his fingers.
“Yeah, got it. Kovacs. Said his name was Kovacs.”
TWELVE
Everything seemed to stop.
It was as if all the noise in the bar had abruptly frozen to arctic sludge in my ears. The smoke stopped moving, the pressure of the people behind me at the bar seemed to recede. It was a shock reaction I hadn’t had from the Eishundo sleeve, even when locked in combat with the mimints. Across the dreamy quiet of the moment, I saw Oishii watching me intently, and I lifted the glass to my lips on autopilot. The single malt went down, burning, and as the warmth hit the pit of my stomach the world started up again just as suddenly as it had stopped. Music, noise, the shifting crush of people around me.
“Kovacs,” I said. “Really?”
“You know him?” asked Simi.
“Heard of him.” There wasn’t much point in going for the deep lie. Not with the way Oishii was watching my face. I sipped at my drink again. “Did he say what he wanted?”
“Nah,” Simi shook his head, clearly not that interested. “He was just asking where you were, if you’d gone out with the Slipins. Was a couple of days back, so I told him, yeah, you were all out in the Uncleared. He—”
“Did he—” I stopped myself. ”Sorry, you were saying?”
“He seemed pretty concerned to talk to you. Persuaded someone, think it was Anton and the Skull Gang, to take him out into the Uncleared for a look. So you know this guy, right? He a problem for you?”
“Of course,” said Oishii quietly. “Might not be the same Kovacs you know. It’s a common enough name.”
“There’s that,” I admitted.
“But you don’t think so?”
I manufactured a shrug. “Seems unlikely. He’s looking for me, I’ve heard of him. Most probable thing is, we’ve got some shared history.”
Oishii’s crew colleague and Simi both nodded dismissive, boozed-up assent. Oishii himself seemed more closely intrigued.
“And what have you heard about him, this Kovacs?”
This time the shrug was easier. “Nothing good.”
“Yeah,” Simi agreed sweepingly. “That’s right. Seemed like a real hardassed psycho motherfucker to me.”
“Did he come alone?” I asked.
“Nah, whole squad of enforcer types with him. ”Bout four, five of them. Millsport accents.”
Oh good. So this wasn’t a local matter any more. Tanaseda was living up to his promise. A global writ for your capture. And from somewhere they’d dug up—
You don’t know that. Not yet.
Oh, come on. It has to be. Why use the name? Whose sense of humour does that sound like to you?
Unless—
“Simi, listen. He didn’t ask for me by name, did he?”
Simi blinked at me. “Dunno, what is your name?”
“Okay. Never mind.”
“Guy was asking after Sylvie,” explained Oishii. “Her name, he knew. Knew the Slipins, seems like. But he really seemed interested in some new recruit Sylvie might have had in her team. And that name, he didn’t know. Right, Simi?”
“ ‘S about it, yeah.” Simi peered into his empty glass. I signalled the barman and got refills all round.
“So. These Millsport types. Any of them still around, you reckon?”
Simi pursed his lips. “Could be. Don’t know, I didn’t see the Skull Gang go out, don’t know how much extra weight they were carrying.”
“But it’d make sense,” said Oishii softly. “If this Kovacs did his research, he’ll know how hard it is to track movement in the Uncleared. It’d make sense to leave a couple of guys behind in case you came back.” He paused, watching my face. “And to needlecast the news if you did.”
“Yeah.” I drained my glass and shivered slightly. Got up. “Think I need to talk to my crew-mates. If you gentlemen will excuse me.”
I shouldered my way back through the crowd until I reached Jadwiga and Kiyoka’s corner again. They’d wrapped each other up in a passionate mouth-to-mouth embrace, oblivious to their surroundings. I slid into the seat next to them and tapped Jadwiga on the shoulder.
“Stop that, you two. We’ve got problems.”
“Well,” rumbled Orr. “I think you’re full of shit.”
“Really?” I kept a grip on my temper with an effort, and wished I’d just gone for full Envoy-effect persuasion, instead of trusting my deCom colleagues with the use of their own decision-making faculties. “This is the yakuza we’re talking about.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Do the math. Six weeks ago we were collectively responsible for the death of a high-ranking yakuza’s son and his two enforcers. And now there’s someone looking for us.”
“No. There’s someone looking for you. Whether he’s looking for the rest of us remains to be seen.”
“Listen. All of you.” Inclusive glance around the windowless billet they’d found for Sylvie. Spartan single berth, integral storage lockers in the walls, a chair in one corner. With the command head curled up on the bunk and her crew stood around, it was a tense, cramped space. “They know Sylvie, they’ve tied her to me. Oishii’s pal said as much.”
