Crash Deluxe

by Marianne de Pierres

  ‘We want her brain to bleed.’

  ‘If your self-destruct idea works, what happens then?’

  ‘When Brilliance is incapacitated, we begin again with a more basic technology, including net-time with genuine free information. We will resurrect a political system in this country,’ said Gerwent Ban.

  ‘Don’t tell me . . . governed by the Polity?’

  Bras sat up on properly on the mat, drawing her knees to her chest. ‘I told him youse were smart.’

  ‘“You”,’ Ban corrected gently.

  Bras coloured.

  ‘And that will make the world a better place,’ I asked, sounding innocent enough even to myself.

  ‘Of course it will.’ Bras raised one of her small, newly crafted fists. ‘He promised me it would.’

  I caught a glimpse of what was left of the street kid behind the constructed crust of self-confidence. Bras had been saved from The Tert. But had she been saved? She was ill and I knew what ailed her.

  I felt guilty - responsible. The Royals had fixed her arms, upgraded her speak, prettied her clothes, filled her head with propaganda and given her cred to wield. But they had no idea what was going on inside her.

  I wished I hadn’t, either.

  ‘So what do you want from me?’

  ‘We need you to light fires that will get Brilliance burning. Once she’s damaged, we want to expose the extent of her control with a rogue broadcast,’ said Gerwent Ban. ‘We want you to anchor it when we do it.’ He paused a moment switching his modulator over to a command tone. ‘But the timing is significant. Sera Bau plans to release her footage on the eve of the Pan-Sat transmission. We must have Brilliance primed for overload at that precise time.’

  ‘What resources do you have?’ Maybe a silly question considering his wealth. Maybe not.

  ‘We have a facility assembled. It contains all the communications technology we need. There is also a small collection of weapons there, should you need them. Once you agree we will take you there.’

  Bras stood and approached me, her face whiter than the sheet on her sleeping-mat. Mal sidestepped in behind her, ready to catch her should she fall.

  ‘There’s a condition to all this, Parrish,’ said Bras.

  Truly?

  Gerwent Ban spoke. ‘Brasella feels that we need your old face back. When things change we will need to show an authentic figurehead. Someone wronged by the media.’

  You mean a reprieved criminal.

  Well, the world was crazy. Officially. Someone was gonna give me weapons and a viewing audience to play with.

  Hysteria would have been appropriate in the face of his announcement but a dam of unshed tears blocked its way. The impasse meant there was only room in me for calm.

  Yet Bras, King Ban, Sera Bau, Monk, Daac, Tulu - every damn conniving person I could name in a breath - didn’t understand one momentous thing.

  The Eskaalim. The shape-shifter. The creature turning others into energy-driven sadists - violence junkies. The one turning me into a sex addict and a madwoman. The one I’d recently learned, that we couldn’t live with and couldn’t live without.

  I kept my tone very even. My words were clipped and clear.

  ‘Do you actually know what was happening in the heart of the Tertiary sector? In Dis?’

  Bras shrugged. It turned into an odd kind of movement, even with the expensive prosthetics.

  Ban spoke for her. ‘Our informant tells us that a man there was experimenting with hormones, prolonging puberty in young people. It turned their behaviour animalistic.’

  ‘Your informant? You mean Leesa Tulu.’ The harshness of my voice was unmistakable. ‘Is that all she said?’

  Ban’s breather whirred louder for a second. ‘Yes. Out of interest, how did you stumble over that connection? ’

  ‘Some information still comes free,’ I whispered. Not really free, Parrish. ‘Now listen. I’ll be your anarchist. I’ll be your anchor. I’ll be anything you damn well want. But I have some conditions.’

  Gerwent Ban wheeled closer, energised with eagerness, until he was alongside Bras. She put her prosthetic hands on his shoulders. They looked so real that I could swear she felt his flesh. Maybe if I lived long enough I’d get Loyl Daac a new prosthetic like hers.

  ‘Yes?’ he said.

  ‘First, I want Bau and Tulu.’

  ‘Afterwards. Yes.’ The King’s ventilator sucked in agreement. ‘You can have who you like.’

