Terminal World

by Alastair Reynolds

  ‘Stop there,’ another man called, a black-bearded, uniformed figure who might have been a senior guard, stationmaster or perhaps an agent of the railway police. He began to unbuckle something from his belt, advancing steadily on Meroka and Quillon. The item turned out to be a long-nosed service revolver, which the man gripped two-handed and began to level at his targets. ‘Stop,’ he declaimed, his voice booming out in actorly fashion. ‘Stop or I will shoot!’

  ‘This isn’t going to end well,’ Meroka said. She began to reach into her coat again.

  ‘No more deaths,’ Quillon said. ‘Please.’

  The bearded man fired a warning shot, ringing high into the vaulted roof - disturbing the night’s audience of roosting bats and birds, a vast eruption of sooty wings. ‘This is your last warning!’ he called again. ‘Stop now!’

  Meroka flung something at the man. For an instant Quillon had the absurd impression that she had thrown him a candy or a glass marble. It landed near his feet and exploded, a bright concussive flash louder even than the discharge of his revolver. The grenade threw up a screen of choking blue-white smoke. Meroka tossed another into the melee for good luck, then spun around and started running. Quillon followed her, his medical bag swinging ridiculously from his left hand, drawing his right hand and the angel gun from his pocket so that he could run more freely. They exited the platform area and passed through a wide doorway into the black-and-white-tiled booking hall and waiting room, where late-night travellers were only now beginning to register the commotion outside. A station official, more alert than most, was just putting down the handset of a wall-mounted telephone. He spotted the two fugitives and dashed across to the outer door, bravely set on blocking their escape. Meroka pulled out the machine-pistol and fired off a burst from the fresh magazine she had loaded on the train, aiming not at the station official but at the tilework mosaic above the open door. Shards and chips exploded away, the official shielding his eyes as the pieces rained down on him. Quillon risked another glance over his shoulder. The bearded man with the service revolver wasn’t far behind them, stumbling slightly as if he was still dealing with the effects of the smoke grenade. He stopped for a moment, leaning over with one hand on his knee, the other still holding the gun, and then resumed his pursuit. Other officials - not to mention several passers-by - were hard on his heels.

  Just then Quillon registered one of the passengers in the waiting room. With elegant, unhurried calm, the man began folding his newspaper. He placed it down on the vacant chair next to him - no one else was sitting anywhere near him - and rose slowly to his feet. He wore a long grey coat, cinched at the waist, a low-brimmed hat and patent leather shoes. The ghoul reached a black-gloved hand into his coat pocket, as if he was searching for a cigarette lighter.

  Quillon was holding the angel gun, but he didn’t dare risk a shot now. As sparsely occupied as the waiting room was, there were still people between him and the ghoul, who was now walking slowly out of the seating area, the black slash of his mouth beginning to curve up at the ends.

  Meroka grabbed Quillon’s arm and dragged him out into the night, just as the service revolver roared again. Rain hit his face, dirty and cold where it had sluiced down from the higher levels. For a moment the world was a moving confusion of cabs, trams, slot-cars and slot-buses. He stood transfixed. Then Meroka picked a cab and ran straight at it, making the driver slam on his brakes to avoid hitting her. She flung open the passenger door and stood by it until Quillon was inside, sitting behind the driver on the left. Then she climbed in after him, slammed the door and told the cabman to start driving.

  ‘Where we going?’ he asked, turning back to talk through the glass panel.

  ‘Just drive,’ Meroka said.

  Quillon looked behind. He saw the ghoul emerge from the station entrance, then walk slowly towards one of the other cabs. Then they pulled away, and a slot-bus swerved in to block his view. When it had cleared all he could see was a rain-washed confusion of moving headlights. The cabman kept asking where he was meant to drive, and Meroka kept giving him the same non-answer. ‘Just get us away from the station,’ she said.

  Quillon tore his attention from the rear view and fished out a ten bill. He tapped his wrist against the glass screen. ‘We can pay you. Take this up front.’

  The driver snatched the bill out of his fingers. ‘Still be good to know where we’re going.’

  ‘Hit a right here,’ Meroka said.