“Man, we wiped that room cleaner than—”
“I know, Jad, but it wasn’t enough. They got witnesses who saw the two of us, peripheral video maybe, maybe something else. The point is I know this Kovacs, and believe me, if we wait around for him to catch up with us, you’re going to find out that it doesn’t much matter whether he’s looking for me, or Sylvie, or both of us. The man is an ex-Envoy. He’ll take dow
n everybody in this room, just to keep it simple.”
That old Envoy terror—Sylvie was asleep, out on recuperative chemicals and sheer exhaustion, and Orr was too fired up with confrontation, but the rest of them flinched. Beneath the armoured deCom cool, they’d grown up on the horror stories from Adoracion and Sharya, just like everybody else. The Envoys came and they tore your world apart. It wasn’t that simple, of course; the truth was far more complex, and ultimately far more scary. But who in this universe wants the truth?
“What about we spike this ahead of time?” wondered Jadwiga. “Find Kovacs’ holdout buddies in the beachhead and shut them down before they can transmit out.”
“Probably too late, Jad.” Lazlo shook his head. “We’ve been in a couple of hours. Anybody who wants to knows about it by now.”
Gathering momentum. I stayed silent and watched it roll the way I wanted. Kiyoka weighed in, frowning.
“Anyway, we got no way to find these fuckers. Millsport accents and hard faces are plankton standard around here. At a minimum, we’d need to case the beachhead datastack and,” she indicated Sylvie’s foetal form, “we’re in no position to do that.”
“Even with Sylvie online, we’d be pushed,” said Lazlo gloomily. “Way Kurumaya feels about us right now, he’ll jump if we clean our teeth at the wrong voltage. I suppose that thing’s intrusion-proofed.”
He nodded at the personal space resonance scrambler perched on the chair. Kiyoka nodded back, slightly wearily I thought.
“State of the art, Las. Really. Picked it up in Reiko’s Straight-to-Street before we shipped out. Micky, the point is, we’re under virtual lockdown here. You say this Kovacs is coming for us, what do you suggest we do?”
Here we go.
“I suggest I get out of here tonight on the Daikoku Dawn, and I suggest I take Sylvie with me.”
Quiet rocked the room. I tracked glances, gauged emotion, estimated where this was going.
Orr rolled his head on his neck, like a freak fighter warming up.
“You,” he said deliberately, “can go fuck yourself.”
“Orr—” said Kiyoka.
“No fucking way, Ki. No fucking way does he take her anywhere. Not on my watch.”
Jadwiga looked at me narrowly. “What about the rest of us, Micky? What are we supposed to do when Kovacs turns up looking for blood?”
“Hide.” I told her. “Pull some favours, get yourselves out of sight either somewhere in the beachhead or out in the Uncleared with someone else’s crew if you can persuade them. Shit, you could even get Kurumaya to arrest you, if you trust him to keep you locked up safe.”
“Hey, fuckhead, we can do all of that without handing Sylvie over to y—”
“Can you, Orr?” I locked gazes with the giant. “Can you? Can you wade back out into the Uncleared with Sylvie the way she is now? Who’s going to carry her out there? What crew? What crew can afford the dead weight?”
“He’s right, Orr.” Lazlo shrugged. “Even Oishii isn’t going to go back out there with that on his back.”
Orr looked around him, eyes flickering cornered.
“We can hide her here, in the—”
“Orr, you’re not listening to me. Kovacs will tear this place apart to get to us. I know him.”
“Kurumaya—”
“Forget it. He’ll go through Kurumaya like angelfire, if that’s what it takes. Orr, there’s only one single thing that’ll stop him, and that’s knowing that Sylvie and I are gone. Because then he won’t have time to piss about looking for the rest of you. When we arrive in Tek’to, we make sure the news gets back to Kurumaya and by the time Kovacs is here, it’ll be common knowledge around the beachhead that we skipped. That’ll be enough to kick him out of here on the next loader.”
More quiet, this time like something counting down. I watched them buy in, one by one.
“Makes sense, Orr.” Kiyoka clapped the giant on the shoulder. “It isn’t pretty, but it scans.”
“At least this way, the skipper’s out of the firing line.”
Orr shook himself. “I don’t fucking believe you people. Can’t you see he’s trying to scare you all?”
“Yeah, he’s succeeding in scaring me,” snapped Lazlo. “Sylvie’s down. If the yakuza are hiring Envoy assassins, we’re severely outclassed.”
“We need to keep her safe, Orr.” Jadwiga was staring at the floor as if digging a tunnel might be a good next move. “And we can’t do it here.”
“Then I’m going too.”
“I’m afraid that isn’t going to be possible,” I said quietly. “I figure Lazlo can get us in one of the life-raft launchers, the way he came aboard in Tek’to. But with the hardware you’re carrying, the power source, penetrate the hull unauthorised, you’re going to set off every leakage alarm the Daikoku Dawn has.”