  ‘Second, I want you to find the best geneticist you can and analyse this.’ I reached into my crop and pulled out the neural spike that the Cabal had removed from Ike’s head.

  ‘And that would be?’

  ‘You think you want to start a revolution. Actually, you need to stop one. A biological revolution. Something is changing people into beasts.’

  Ban blinked with unspoken scepticism. After all, someone like me had to be crazy.

  ‘Why would you expect me to believe something so preposterous?’

  ‘Ask Leesa Tulu what was really going on in the heart of The Tert. Better still: torture her. It’s the only way you’ll get the truth. Do it at least to help your . . . adopted daughter.’

  ‘Brasella?’ His flaccid body quivered. Definitely not dead yet.

  I felt Bras’s stare on me too, intense and distressed.

  Telling her like this was cruel. But I needed to make them understand - for me and for her.

  ‘Because she is infected.’

  ‘What do you know?’ Even the modulator couldn’t keep the King’s voice strong.

  ‘Hallucinations, voices, violent urges. Sound familiar?’

  Bras nodded, swallowing hard. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a parasite that feeds off the epinephrine in your body.’

  ‘How do you acquire such a thing?’

  ‘We all have it but it’s dormant. Splicing of certain genes has released it. When Sera Bau found out what entertainment it could provide, she paid someone to spread the . . .’ I stopped short of saying the word alien. I didn’t really know what it was - only that it wasn’t human. There didn’t seem to be any other word in the human vocabulary to accommodate that idea, yet that one sounded so nuts. ‘Just get this analysed. Quickly, if you want to help Bras.’

  Gerwent Ban nodded at Mal’s near-double. ‘Melanie will see to it. Is there anything else?’

  Mal and Mel. Cute.

  For a few seconds I gave myself the luxury of considering a future. If I actually survived, what would be important to me afterwards? I hadn’t planned much past revenge.

  Even if I didn’t make it, maybe I could set some things in place.

  But what? Clean up The Tert?

  Sounded cool enough, but the reality was that the punters who lived there didn’t want to be part of the super-cities. They didn’t want the interference and the regulations. And yet most of them didn’t want the scum and deprivations of The Tert either.

  ‘I want you to reinstate and maintain the public utilities in the Tertiary sector. Running water and consistent power.’

  If Ban had had an eyebrow it would have cocked.

  ‘An interesting request. I can’t guarantee that I can do it but while I have influence I will try. You’ll have to believe that.’

  ‘And you need to believe that I will interfere with your plans in any way I can if you don’t.’

  I didn’t know how, but I would find a way. After all, messing up was my biggest talent.

  ‘Right. I also need the help of a person I can trust.’ Or trust more than you, anyway.

  He was prepared for this. ‘Give Melanie the name and whereabouts. I’ll have them brought in.’

  ‘I’ll need to make contact with them first,’ I said. ‘And one more thing.’ I opened the coat and flashed the torn brocade. The whine of his breather quickened. Definitely not dead. ‘I need some proper clothes.’

  The King nodded, rubbing the smooth fabric of his auto-chair, telling it to take him elsewhere. ‘We have a deal
, then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  For the first time since Jamon Mondo had come into my life a few years before, I felt light.

  If this was power, I was hooked.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Mal and Bras took me to a lift that opened into a suite with a view.

  ‘An Intimate will attend you here until tomorrow evening when we travel to our hide,’ said Bras.

  Hide?

  I looked around. Another room of my own. Even better than the Luxoria. I should be enjoying all this. Instead, I prowled around. Restlessness plagued me as usual. Would I ever be rid of the feeling that time was running out?

  I told myself that it was because I was used to acting quickly to solve things and now I had to deliberate and plan. In truth, though, I couldn’t shake the desperation inside myself. Real or imagined, it was with me in the same way that my lungs sucked oxygen. Since my overdose with dizzies, something had shaken loose. My grip had weakened.

  I forced myself to change calmly into the jeans and shirt that Mal had brought me.

  They both looked away.

  ‘How secure is the hide?’ I asked them.

