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  He moved around, and approached firefighters working a gutting blaze with pressure jets, but the sheer heatwash turned him away. He found quieter space for a moment, a storehouse section that had been knocked down but not burned by the blast. He wiped the dirt, sweat and spray off his face with the tail of his shirt, and polished his glares.

  "You shouldn't be here," she said, coming up behind him.

  Green hiker girl was carrying a first aid box, and wearing a luminous SO armband and a sly smile.

  "Neither should you," he replied.

  "I don't care about me," she said.

  "Neither do I," said Falk, "so go away and I'll pretend I didn't see you."

  She kept showing him the odd little smile, and he found that curious.

  "You saw it newsflagged?" she asked.

  "I heard the blast."

  "Me too," she said. She looked at the vest he was wearing.

  "That's deep cover, huh?"

  "Obviously nothing like as well researched as an armband and a medi-pack," he replied.

  She showed him the digital brooch she was also wearing, pinned to her collar.

  "Slightly more authentic," she said.

  "And a really bad idea," he told her. He began to walk away. She followed him.

  "Why?" she asked.

  He considered explaining, then decided he didn't care enough and had better things to do, like losing her. It was a little disconcerting she was suddenly being so coy with him when she hadn't wanted a bar of him during the trip out to Mitre Sands.

  Then he got it, and felt stupid it had taken him so long.

  "You looked me up," he said.

  "I'm sorry, what?"

  "You looked me up, didn't you? After the tour. Now you know who I am."

  She grinned.

  "So what?"

  "So nothing," he said.

  "Yes, I didn't know who you were. I didn't know you'd won all those sparkly press awards. So what?"

  "So suddenly I'm interesting, am I?"

  "Oh, get over yourself. It just amuses me that the great Lex Falk has turned up here tonight. Makes me think I must be right to think this is very off. This whole thing. Plus, the great Lex Falk faked his way inside the perimeter the same way I did."

  "No, I didn't," he replied.

  "You so did. You lifted a few props from the paramedic transports."

  He didn't answer her. He'd seen something.

  "You know who I am," she said, following him again.

  "I don't think so. I can't remember."

  "Yes you can."

  "You're some newbie from Affiliated Dispersal."

  "You deliberately checked my name out. I heard you do it."

  "Yeah, maybe I did. I was bored. I don't remember it now."

  "Noma Berlin. I'm with Data-Scatter. Do you always do this? Play hard to shake off, and then hard to get? It's undertractive."

  He turned and looked straight at her.

  "I didn't come here to have a conversation with you," he said.

  Her grin came out again.

  "What's so interesting over there?" she asked. She nodded in the direction he had been heading.

  Falk hesitated, then said, "Look at those guys. No, not the ones with the drills. Those two on the far side of that collapsed roof. See what they're holding?"

  Through the haze, they could plainly see the two men playing small drumstick wands over the smoking rubble.

  "Sniffers," she said.

  "Yup."

  "That'd be pretty standard, wouldn't it? Scanning everything."

  "If this is a bolide strike, why are they sweeping for traces of explosives?"

  "They could be sweeping for anything. All sorts of things could've been spilled or released or burned off. Toxins. Public health, you know. That's all."

  "Or they could be sweeping for traces of explosives. Munitions of some kind. There's more to this than has been newsflagged. There are casualties, for starters."

  "I saw," she said, losing the smile for a second. "Five, I think. I heard they were derelicts."

  "Who told you that?"

  "One of the firefighters. He said they were bringing out bodies of derelicts who had been living in the warehouses."

  "I don't think so," Falk said.

  "Why not?"

  "I got a look at one."

  "They were all badly burned."

  "Yeah, but the one I saw, I could tell he was cleanshaven. He'd had a haircut."

  "Derelicts get haircuts."

  "What are you," he asked, "Little Miss The Glass Is Half Crazy?"

  "I'm just saying it's hardly proof of anything."

  "That's why I'd like you to shut up and go away so I can keep doing my job."

  She was about to reply when someone shouted at them.

  They turned. An SOMD trooper was jogging towards them. He was in body-plate, and carrying a weapon.

