by John Meaney
“Nice one.”
“Hush. Don't interrupt her.”
A second witch, scarlet hair streaked with white: “When the hurly burly's done.”
“Hey, I think I recognize that one.”
“When Yoshiko has had her fun.”
“So who could this be?”
The third witch performed a parody of a dance. “When Rafael's bad code can't run.”
“Not me, for sure.”
“Oh, really?”
Then the three old women joined hands over the cauldron and chanted, while the cold winds blew revenge.
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
“We'll catch the bugger anywhere.”
<<
“Bravo!”
<<
“Nicely done, Yoshiko.”
Maggie and Lavinia clapped hands in mocking applause as Yoshiko withdrew from interface and the terminal powered down.
Yoshiko blinked, and rubbed her eyes.
“Very impressive.” Lavinia lay back in her bed, looking weak but alert. “The LuxPrime guys went to town on device interfaces. But that's your natural imagination taking form in those images.”
“Not bad for an Earther, eh?” Maggie said.
Yoshiko performed some neck rotations.
“Hard work, huh?” Maggie's hand made a short gesture towards her pocket, then stopped.
She was obviously dying to get her video-globe out, to capture a new Luculenta's first unsteady steps to interface.
“Go on, Maggie, for God's sake. If you want to record anything, that's fine.”
“You mean it? I won't prepare a NewsNet item until—later.”
“I know that.” While Maggie readied her video-globe, Yoshiko turned to Lavinia. “Can I try editing ware? Amending the code in my mind?”
Lavinia's already pale face grew deathly white.
“Don't even think about it.”
“But I can see the code, if I just kind of—”
“No.” Lavinia's words held an icy intensity. “That's the danger, to look at the low-level code of your own mind. You're only aware of it now because you're still integrating. Later—later, movement through Skein, manipulating devices, forming images in fast-comm links, all become second nature. Like breathing.”
As she mentioned breathing, Lavinia lay back, taking fast shallow breaths.
Maggie looked concerned.
“It's all right,” Yoshiko said. “I get the message. I won't edit my own mindware. OK?”
Lavinia turned her head on the pillow to face Yoshiko, and smiled wanly.
Glass tears, floating.
“Isn't that your friend from Ardua Station?” Maggie pointed to the red-bearded image trapped inside a teardrop icon.
Eric Rasmussen. Forcing herself not to gesture, Yoshiko focussed intensely.
Nothing happened.
Lavinia, who had turned her head on her pillow to watch Yoshiko's attempt to check h-mail without gestures or voice, said softly, “Don't try so hard.”
No—yes. The teardrop unfurled.
“Hi, Yoshiko.” Eric tugged at his unruly beard. “Er—I decided to take leave. I'm going to be on Fulgor next Sez'Day. Perhaps we can meet up at some point? Er—Endit.”
“Nice one,” said Maggie.
When Yoshiko looked at her, she added, “Being able to access the message just by looking at it. That's all I meant.”
There was a snort of laughter from the bed.
“Oh, good grief.” Yoshiko pinched the bridge of her nose. “You two are a great help.”
“We try to be.”
“Come on, Lavinia. No, we don't.”
“You're right. We don't.”
Yoshiko sighed. “Can I just concentrate on getting the other message?”
“Don't let us stop you.”
“Go ahead, Yoshiko. Say, Lavinia. Isn't today Sez'Day?”
“Now you come to mention—”
“All right, all right.” What could she say? “Look, Eric's a nice guy, all right? But I hardly know him, and I've—other things to worry about.”
“Sorry.”
“Yes. Sorry.”
Their apologies sounded unconvincing.
“So who's the other message from?”
“You think she's got two boyfriends? What a disgrace.”
Yoshiko cleared her throat, and the heckling stopped. She turned her attention on the remaining teardrop.
Bright shards arranged themselves into a sharp-featured Luculenta crowned with grey hair. Felice Lectinaria.