  The driver yanked at the wheel, guiding his pick-up shoe into the diverging slot, the vehicle jerking sharply as it followed the shoe. The cab sped down a side road lined by cheap hotels and low-rent tenements. This was not a prosperous part of Neon Heights, lying as close as it did to the edge of the zone. No one lived here if they could afford to live further away from the boundary, where the likelihood of being caught in a zone shift was much reduced.

  ‘Hit a left,’ Meroka said.

  The cab veered sharply, rejoining thicker traffic. Just as they cleared the bend Quillon saw headlights swing onto the side road. ‘I think we’re being followed,’ he said.

  ‘You think?’ Meroka asked.

  ‘I saw the ghoul going for another cab. Someone’s behind us.’

  ‘Hit another right,’ Meroka said.

  The cabman shook his head. ‘Can’t do that. Takes us too close to the boundary.’

  She tapped the gun barrel against the glass. ‘Do it anyway.’

  He glanced around, saw the weapon and gave an unimpressed shrug, as if this was the kind of thing he expected to happen at least once a shift. ‘It won’t get you far. We’ll be off-grid in a couple of blocks.’

  ‘This cab got flywheels and batteries?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then do what I said.’

  He made a right at the next intersection, diving down a dark street walled on either side by abandoned tenements, with the occasional vacant lot between them. The ride became rougher, and not just because of the bad condition of the asphalt under the tyres: years of dirt and garbage had compacted into the slot and not enough traffic came this way to keep the electrical path clear. The cab kept surging as the pick-up shoe lost traction current, the flywheel kicking in jerkily. Quillon glanced back. They had come quite some way down the dark street and nothing had turned off the main thoroughfare to pursue them. Perhaps he had been wrong about the other cab after all. He exhaled.

  Headlights swung onto the street.

  ‘It’s them.’

  ‘Which way is the boundary?’ Meroka asked the cabman.

  ‘Straight ahead.’

  ‘Then keep going. Cutter - see if you can take them out, prove to me what a badass you really are.’

  Quillon started to wind the window down and then halted, his hand trembling. ‘I can’t shoot at the cab. I’ll risk hitting the driver.’

  ‘Then fucking improvise.’ Meroka glared at him, her eyes wild and angry. ‘The slot. See if you can burn it out.’

  Quillon drew the angel gun from his pocket. He twisted around and leaned cautiously out of the left-hand window. The other cab was gaining on them slowly, headlamps flickering as it hit the power breaks in the slot, blue sparks lighting under it as the current jumped the gap. With the unsteady motion of their own cab, it was difficult to keep the gun aimed at the slot. Holding his nerve, he squeezed gently on the trigger, flinching in expectation of the crimson beam. Nothing happened. He squeezed again and this time the beam lanced out, but with what seemed to Quillon to be less brilliance than before. It missed the slot and blew a manhole-sized crater in the asphalt. He re-centred his aim and tried another shot. Again the weapon was unresponsive. He pumped the trigger a couple of times. This time the beam sputtered out almost as soon as it had appeared. He twisted back into the cab. He thought he had hit the slot, but as the pursuing car reached the damaged spot it continued moving, flywheel and its own momentum carrying it over the dead stretch.

  ‘Something’s not right,’ he said, shaking the gun as if that mi
ght make a difference. ‘It’s dying on me, but there should still be several hours of good function left.’

  ‘Ask it,’ Meroka said, winding down the window on her own side. She fired a burst from the machine-pistol, not appearing to care whether she hit the slot or the cab. She exhausted the magazine in a single burst then slumped down low to slip in a replacement. A shot rang against the small aperture of the cab’s rear window, punching a neat little hole surrounded by white fracture lines.

  ‘This isn’t my problem!’ the cabman called. ‘I let you out now, you don’t have to pay! You even get your ten back!’

  ‘If you stop,’ Meroka said, ‘I’ll shoot you.’ She twisted around and resumed firing, only the fact that she was holding the weapon outside of the cab preventing Quillon from being deafened.