  "You two," he called. "I want to see some credentials. Now."

  "Lose the brooch," Falk hissed.

  "What?"

  "Lose the fucking brooch, you silly bitch. Fast!"

  The SOMD guy came right up to them. He was in full rig, harness and plate. The gun strapped across his front was a PAP 20, common, standard issue, a bullpup-format carbine.
Personal [weapon] All Purpose
. As he came close, the PAP seemed to become alarmingly, extravagantly big.

  "You know you're not supposed to be in this area," the trooper said. He sounded weary, with a little edge of stress. It was immediately clear to Falk that there was going to be no mileage in trying to front it. The trooper wasn't in the mood to play a game. He hadn't even bothered to question the vest or the armband.

  "Sorry," said Falk.

  "You're just making our work more difficult," the trooper said. "Where's your freeking
^®
self-respect? There's freeking
^®
people scorched over there. You're getting in the freeking
^®
way."

  "Sorry," Falk repeated.

  "Press?" asked the trooper.

  "Yeah," said Falk.

  "Well, better than you being freeking
^®
rubbernecks, I suppose. Creds."

  Falk fished his out of his pocket quickly, with an exaggerated show to demonstrate he wasn't reaching for anything else.

  "I've got an SO validation," he said quickly, before green hiker girl could say anything or produce any papers of her own. "She's my researcher."

  He willed green hiker girl not to say anything, not to contradict him.

  The trooper looked at Falk's ID.

  "Your researcher?"

  "Yes."

  "Uh-huh."

  "I brought her in with me. This is on me. She seriously didn't want to cross the picket line."

  The trooper looked at her.

  "I didn't," she said, a little slowly, trying to follow what Falk was attempting. "I told him I didn't."

  "I should've listened to her," said Falk.

  The trooper's Mil-issue glares had scanned Falk's ID at the same time the trooper had. Falk saw a little ice-blue backlight behind the lenses as a secure processed response came back from SOMD Operations.

  "Okay, that checks," said the trooper. "You're going to have to leave the area. I'll escort you. There may not be a follow-up, but I have to advise you that you may get a fine, or even some suspension of your validation privileges."

  "Okay," said Falk.

  "That's just how it works."

  "I know," said Falk. "I was chancing my arm. I'm sorry."

  "Let's get you to the line," said the trooper. They started walking. "Do me a favour and go home. I don't want to hear about you trying to get back in here."

  "Sure, no problem," said Falk. "You stay wealthy. Thanks for being okay about it. It was a dumb stunt. But I had to try, right? How many meteor hit stories do you get?"

  The trooper waved them across the barrier line.

  "Almost none," he conceded.

They left the high-vis vest, the armband and the medical kit on the open tailgate of a paramedic roller. Several entrepreneurial types from the North End had turned up with food carts and mobile kiosks, supplying refreshment to the early morning crowd of sightseers and the crews on restbreaks. Falk bought two teas from an electric barrow with a chrome urn.

  "Why'd you do that?" asked green hiker girl.

  "It was the best way out," Falk replied.

  She took the cup he offered her.

  "You didn't want him looking at my ID," she said.

  "I've got SO validation," said Falk. "And I'm Lex Falk. My accreditation can soak it up. If I get a fine, I can wash it through expenses. They'll probably waive a penalty if I keep my nose clean. You're only affiliated, so you're not half as flameproof."

  "So you took the fall for the two of us because you're such a great fucking person?"

  "I took the fall for the two of us because I was taking the fall anyway, and taking it for two wasn't going to hurt any worse."

  He took a long sip of tea.

  "And I took the fall for the two of us because of that fuck-ass brooch. Where is it?"

  She took it out of her pocket. He took it, and looked at it.

  "It's not a fake," he said.

  "No," she replied. "It was in the door pocket of the transport I lifted the first aid kit from."

  Falk stared at her.

