“Where is she?” she demanded, holding up the holo of the little girl and handing out painful cuffs when she didn’t get an answer.
Joe and I swept the building finding only dust, some industrial plant that wasn’t even good for scrap and the stale smell of disuse. Back on the ground floor a SWAT was running a scanner over a caseful of vials whilst his team-mate checked a holdall full of green.
“Half a mil,” she said and whistled. “Clean too. Numbers all coming up as legitimately sourced.”
“This is good stuff, Inspector,” the SWAT with the scanner said. “Eighty percent purity. Your intel was a little off though.” He held up one of the vials containing an opaque, greenish liquid. “This is Bliss, not Blues.”
I went to the prisoners, chose the tallest and dragged him to his feet, drew the Sig and jammed it in his mouth, held up Mr Mac’s smart with my other hand, close to his eyes, wide and terror filled.
“My name is Inspector Alex McLeod,” I said. “Heard of me?”
Faint twitch of the mouth around my gun, eyes widening a little more, a nod. “Good, then you’ll know it’s very important you give me a truthful response.” I held the smart even closer. “Have you ever seen this girl?”
Instant head shake, eyes imploring in a sweat slick face. No sign of a lie and I knew how to spot a lie from a man with a gun in his mouth.
“Shit!”
I removed the Sig, wiped spit away on his jacket and moved to the door beckoning Joe to follow. “Fire me if you have a problem,” I said to Sherry’s glare of disapproval.
*
“She lied! She fucking lied!” I fumed on the Pipe, prowling the aisle, fists clenched. The carriage was empty apart from Joe, our fellow passengers wisely having decided to vacate a few stops back. “How many hours have we wasted on this crap?”
“Dunno,” Joe said. “Four maybe.”
“It’s a rhetorical question.” I slumped into the seat opposite. “She’s never lied before. Not to me.”
“She was kinda right, just got the wrong commodity…”
“You don’t get it, she doesn’t get things wrong. She deliberately wasted our time.”
“She did seem kinda pissed. Taking a little revenge maybe? For her rat I mean.”
I thought it over. Choi certainly had a vindictive streak, there had been enough bodies on the ground over the years to attest to that. But not to me, we had too much history of shared dependency, however much we both resented it.
“Y’know, Inspector…” Joe began.
“Alex, I keep telling you.”
“Yeah. You look like a man in need of a drink.”
*
Joe’s apartment was on the fourth floor of a mid-price block on Yang Twelve. Mid-price in this neighbourhood meaning the elevator worked one day in five and the Super kept the stairways clear of Blissfuls and Blues Heads. The apartment itself, kept so neat and well-ordered I wondered if there wasn’t some military experience in Joe’s back catalogue, boasted an en suite bathroom, fold-out bed and kitchenette slash living room. Plus a very large rat sitting on the couch.
“You remember Sniffy,” Joe said, closing the door.
“Yeah.” I found myself edging closer to the wall as Sniffy licked his snout and favoured me with his signature baleful stare. “Kinda thought he was enjoying life in the outer shell.”
“Guess he didn’t take to it.” Joe hung up his coat and moved to open a cupboard over the sink. “Been around people too long. He turned up a couple of weeks ago. Must’ve tracked my scent through the ventilation ducts.”
“Uh huh,” I said, calculating the chances of getting to my gun if Sniffy decided he didn’t like visitors. I’d seen him move with a purpose before and didn’t think much of my odds.
“Here we are.” Joe extracted a bottle and two shot glasses from the cupboard and went to the couch. “Off you!” he told Sniffy. “Bed time.”
Sniffy gave me a final stare then hopped off the couch and into a blanket-lined box under the window.
“Kentucky Red,” Joe said, pouring a measure. The bottle was square shaped with a picture of a running horse on the label. “Twelve years old. Got a contact at the docks puts a bottle aside for me. All legal of course, excise paid at import.”
“I’m sure.” I sat on the couch, unhooking the uncomfortable weight of the Sig and dumping it on the coffee table.
“Cheers.” Joe handed me a glass.
“Slange.”