It was inspired guesswork, a blind leap off the rapid scaffolding of Envoy intuition, but it seemed to hit home. The Slipins looked back and forth at each other, and finally Lazlo nodded.
“He’s right, Orr. No way can I get you up that chute quietly.”
The ordnance giant stared at me for what seemed like a long time.
Finally, he looked away, at the woman on the bed.
“If you hurt her in any way at all—”
I sighed. “The best way I know to hurt her, Orr, is to leave her here. Which I don’t plan to do. So save the attitude for Kovacs.”
“Yeah,” said Jadwiga grimly. “And this is a promise. As soon as Sylvie’s back on line, we take that motherfucker and we—”
“Admirable,” I agreed. “But a little premature. Plan your revenge later, okay? Right now let’s just all concentrate on surviving.”
Of course, it wasn’t quite as easy as that.
When pressed, Lazlo admitted that security around the ‘loader ramps at Kompcho was lax verging on laughable. At the Drava beachhead, with mimint assault a constant fear, the dockside would be sewn up tight with electronic intrusion countermeasures.
“So,” I tried for patient calm. “You’ve never actually done this life-raft chute thing in Drava?”
“Well, yeah, once.” Lazlo scratched his ear. “But I had some jamming help from Suki Bajuk.”
Jadwiga snorted. “That little trollop.”
“Hey, jealous. She’s a fucking good command deCom. Even whiffed off her head, she greased the entry codes like—”
“Not all she greased that weekend, from what I hear.”
“Man, just because she isn’t—”
“Is she here?” I asked loudly. “Now, in the beachhead?”
Lazlo went back to scratching his ear. “Dunno. We could check, I guess, but—”
“It’ll take forever,” predicted Kiyoka. “And anyway, she may not be up for another code greasing, if she finds out what this is about. Helping you get your kicks is one thing, Las. Bucking Kurumaya’s lockdown might not appeal so much, you know what I mean?”
“She doesn’t have to know,” said Jadwiga.
“Don’t be a bitch, Jad. I’m not putting Suki in the firing line without—”
I cleared my throat. “What about Oishii?”
They all looked round at me. Orr’s brow furrowed. “Maybe. He and Sylvie go back to the early days. Hired on as sprogs together.”
Jadwiga grinned. “Sure he’ll do it. If Micky asks him.”
“What?”
There were grins appearing on everyone’s mouths now, it seemed.
Welcome release to the building tension. Kiyoka sniggered behind a hand pressed to her nose. Lazlo looked elaborately at the ceiling. Stifled snorts of hilarity. Only Orr was too angry to join in the fun.
“Didn’t you notice over the last couple of days, Micky?” Jadwiga, playing this one until it creaked. “Oishii likes you. I mean, he really likes you.”
I looked around the cramped room at my companions, and tried to match Orr for deadpan lack of amusement. Mostly, I was irritated at myself. I hadn’t noticed, or at least hadn’t identifi
ed the attraction for what—Jadwiga said—it was. For an Envoy, that was a serious failure to perceive exploitable benefit.
Ex-Envoy.
Yeah, thanks.
“That’s good,” I said evenly. “I’d better go talk to him, then.”
“Yeah,” Jadwiga managed, straightfaced. “See if he wants to give you a hand.”
The laughter erupted, explosive in the confined space. An unwanted grin forced its way onto my mouth.
“You motherfuckers.”
It didn’t help. The hilarity scaled upward. On the bed, Sylvie stirred and opened her eyes at the sound. She propped herself up on one elbow and coughed painfully. The laughter drained out of the room as rapidly as it had come.
“Micky?” Her voice came out weak and rusty.
I turned to the bed. Caught out of the corner of one eye the venomous glare Orr fired at me. I leaned over her.
“Yeah, Sylvie. I’m here.”
“What are you laughing for?”
I shook my head. “That’s a very good question.”
She gripped my arm with the same intensity as that night in Oishii’s encampment. I steeled myself for what she might say next. Instead, she just shivered and stared at her fingers where they sank into the arm of the jacket I was wearing.
“I,” she muttered. “It knew me. It. Like an old friend. Like a—”
“Leave her alone, Micky.” Orr tried to shoulder me aside, but Sylvie’s grip on my arm defeated the move. She looked at him uncomprehendingly.
“What’s going on?” she pleaded.
I glanced sideways at the giant.
“You want to tell her?”
THIRTEEN
Night fell across Drava in swathes of snow-chipped gloom, settling like a well worn blanket around the huddled ‘fabs of the beachhead and then the higher, angular ruins of the city itself. The microblizzard front came and went with the wind, brought the snow in thick, swirling wraps that plastered your face and got inside the neck of your clothing, then whirled away, thinning out to almost nothing, and then back again to dance in the funnelled glare of the camp’s Angier lamps. Visibility oscillated, went down to fifty metres and then cleared, went down again. It was weather for staying inside.
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