“Luculenta Yoshiko Sunadomari: warmest greetings.” In the image, Felice inclined her head in a regal bow. “I would like to offer my congratulations in person. I shall be at the Primum Stratum conference centre today, Sez'Day, in auditorium three alpha.
“Perhaps we can discuss the paper I sent you? Endit.”
The image faded.
Maggie said, “She wants to talk about Tetsuo, doesn't she?”
Yoshiko was capable of receiving a realtime SkeinLink comm, but Felice Lectinaria would not have expected that, so soon after upraise. It was logical to communicate via h-mail.
Perhaps the LuxPrime techs should have given Yoshiko the ability to initiate a SkeinLink.
“What are you going to do, Yoshiko?”
“I guess—I'm going to a conference.”
Maggie used her wrist terminal to check arrival times—Eric's shuttle was due to land in less than two hours—while Lavinia discussed tactics.
“Execute the lock-code, at the first hint of anything unusual.”
“Right.” Yoshiko's voice sounded more confident than she felt. The lock-code should stop Rafael's code from infiltrating her mind, but keep the comms-session locked so that LuxPrime techs could trace it back to him. But if they did not know exactly what Rafael's code did, how could they know their countermeasures would work?
“With luck,” said Lavinia, “the code will execute automatically, without your even willing it. There's nothing to worry about.”
Maggie flicked off her display. “I've ordered a taxi, Yoshiko. You can drop me off at the conference centre, meet Eric at the spaceport, and come back to the conference centre to meet Felice Lectinaria.”
“Er—”
“Or I can come straight to the spaceport with you first, and we can both meet this Eric.”
“Wait a minute.” Lavinia held her hand up. “Yoshiko, just a simple addition to your code—”
{{{HeaderBegin: Module = Node38V7.2215 Type = TrinaryHyper-Code: Axes = 27
Priority = absolute
Status = resident always Execute
contact = {{Luculenta Lavinia Maximilian, ident6654χ8• {sept5ΘΞ}}}
LockChannelZero.append(SkeinLink(contact))
End_Execute}}}
Lavinia, trembling, lay back.
“You're not supposed to interface.” Maggie, concerned, looked around as though for help.
“I'm OK. Yoshiko—that will notify me, if your lock code activates.”
“Thank you, Lavinia.”
Maggie stood up, and straightened her jacket. The video-globe bobbed above her shoulder.
“I guess we should be going. Are you sure you'll be OK, Lavinia?”
“I'm in the biggest med-centre in Lucis City.”
“That's a yes, then.” Maggie leaned over and kissed Lavinia's cheek. “Take it easy.”
“You, too.”
Yoshiko and Lavinia clasped hands.
Maggie was the first to reach the door. She stepped through, with Yoshiko on her heels.
A giant figure stepped into their path, blocking their way.
Grey rain misted across the encampment.
“Watch out!”
It coated the dripping trees, turned the ground to mud, made everything slippery to the touch.
“I've got it.”
Straining, Tetsuo hefted the
wet crate up into the flyer's hold, earning respectful glances from his smaller Simnalari companions.
Dhana tapped on his shoulder. “Our flyer's about to lift.”
“Right.” He nodded to the Simnalari. “See you, guys.”
“Cheers, Tetsuo.”
Rain plastered his short hair to his scalp, and trickled down his smartgel-coated skin. Feeling strangely lighthearted in the cold, damp air, he and Dhana made their way across the churned-up ground to a battered old cargo flyer.
“You're settling in.” Dhana peered at him from under her jumpsuit's peaked hood. “You didn't have to help them.”
“I know.”
He helped her aboard, and scrambled inside himself.
“What are you doing here?” A youth, staring at Tetsuo's headgear.
Along the rows of seats, people turned to look.
Tetsuo nodded in Dhana's direction. “I'm with her.”
“Oh, right.” The youth looked at Dhana, and grinned. “That's cool.”
Dhana snorted. “Can you keep the noise down?” She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. “Some of us need rest.”