Kentucky Red had a complex texture and a pleasing burn on the tongue leaving a rich wood-smoky aftertaste. “Piss-water,” I told Joe.
He grinned. “Thought you’d like it.”
I relaxed into the couch, thinking about lost little girls, pretend Dragon ladies and the enticing prospect of reacquiring my old face.
“How long since you slept?” Joe enquired.
“A day or so. I’m fine.” In fact I wasn’t sure when I’d last slept. My apartment had gradually morphed into a junk-food carton filled mess that felt more like a prison cell with every increasingly infrequent visit. There was no mystery as to why of course, since Consuela died I’d seen little point in domestic trivia. For that matter, I’d seen little point in much of anything. I worked, I hunted through this orbiting slum for murderers, rapists and sundry human drek, but I was going through the motions. It was only when I took a look in the mirror and finally decided I’d had enough of seeing a stranger there that I started to feel like maybe I had a life to live after all. Then Mr Mac called.
“What is it with you and Choi, anyway?” Joe asked, pouring more bourbon. “Didn’t used to bump uglies did you?”
I barked a laugh. “Shit no!”
“OK. Just thought I sensed a little tension is all.”
“Mutual dislike, my friend. What’s between us is that she saved my life. I like to pay my debts. Plus she and the missus were compadres during the war.” I paused, in truth Choi and Consuela hadn’t really been that close, more politely professional than anything else. They co-ran the Yang-Side intelligence cell, Con was analysis whilst Choi ran the informants and took care of any security leaks with typical efficiency. She’d detected a last minute compromise as I’d led my cell against a Fed-Sec safe house where some of our people were supposedly being tortured. It was a trap, forty Fed-Sec Commandos lying in wait on the surrounding rooftops. Choi had killed her way through the outer perimeter and wide-cast a warning over the open net. The resultant shit-storm was pretty ugly but most of us made it out. Like I said, I like to pay my debts.
The sound of Joe’s humming broke my reverie. Redemption Song. Bob Marley. Since when did she like music? And she barely flinched when I used her real name.
Probably the one thing that makes me good at the whole Demon biz is the innate inability to let things go. Consuela used to say it was like a form of autism. Consuela used to say…
I put down my shot-glass and picked up the Sig. “You got any sober-up?”
“Sure, the drawer next to the sink.”
I got up and retrieved the pills, dry-swallowed two and tossed him the pack. “Back on the clock, Joe. Take yourself off to Madame Choi’s. Exterior obs. Comings and goings. Try to be unobtrusive.”
“Erm, OK. Where you gonna be?”
“Need to consult with my priest.”
*
Sober-up does what it says on the pack but it also brings on an instantaneous hangover leaving the user bleary-eyed and grimacing from a pounding headache.
“You look like shit,” Father Bob commented as I wandered into the chapel. He was placing hymn sheets on the pews for the late night mass. “Been drinking?”
“Only during working hours.” I hesitated. We hadn’t spoken much since Consuela died. “How’s things?”
“Need new plumbing if you’d care to contribute to the collection box.”
“Sure.” I pushed some green through the slot. “Would’ve been round sooner…”
“Save it, Alex. You don’t believe so why would you come back? I
t’s OK, got my hands full with the sins of the faithful.”
“There’s a little girl, kidnap case…”
“Whatever you need.”
“I need access to the copy. I assume you made one.”
Father Bob gave me a sidelong glance, kept placing hymn sheets. “What makes you think that?”
“The soul resides in memory, memory resides in the soul. Preservation of human memory is therefore the holiest of acts.” A quotation. Cardinal Eduardo Mendez, ex-communicant, apostate and founder of the Neo-Catholic Church.
“Didn’t know you read scripture.”
“Consuela did. She was the believer after all.”
Father Bob sighed and put down his hymn sheets. “Come on, it’s in the office.”
*
“It won’t be the same,” he warned, spooling up the immersion couch. “It’s just a construct, an interface for accessing memories, don’t expect too much.”
I nodded, swallowed, realised my hands were shaking.
“Do you really need to do this?” Father Bob asked.
I closed my eyes, exhaled slowly, refilled my lungs. Four repeats. An old pre-combat routine. “Let’s get on with it.”