  ‘You’re not working properly,’ he told the gun. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Earlier estimates based on stable zone conditions,’ the gun responded, its voice slower and more machinelike than before. ‘Transition to lower-state zone detected. Operational effectiveness in energy-discharge mode is now ... twenty-two per cent and ... falling. I will become inoperable in ... thirty-five ... minutes. Functionality will be ... severely compromised within ... eight. In order to preserve optimum functionality ... I am now sacrificing ... all ... nonessential ... all nonessential functions ... all nonessential funk funk funk ...’

  The gun fell silent.

  Two more shots rang against the cab. Meroka delivered another burst of bullets. Quillon leaned out of his own side and squeezed the trigger repeatedly until the gun emitted a single pulse of the crimson beam. This time even Quillon didn’t care whether he hit the road or the cab. Someone in the cab was trying to kill him. That eclipsed all other considerations.

  Suddenly the cab swerved hard to the left. Meroka yanked herself back in, swapping out the machine-pistol magazine again.

  ‘Did I tell you to turn?’

  ‘Slot was about to end,’ the cabman said.

  ‘Turn right again.’ She leaned out and resumed firing.

  The cabman spun his wheel to the right, the pick-up shoe disengaging from the slot, the cab surging forwards on the stored energy of its flywheel. Shots clanged against the right-side door, and then they had the shelter of another dark side street. At first, the flywheel gave them an edge, but the wheel’s slowly dying scream attested to the fact that it was losing speed all the time. Quillon risked looking back, unsurprised when the other cab came off-slot at the same point, headlamps dimming as it lost current. He leaned out and tried firing the angel gun; nothing happened until the sixth or seventh squeeze of the trigger, and then all he got was a flash of crimson, the beam appearing to exhaust itself of energy long before it washed against the pursuing car. The cab slowed as the driver swerved it around the wrecks of abandoned cars still parked on the deserted street, fender kissing metal with a series of agonised squeals. Each time they lost momentum, the flywheel unable to push the cab back up to its previous speed. The only consolation was that the other cab had to negotiate the same set of obstacles.

  ‘Can’t go any further,’ the driver said, desperation in his voice. ‘Shoot me if you want, but we’re about to hit the no-man’s-land. From now we’ll start to feel it.’

  ‘Keep driving,’ Meroka said.

  ‘I’ll black out. I’m not good with zone shifts.’

  Quillon placed down the angel gun - he wasn’t certain it was going to be much more use to him anyway - and dived into his medical bag. He produced a stoppered vial of small white pills. He tipped six into his hand and passed two through the hole in the glass screen. ‘Take these,’ he said, with as much commanding authority as he could muster.

  ‘You trying to poison me?’

  ‘These are antizonals. You’re going to cross the zone anyway. You may as well take them.’

  Meroka snatched two of the pills for herself. ‘Do what the nice man says,’ she told the cabman.

  With one hand on the wheel he held the pills up to his lips, hesitated for an instant, then popped them down.

  ‘We just need to get to the other side,’ Quillon said. ‘After that, you can make your way back to Neon Heights. The pills will stave off the worst effects of the zone transition.’

  ‘I already feel weird.’

  ‘That’s the transition coming up, not the pills. They’ll take a few minutes to have any effect.’

  As he spoke one of the electric watches on Quillon’s sleeve began to buzz, alerting him to an imminent transition. He could already feel the physiological effects gaining in strength. He felt light-headed, he was sweating and his heart was beginning to race. The transition from Neon Heights to Steamville was mild in comparison to the hell that the angel had gone through when it plummeted from the Celestial Levels. All Quillon could hope for was that it would prove too much for the ghoul, already stressed by the time it had spent in Neon Heights. But if the ghoul had once been an angel, then so too had Quillon. He had no idea how he was going to take the transition. All he could do was place maximum faith in his physical resilience, his medical judgement and the arsenal of potions in his bag.

  It would have to suffice.