The youth winked, and turned to talk to his own companion.
Guido. That was the name. Yoshiko remembered seeing him, when she had called Federico. This was the man who had fought so brutally, injuring his subordinates.
“I'm very sorry, Professor.” Beside her, a young man spoke. It was Brian Donnelly, the young proctor with whom Lavinia—Vin, then—had danced. “We're supposed to keep you under guard.”
“We know that.” Maggie's voice was sharp. “That's the whole idea. You're supposed to come with us—” She gestured down the corridor, where half a dozen more fit-looking men and women, all armed, stood watching. “—along with the rest of your people.”
Guido shrugged his massive shoulders.
“You ain't goin’ anywhere.”
Yoshiko remembered: Federico had assigned TacCorps members to Major Reilly's team. It had not occurred to her that Federico's people might outrank the other proctors assigned to her.
Brian Donnelly looked thoroughly intimidated.
“You can't detain this woman,” said Maggie, “She's a Luculenta.”
“Can't see any pretty headgear.”
“You—”
“Never mind.” Yoshiko laid a hand on Maggie's arm. “Let's not argue with the man.”
Guido breathed in, and tensed the great slabs of muscle in his chest, his massively swollen arms.
“Sensible move, ladies.”
“Come on.” Yoshiko led Maggie back inside.
Bright holo banners danced above the sea of bobbing heads, like orange ribbons caught in the breeze. Against the greyish sky, tainted with washed-out green, the letters fluoresced with unnatural clarity.
OUT OF THE SHADOWS
Like a human river, they flowed down the emerald slopes, heading for the extended buildings of the Primum Stratum conference centre. Widespread white wings, the building's hovering roof, glowed in contrast to the surrounding gloom.
Tetsuo looked back. On the ridge, a score of flyers was parked. Like flocking birds, more vessels were spiralling in to land.
“You OK?” Dhana squeezed his hand.
“Sure.” At least the rain had not reached this far.
He had never been among a crowd this big. With an unsettling singularity of purpose, the marchers moved slowly but steadily along.
“Look.”
Beyond the conference centre, an orbital shuttle was swooping in to land at Cicanda Spaceport.
Mother. It was an unavoidable reminder that she was here, on this world. She must be worried sick about him, and he had no way of contacting her.
A plaza lay before the conference centre. As the crowd's vanguard reached it, a small group of proctors came out of the building. One of them, Tetsuo thought, spoke briefly into a comm-ring.
Ragged cheers rose from the crowd, as the vastly outnumbered proctors disappeared back indoors.
Drops fell, spattering Tetsuo's forehead.
A wave of movement passed through the crowd, jostling Tetsuo, but he kept hold of Dhana. Her hand felt small in his, cold but electric.
Overhead, dark thunderheads were gathering. Only the faintest green bled through, like the juices from crushed grass.
Tetsuo looked up.
“Storm's coming.”
This wasn't protection. This was house arrest.
Outside, Yoshiko's way was blocked by the worst of obstacles: a man twice her body weight, twice her strength. As highly trained as she was, but used to inflicting real and bloody damage on hard opponents. Ruthless, contemptuous of weaker beings.
Yoshiko had come across the type: the big psychopath who can take the discipline, who loves to cause pain. A bully who is most definitely not a coward.
She had no illusions. Guido would be as fast as her, but far stronger, harder, and more vicious.
“Maggie. Go out to the taxi. They won't stop you, on your own.”
“But—”
“Please. If I'm not out in five minutes, could you go to meet Eric and Felice?”
“Of course.” Maggie jammed her hands in her pockets, and frowned angrily. “We should contact Major Reilly. You're supposed to be under protection, not—”
Lavinia spoke weakly. “Yoshiko slipped away from their surveillance before. They want to keep track of her.”
Maggie stared. “You think TacCorps planted the smartatom bugs on Yoshiko?”
“It's consistent, isn't it?”