*
I’d opted for the docks as a setting, the viewing platform overlooking the ore freighter bays. It was where I’d first seen her. She hadn’t seen me that first time. I’d been hiding in the air ducts, on the run and waiting for an opportunity to stowaway on her father’s tug. They ran it together, family operation, had since she was little. But she longed for the freighters, long hauling out to the Belt and back, and would come here to watch them berth or launch. She was watching now, older than the first time, the age she’d been when she died.
I tried to speak and faltered, coughed, forced the words out. “Hello, Con.”
She turned, there was a brief moment of blankness then a bright welcoming smile. “Alex.” A pause. “You haven’t been to see me in nine months and eight days.”
I nearly jacked out then and there. Father Bob was right, it wasn’t her. Perfect face, perfect voice, but all wrong. Just not her.
“I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I’m here now, and I need your help.”
Blankness again as the construct programme processed my response. “Of course I’ll help.”
“Choi,” I said. “I need to know about Choi.”
“Choi, Soo Ying. Real name Matsuke Hiroka. We served together during the war.”
“What do you know about her life before the Slab?”
“Veteran of the Sino-Nippon War. No surviving family members. Served in Japanese Air Force Intelligence then covert ops. She was an entertainer before the war, part of the Tokyo Teen Pop revival, a singer, gave it up when she got married and had a daughter.”
A daughter? All this time I had no idea. I’d always assumed Choi spent her entire life either killing people or dealing drugs. “What happened to her family?”
“Killed in the initial Sino assault wave.” The construct’s face became sombre. “That’s very sad.”
Looking at this perfect but grotesque facsimile of my wife I couldn’t help but conclude Cardinal Mendez had got it wrong. There is no soul in memory, no ghost in the machine.
“Thank you.” I couldn’t bring myself to say her name. She wasn’t there to hear it. “Jack me out please, Father.”
*
I was hurrying back to the Pipe when Sherry called. She was using our private channel which didn’t bode well. “Problems, Alex. Tech just found a mobile bug latched on to the Department’s main comms data feed. Looks like it’s been lying dormant for months. Must’ve cut its way in when they did the last systems upgrade. Very high spec, bespoke engineering.”
Mr Mac, he always hired the best. “How much did it get?”
“At least seven hours’ worth of comms data, all squirted out in a data-burst less than twenty minutes ago.”
Seven hours ago, when I met the sonofabitch. Wind me up and let me go then track my progress a few hours later. Like I said, Mr Mac had no need of tracers.
I check-listed every call I’d made in the previous seven hours. Luckily I hadn’t mentioned Choi at any point but I had called Sherry to arrange the SWAT team just after leaving her place. He knew of our association, he knew she dealt Blues and he knew the intel she gave me was a blind. If he hadn’t put it together by now he soon would.
“You need to get as many Demons as you can to Madame Choi’s place,” I told Sherry, now sprinting for the Pipe. “Give them Nina Laredo’s ID specs. Advise to shoot on sight.”
“Won’t be easy. The bug uploaded a virus to the Departmental data core the instant the tech’s found it, a really nasty one. Yang-Side police comms are seriously screwed for at least another hour.”
“Do what you can.” I sounded off, ran onto the axis-bound platform and scraped through the carriage doors a fraction before they closed.
I forced myself to take a seat, checked the Sig then exhaled slowly, refilled my lungs. Four repeats. Pre-combat routine.
*
Joe had secluded himself behind an over-flowing dumpster in the alley opposite the Heavenly Garden, crouched in the shadows, hooded against the sweat-rain, large hands resting on his knees. I wondered if he had any idea how threatening he looked.
“Anything?” I asked.
He rose, shaking his head, rain drops flying from the hood. “Nothing in or out since I got here. Place is closed up. Lights on upstairs though.”
I glanced up at the slitted yellow rectangle over the door, knowing whatever awaited me there wasn’t likely to be pretty.
“We’re going to have company,” I told Joe. “Plenty of it and not friendly. No back-up for at least a half hour. You don’t have to stay.”