  Bras swung her arms as though they were uncomfortable or, now that I’d seen her own sparsely furnished room, I thought that perhaps she was as uneasy as I was with comforts.

  The view, though, was worth it: east across hundreds of flowering bougainvilleas, white yachts. Picture-perfect and dangerously distracting. Enough to make anyone forget.

  ‘Quite,’ Bras replied to my question.

  ‘You got quality vreal there?’

  ‘The best. 6-Gen.’

  I whistled. 5-Gen had just about cooked my goose. Only one person I knew could get me in and out of 6-Gen. Merv.

  But how could I get him away from Lavish?

  Glorious. Her name forced its way into my consciousness. Is she alive? Can I bear to find out?

  I turned to Mal. ‘Do you know the Brightbeach bridge? I want to meet with someone there tomorrow morning, early. I’ll need transport and some way to get past the ID scans.’

  ‘Yes, Miss.’

  Miss. The word me want to snap my teeth at her. But even I wasn’t stupid enough to aggravate Mal. One swat from her fist and my brains would be paste. I settled for a grimace and a ‘Call me Parrish.’

  She grunted and left us, distrust knitted into the aggressive hunch of her shoulders. Mal didn’t think I was suitable company for Bras.

  Funny thought, considering.

  I moved over to the window and tried to invent a plan. The Pan-Sats were due to air in a few days. What they wanted me to do was impossible.

  Not that I was one to back out of a challenge. But pressure invariably got me acting crazy.

  ‘I should thank you,’ said Bras

  ‘What for?’ I didn’t look at her. Whatever she was working up to had been long rehearsed. I could hear it in her measured tone.

  ‘What you did in The Tert . . . those men would have killed me. Or the next ones that came along. My death was certain.’

  Yeah, well, we all share that one. ‘What happened when the ’Terro took you?’ I asked.

  ‘They put me in a holding cell on Jinberra in the Midas section. I’d still be there if Gerwent hadn’t been watching the LTA broadcast when I was taken. He made inquiries and bid for me.’

  I shot her a glance. ‘What do you mean, “bid”?’

  ‘It’s the one remaining privilege the Royals share with the media. They have the right to buy anyone out of Militia custody for an agreed price.’

  ‘You were lucky.’

  Bras shrugged. ‘I’m not the only one who’s been bought.’

  I nodded, encouraging her to go on. What had she heard?

  ‘In Midas there are a lot of stories. A few of them are famous. One was about a witch doctor from Merika. I never knew her name because you only got told it when you paid for someone else to wind up dead. The other was about a man they called Wombat. It was the story that gave me hope.’

  My heart leaped up into my throat and made it hard to breathe. ‘What was that story about?’

  ‘Somebody bought him out of a prolonged-life sentence. Then he kept coming back and getting others out. They say he was building a better, safer place. I used to dream about what it would be like there.’ She stopped staring out of the window. ‘I wound up here instead but I still wonder what that place is like.’

  I kept my shudder and the truth to myself. Let her keep her dream. ‘Why do you think Gerwent bought you?’

  Bras’s shortness of breath came back, and the wild, feral look. ‘Because he thought you would come after me. It’s you he really wants. Not me.’

  I gaped at her in total disbelief. ‘You’re winding me up.’

  ‘He’s been planning this a long time but they needed the right person to be their focus. Someone convincing and . . .’

  ‘Nuts?’

  ‘That’s you, Parrish.’ She trailed off into a whisper. ‘You didn’t come for me. But he’s patient. He waited for an opportunity. One of the Polity is a client of the Luxoria. We heard you were there, so he paid one of the employees to watch you.’

  ‘Who? Lam?’

  ‘No. I think his name was Tae.’

  I stared at her, surprised in more than one way. ‘You expected . . . wanted me to come after you?’

  ‘I told him you wouldn’t.’ She shrugged.

  I didn’t know what to make of that. Had I somehow let Bras down? I’d barely known the kid.

  ‘He gets what he wants,’ she added.

  So I’m nuts and convincing, eh?

  Then why were my knees trembling? Why could I picture a spider shutting its trapdoor?

  And yet I couldn’t run away from this opportunity.