  "Do you not get it?" he asked. "You get caught bluffing in a secured zone, you get kicked out, fined, full marks for trying. Slap on the wrist, naughty correspondent person. You get caught in a secured zone with a fake or stolen SOMD ident, that's impersonating the Office, and that comes under martial regs. That's a whole avalanche of crap right there. They'd yank your accreditation for starters, forever. In fact, they'd probably boot you upstairs to catch the next driver home."

  "I guess," she said.

  "No, no, it's not guesswork," he snapped. "It's fucking what happens. You have to know these things. You have to know them, so you don't do something so fucking stupid it ends your career."

  He bent his arm and threw the brooch over a fence into a marshalling yard.

  "Wow," she said. "It's almost like you care what happens to me. Or you want to jump me."

  "Neither," said Falk. "I was standing right beside you. If he'd found the brooch, the fan sprays that shit a long way."

SEVEN

Cleesh had been calling him. When he finally got hold of her, she sounded upset for some reason.

  "I need you to come and meet some people," she said.

  "Who?"

  "Just come and meet them."

  "Where?" Falk asked.

  She told him.

  "Can you make it this afternoon? Four-ish?"

  "Okay," he said. He didn't want to, and he was growing increasingly less interested in whatever it was Cleesh was into.

  But it was Cleesh, and she sounded upset, and he had some fucked-up notion he owed her.

  He had stuff to do. His hip still hurt. It hurt a lot. He tried to make himself comfortable in his apartment by adding cushions to the chair at the desk, but it was easier to stand up. He decided he could head to the SO Library in Furth, and work there. They had leather-effect banquettes. He could sprawl.

  His celf lit.

  "It's me," she said.

  "Who?"

  "Noma."

  He let it hang for a moment, just so she'd know how little room she took up in his headspace.

  "Oh. Right. What's up?"

  "I've got something."

  "Now that's being generous," he replied. "If you work hard for another five years, and exploit your sources ruthlessly, then maybe–"

  "Hah hah hah, so funny. I've got something. I think you'll want to see it."

  "Why?"

  "Because it's cool, Falk."

  "No," he said. "Why are you calling me? If you've got something and it's actually, properly good, then why are you calling me? Why aren't you just running with it?"

  "Do you want the convincing answer?" she asked.

  "Okay."

  "Because you got me out of harm's way this morning in Letts, and I'm trying to say thank you. One-time gesture, no repeats, take it or leave it."

  "Okay, that is quite convincing. What's the real reason?"

  "Because this thing I've got," she said, "I don't know what the fuck I should do with it."

She lived in a cubicle hotel in South Site, the oldest part of Shaverton. Another twenty years, the area would catch a dose of Early Settlement chic, and incomers would pour money into the narrow streets, the depots and store sheds, the weatherboard and cinderblock businesses. People would buy into that pioneer/prospector vibe, and heritage plaques would appear on the facades of the counting house and the weights-and-measures office.

  Until then, South Site would remain a hole reserved for low-rest accommodation, migrant temporaries, murky enterprises and ballast markets. There was a smell of rancid soap in the air from the big drain outfalls, and a river-stink of decaying tar and stagnant water. There were cooking smells too, smoking hot and over-spiced, from the immigrant food stalls in the market walks and row streets. Vendors shouted their bills of fare, but the cooking smells shouted louder. Disguise recipes. Heavy peppers and flavour enhancers, copious spices, rubs, marinades. Cooking designed to mask the substitutions made for chicken, pork and beef. Not even chicken, pork or beef, in truth. These stands were working without chicken, pork or beef
effect.

  The buildings in South Site were caked in rust, or wet with lime seep. Some displayed the vague apparitions of their old, first-generation, hand-done sign boards. Paint withered and flaked, losing its colours before it lost itself into the inshore wind entirely. Blurds tapped around Chinese lanterns and bare bulbs. The streets were so tight and busy, Falk buttoned up his coat and dug his hands into his pockets.

  He'd taken a cab from his place. The city had looked drab and lightless. Smoke cover from the Letts incident had formed a huge anvilhead of darkness in the north-west, and stolen all the colour. There was a gritty haze in the air. Even the majestic glass masts looked like they'd been sandblasted to a matt finish in the afternoon gloom.