Joe’s only reaction was a slightly raised eyebrow, but he was the kind of guy who could say a lot with an eyebrow.
“Sorry,” I said, drawing the Sig. “Stay close.”
The door was locked so I got Joe to bust it open, went in gun raised, blinking in the gloom, finding Marco unmoving on the floor. I went to him, fingered his neck for a pulse. Slow, regular. The sweat dewed pallor of his skin told the tale. Drugged. Syteline maybe? He wouldn’t leave so she put him out.
“Find a closet for him,” I told Joe. “Then watch the door. I’ll be upstairs.”
I lingered at the foot of the stairs, peering up at the half-rectangle of light showing she’d left the door to her office open. Why didn’t you run, Choi? I sighed and started climbing.
I gave the door a gentle push, kept the Sig held low. Choi was kneeling before a large sheet of rice paper, dressed in an all-white kimono, guiding the hand of a little girl as she painted Japanese symbols with a bamboo brush.
“This means tree,” she told the girl who smiled a little. “You try.”
The girl took a firm hold of the brush and tried to copy the symbol, a frown of deep concentration on her small face.
“Very good,” Choi complimented her. “Don’t you think so, Inspector?” She looked up at me, face absent of any fear or concern. There was also no sign of a weapon within reach. Just a Satsuma-ware tea set with a half-empty bowl.
“Yes,” I said, putting the Sig away, coming in, forcing a grin at the girl. “You’re very clever.”
She gave a shy smile and burrowed into Choi’s side, snuggling close.
“Choi,” I said, keeping my voice as light as possible. “We don’t have much time…”
“Will you sit Inspector?” Choi gestured at the couch opposite. “I’m afraid I have no more tea to offer.”
It was clear she had no intention of going anywhere so I went to the couch and sat down. “What’s her name?” I asked.
Choi smoothed the little girl’s hair back from her forehead. “I doubt she has one. I’ve been calling her Satomi. She seems to like it.”
I didn’t need to ask to know Satomi had been her daughter’s name. “Let me see if I’ve read this right. You got wind of a major Blues exchange but didn�
�t know what the package was. You surveilled the hand-over to see if it was worth stealing. Mr Spaghetti and Meatballs turns up with Satomi here. You kill him and the security, hack up the bodies and take her back here to play house.”
Choi just smiled and tweaked Satomi’s nose, drawing a strange rasping giggle. “She can’t laugh,” she explained. “Or talk. They made her without vocal chords. The courier had a data stick with all the details. They took a little girl and made her into a narcotics production facility.”
I remembered Ricci’s call. “Her blood.”
“Yes. Her endocrine system has been altered to synthesise Blues. The perfect courier. She’s worth billions. And she will never grow old, they took her ageing genes. But she will die, eventually. Blues is a carcinogen, even now she shows early signs of non-Hodgkins lymphoma. She has perhaps another two years.”
“That why you didn’t run?”
Choi looked at me squarely and I noted a faint sheen of sweat on her forehead. “Where would I run to? I knew who they would send after us.” Her voice was a little strained and her hands trembled as they cradled the girl, who now seemed to be sliding into sleep. My eyes flicked to the half-empty tea bowl.
“Choi…”
“My name is Matsuke Hiroka,” she said. “I know we have not exactly been friends Inspector, but I am glad you are here to witness my final act. I have lived a life of deceit, crime and violence. And now I have a chance to give it meaning.” She held Satomi closer. “If they take her they might save her. Save her for the life they made her for.”
An urgent whisper from Joe hissed in my ear. “Movement outside. Counting four so far.”
“I can get you out of here,” I told Choi. “Get treatment for her…”
“There is no treatment.” Her eyelids were drooping but she forced them open, fixing me with an imploring glare. “Consuela worried for you during the war, did you know that? Not for your life but for your soul. The many lives you took, your fierceness. She worried that with the war over there would be no place for you, no path to redemption. But here you are, no less fierce but a force for good. You have your redemption, Alex. Let me have mine.”
Joe again, “Getting pretty busy down here, Inspector.”
Slab City Blues - The Collected Stories: All Five Stories in One Volume Page 5