  ‘What will this parasite do to me?’ Bras asked.

  I sighed. ‘Nothing good. But if you fight, we might be able to find a way to stop it.’ I touched her lightly on the head. ‘Be strong inside, Bras. It’s all you’ve got in the end.’

  The next morning at dawn Mal and an Intimate took me out in a baby Sikorsky that Mal called a FlashHawk.

  I watched the rooftop advertibles as the Intimate logged into the flight queue heading south, and contemplated how unfit I would be if I sat around much longer doing nothing.

  I’d been past the limits of physical exhaustion in recent times. Now I was tired from inactivity.

  And lack of sleep. I’d wrestled the entire night with my problems, till in the end I’d booted up Merry 3# and voiced in everything else I could think of. It was dangerous keeping a record like this but forgetting something might be just as lethal.

  Merry had jigged as she looked around, acting like she’d made it first through the doors at an emporium sale. ‘Oooh, ooh. Nice. Ooh, gorgeous. Ooh. Gucci. No way, Henry IV.’

  ‘Yeah, well, don’t get used to it.’

  ‘Oh? So what’s next on our travel itinerary?’ she sniped. ‘A pot hole? No, let me guess again. A drain?’

  ‘You wanna hear about what happens at p-diary rehab or are you just gonna run the patternware for me?’

  She gave me the finger and disappeared. In her place a holo-schema of all the information that I’d collected shimmered.

  As usual the overlaps and unmade connections gave me a headache. I didn’t for a second think that Gerwent Ban’s plan for a return to government was something that I really wanted or believed would make things better. But one thing I surely knew - NO ONE was going to air what happened in MoVay as a ratings ploy to be gawked at by dumb cits.

  NO ONE.

  ‘Watch it.’

  Mal’s curt order to the sombre blue-liveried Intimate brought me back to the present. She sat next to it in the co-pilot’s seat, possessively rechecking protocols. She didn’t like it flying her baby.

  Better it than me, I figured.

  I transferred my attention to what the FlashHawk had in the way of extras that I could recognise. It was an impressive little beast, sporting a coup
le of 7.62mm mini-guns hidden beneath the cabin windows, plus an external hoist, rappel, paradrop and fast rope. Seemed that Mal had done one or two quick extractions before.

  A few minutes before we landed on the Brightbeach parking lot, Gerwent Ban commed. He sounded agitated and, when I craned over Mal to see, his face was slack with shock.

  ‘I have seen the initial download from the bio-ware you gave me.’

  ‘Yes?’ I tried not to hold my breath.

  ‘There is veracity in your story and the implications are . . . extraordinary. But I’ll discuss it with you on your return.’

  I didn’t know if I felt relief. Or more fear.

  ‘Don’t run away on me, then,’ I said.

  The link fizzed out before he could laugh.

  We passed through security in the building adjacent to Cone Central and took the lift to Breeza’s. I was already sipping tea and watching the ’pedes waddle around 150 floors below when Merv came in, head down, preoccupied.

  ‘Hiya.’

  He jumped at the sound of my voice, recognising it before he even saw me. Maybe he’d been having bad dreams too.

  ‘Easy, Merv,’ I added, patting the chair next to me.

  Mal sat at a nearby table and the Intimate wearing the royal insignia stood stolidly in the doorway of the café. More back-up than I’d had in a long time.

  I was starting to feel bulletproof.

  Not good.

  ‘I got a job offer for you,’ I said.

  Merv sank into the chair, paler than normal and shaking. ‘W-what are you doing here? Y-you’re dead.’

  ‘No. But I am in a hurry.’ I lowered my voice. ‘Come and work for me. I’ve got 6-Gen vreal and I can’t use it without you.’

  His eyelids fluttered. ‘6-Gen. I m-mean . . . h-how are you going to p-pay me? You’re a c-criminal.’

  Dead and a criminal? Nice. I winced and gestured to the Intimate taking up space in the doorway of the café. ‘Recognise the livery?’

  He nodded, eyes widening.

  ‘Well, I got a new boss. He’s paying. Lavish won’t be able to touch you and there’ll be no more dead women to pack into the meat wagon.’