  The high whine of the flywheel had become a low, complaining moan. The car was bouncing along at half the speed it had been maintaining before coming off the slot. At the end of the road, the remaining buildings thinned out to the desolate urban no-man’s-land. Almost nothing stood intact; any buildings that had been here before the last zone shift had long since succumbed to weather and rot and fire - not to mention the occasional intrepid pillager - with only the barest shells remaining. On the other side of the wasteland - a strip running away in either direction, more or less concentric with the gentle curvature of the shelf - was the outskirts of Steamville, a tentative margin of low, dark buildings lit predominantly by gaslight.

  Quillon looked back again, hoping to see some sign that the other car was abandoning the chase. But it was still behind them, and if anything it was gaining ground. The rutted, barely serviceable road had now reduced their speed to little more than a brisk running pace. Vehicular traffic between zones was rare, most people preferring to use the trains, elevators and other public transit systems, all of which had been carefully engineered to tolerate many crossings.

  Quillon tensed. The feelings of transition intensified, sharp nausea rising in his throat. There was a moment of absolute cosmic cold, as if a billion tiny doors had opened in every cell of his body, letting in the draught of creation. The cab lurched and stalled and then resumed its ailing progress. The sensations of transition gradually eased, but even as they abated there remained an impression that something profound had changed. It was the first time he had left Neon Heights in nine years.

  ‘I don’t feel good,’ the cabman said.

  ‘It’ll pass,’ said Quillon. ‘Keep driving.’

  From somewhere under the floor came a sudden metallic crunching sound, followed by a violent shuddering. The cab slowed to below walking pace.

  ‘Flywheel’s just seized,’ Meroka said. ‘Couldn’t cope with the shift. Switch to batteries.’

  The driver threw a toggle on his dashboard. ‘I’m switching. But they won’t get us far.’

  The cab resumed its hesitant progress, the electric transmission making a shrill whining sound. Another shot clanged into the back, ricocheting off into darkness. Meroka leaned out and fired off another burst from the machine-pistol. This time the burst ended abruptly. She leaned back in, gritting her teeth as she worked the safety lever back and forth, then tried firing again. The gun gave a short burst then jammed again. ‘Everything’s quitting on us,’ Meroka said, flinging the machine-pistol aside. She reached into her coat and pulled out a heavy black revolver.

  ‘They’re slowing,’ Quillon said. ‘I think.’

  ‘Try the angel gun again.’

  He leaned out and squeezed the trigger, but even though he kept trying, the weapon now appeared totally inert. He was about to t
hrow it away, but some impulse made him place it back in his pocket. Most technologies were damaged beyond repair when they passed from a high zone into a low zone, but for all he knew the angel gun had the ability to heal itself, or at least effect some kind of temporary recovery.

  ‘Car’s stopping,’ Quillon said. ‘Maybe he’s decided to give—’ But he had not completed his sentence before one of the other cab’s front doors was flung open and the ghoul came out, articulating his grey-coated frame like a spider emerging from a burrow. There was no sign of the other cabman.

  ‘You were saying?’

  The ghoul paused to reach back into the cab for his hat, pressing it down on the hairless grey-green dome of his head. He started walking, taking determined paces away from the abandoned cab, long legs rising and falling in exaggerated, puppet-like strides. Every few steps he raised his gun and shot at the cab.

  ‘He’s gaining,’ Quillon said.

  ‘Stop,’ Meroka told the driver.

  He looked back at her, incredulous. ‘Stop?’

  ‘Stop.’ To emphasise her point she brought the revolver around and shot through the glass screen, boring a smoking hole in the dashboard.

  The cabman snatched his hands away from the wheel as the cab crunched to a halt.

  Meroka opened the passenger door on her side. She levered herself out, using the door handle for support while she kept her feet in the passenger compartment, and emptied the revolver at the ghoul. The figure stumbled back, the hat blowing off, but the ghoul kept his footing. He resumed his advance, limping on one side, his right foot dragging across the ground, the ankle bent horribly, his shadowed face all but unreadable. Shots chimed into the door, one shattering the window. Meroka was oblivious, calmly swinging open the revolver’s cylinder to reload it. Halfway through the task she paused, dug into her coat and passed a much smaller, more ladylike revolver to Quillon.

  ‘Is it loaded?’

  ‘Pull the trigger once, then you’re good. You know where to find the trigger?’