“Not Rafael?”
“Major Reilly as good as told us—Bugs dissolving under scan. Not the way civilian tech should work.”
“But Rafael—”
“Is to blame for—” Yoshiko glanced at Lavinia. “—what happened at the ball. But maybe not for editing the video-logs, for placing me under surveillance.”
“Bloody hell.”
Perhaps, too, Guido was under orders to intimidate Yoshiko, to make her crack, to spill everything she knew and guessed and feared. Mentally replaying her last conversation with Federico Gisanthro, she could see now the unresolved suspicion in his strange pale eyes, the hint of tension. He had known there was something Yoshiko was holding back.
A tidal rush of sound, her own blood circulation near her ears, overlaid her friends’ conversation.
“Please go, Maggie.”
“I—OK. What are you going to do?”
“I don't know.”
Maggie left.
Was there nothing she could use as a weapon? Her naginata was at Lavinia's house. As for her tanto dagger—she'd given that to Eric on Ardua Station.
I'm scared.
She could visualize a big fist heading for her face—
OK.
Bigger and stronger. Contemptuous.
Think. Rethink.
Contempt—
Yes, I've got it now.
Rehearse. Consider all possible reactions.
“Yoshiko—” Lavinia, sounding far away.
She shut out her voice.
Important to keep the centre of gravity, the hara, as low as possible.
Yoshiko faced the door. Its surface rippled minutely, liquefied by her presence.
Now.
Guido, massive and frightening, glowered in front of her. His shoulders were the widest Yoshiko had ever seen.
“I told you—”
“No.”
She stepped forward, left hand raised to ward him off.
His grip encircled her small frail wrist like an iron bracelet, heavy and unbreakable.
She was so very, very scared.
Ippon seiken.
Tears blurred her vision.
Right fist, centre knuckle protruding.
“Please—” Her voice caught in her throat.
“Leave her—” Young Brian's voice, cut off by a thud.
Don't look.
A huge force jerked her forward by her left wrist.
“Please
, don't—”
Big open-hand strike heading for her temple.
Tension in the thumb. Hold the configuration.
Her body was soft, her knees bent in collapse.
Collapsing, and the blow missed, but the other strong hand still encircled her wrist.
Huge hand. Wide. Callused knuckles, protruding veins, black hairs covering sinews and muscle. The sinews’ lines. Blood vessels’ blue ridges.
Minute awareness. Time slowed down.
Back hand swinging towards her face. No avoidance this time.
Down.
The back of his hand, holding her wrist. Sinews and veins a map, showing her the way.
Strike down.
“Eeee!”
Now.
A lifetime's discipline lay behind the blow.
Her knuckle smashed into the back of Guido's hand. It struck precisely into the nerve point known as TW-3 and Guido dropped like a stone.
He fell on one knee and the snapping sound was like a slap in the face, and then he was lying on his side, cheeks drained of pallor, and the breath was rattling gutturally in his throat.
“My…God.” It was young Brian, shaken, and ashen-faced.
“Are you all right?” asked Yoshiko.
“Yes—”
“I have to go.”
“I—yes, OK.” The other proctors were coming down the corridor, and Brian limped forward to meet them. He told them to let Yoshiko through.
“On Major Reilly's authority,” he added.
Yoshiko looked back. “That man needs medical attention.”
There were grim looks among the proctors, as one of them used her wrist terminal to summon help.
No one stopped Yoshiko as she pushed her way past them.
She was trembling in reaction, but forced herself to walk quickly to the main foyer. She paused briefly at the doors, remembering the graser fire from last night, then steeled herself and walked straight through.
Her skin crawled, but nothing happened.
Maggie waved from a hovering taxi. Yoshiko went down the broad steps to meet it.
“Wait.” Brian's voice called from behind her. “I'm coming with you. Orders.”
Yoshiko said nothing, but let him catch up.
They slid onto the seat beside Maggie. Immediately the ground dropped away beneath them.
