Point Apocalypse (9 page)

But how
the hell did I know it? Had I been in New Pang before?

Had I been on Pangea?

The thought knocked me senseless. Impossible. I couldn't have known the place from before.

Now
I knew it. I had to get to town. Straight to the hotel, immediately.

I glanced at Georgie
, stood up and got back into the cab. I slumped in my seat clutching at the steering wheel. My hands shook. My decision to go to the hotel kept growing, as if the sight of the nightlit city had triggered a preinstalled code, very much like that Information software.

Preinstalled by whom? Who had downloaded the Information program
and my memory of this place?

"Where d'you think we can stay?" I asked Georgie, by then back in his seat. "Any hotels in New Pang?

Grunt heard my question and popped his head through the door.

"There're a couple
but we can't afford them. Rita's, for one..."

"
Who's Rita?"

"The owner of the Seashell."

The red letters on the shop sign flashed before my eyes. That was it. I had to get inside this Seashell place. So apparently, my visions made sense. I didn't take my eyes off the cluster of far-away windows glowing on top of the cliff. At a distance, the houses looked clean and tidy. Wish that they were... I knew the place. The Filthy Slums, the hotbed of a recent plague epidemic that had ravaged New Pang taking out two-thirds of its population.

Now it was my own memory, not Information. The city had no sewage system, and the locals
poured their waste into ditches that traced the slopes opening into the ocean. On a calm day the stench in the bay made one reach for a gas mask.

"What do you use for money?
Can you show me?"

Grunt
exchanged glances with Georgie who searched his pockets and placed a coin under the windshield, dull and yellow with a large 5 on it.

"
Five rubles," he explained. "Riggers mint'em, fucking gangsters. They own whatever gold there is. Never mind. This should be enough for a night," he shook his head. "Then you should run before McLean finds you."

The ea
se with which he'd parted with the coin could be explained by the fact that he'd expropriated it from the raiders. Surely he'd found more in their pockets.

"Mark, what's he saying?"
Wladas climbed over the side of the truck jumping off.

"Our friends
from the barge will go their way. We'll go ours," I hung out of the cab. "Wladas, Wong, it's up to you. You can go with them if you wish."

The Chinese glanced at me and
went on studying the shore through his field glasses.

Grunt
and Jim slung the guns across their backs and prepared to jump down.

"Well, Mark," the captain leaned across the
side of the truck and stuck out his hand. "Nice meeting you, man," I shook his hand and he jumped down.

"We'll go by the river,"
Grunt adjusted the holster on his belt. "We've got no business in the city tonight, that's for sure."

"
Wladas?" I said. "What have you decided?"

He looked aside. I nodded to the sailors and shut the cab door.

"If you really need to go to that hotel," Georgie spoke, "take a right from the fork under the hill and keep driving. Make sure you keep your back to the beacon. When you enter Broadway - that's the biggest street in town - go three blocks and look out for a two-story house to your left. You'll see the shop sign."

He opened the cab door.

"Well, nice meeting you." He wanted to add something but reconsidered and slunk off.

I sat up glancing into the side mirror as
Wladas climbed back into the truck. I started up, shifted into third, gunned the engine and rolled downhill toward a nightlit New Pang.

Chapter Five

The Trigger Code

T
he truck rattled down a dark lane and rolled out onto an intersection with its back to the bay and the beacon. The streets were dug up in places. Lengths of water pipes heaped up along trenches snaking past sandstone walls and squat houses.

It looked as if
the town had embarked on some large-scale renovations - most likely, building a water pipeline. I was forced to take a detour to bypass more dugouts and finally reached the main street after ten more minutes of driving around, guided by the beacon.

I glanced into the back window.
Wong and Wladas sat on the bench on the truck's right-hand side keeping an eye on the road.

The truck droned
past the houses. The Broadway lamplights emitted the same white glow as the beacon. Could be some gas or special liquid but it could also be the mixture of some weird local tree saps or something discovered by local tinkerers. I vaguely remembered something about the rainforest stretching between New Pang's eastern borders and the desert: I thought I'd heard of one or two local plants suitable for that purpose. But my memory refused to help, and Information wouldn't oblige, eighet.

As
Georgie had said, Broadway was indeed broad and paved with stone, sloping gently upward away from the sea, and wide enough for three trucks like ours to pass each other leaving enough space for pedestrians. No trenches there.

I steered to
ward a two-story house at the end of the block, with brightly lit windows and a red sign over the front door. I drove past it and stopped in front of the next house, then reconsidered and backed up, parking the truck in a tiny side street by the wall of the
Sea Pearl
. I killed the engine and heard a bunch of drunken voices bellowing the old Russian anthem - something about the unbreakable union of freeborn republics. I got out and with a quick "Come on, then" headed for the front door.

I couldn't
have cared less about the drinkers. All I wanted was to get inside. One hand already on the door handle, I looked up at the bright letters of the hotel sign. My eyes stung; I blinked. Something went off in my head again - it felt as if the memory chip, removed before the trial, woke up and started testing neuro chains. I almost expected to see a 3D model of my nervous system. Then the illusion faded. The hollering inside grew louder coming from the bar in the right wing of the first floor. I pushed the door and walked along a hallway leading to a brightly lit room. No vacant tables; faces blurred behind blue clouds of tobacco smoke. I walked past. The other two followed me in silence.

At
the end of the hallway I discovered two doors and a staircase. One door, scratched and padlocked, seemed to open into a utility room. I walked past it and reached for the next door - fancy and carved with a chest-high sea shell design. Wong took the steps to the next floor, bent over the rails and nodded. Wladas in the hallway shifted his feet, nervous. He had no weapon: the Chinese upstairs had both guns, one across his back and the other training everywhere. I had the spare handgun. I pushed the door and walked in.

I had no idea why I
did so. It must have been a knee-jerk reaction. There was a lamplit desk by the back wall; to its right, rows of shelves housed large clay pitchers, their mouths tied with pieces of clean muslin and sealed with seal-wax. Had to be the establishment's stock of liquor. On top of the shelves stood figurines made of stone, wood and even glass.

A ladder leaned against the shelves. On it stood a tall woman in a floor-length dress
: her black hair in a bun, her face in the shadows.

"What do you want?" she said in a low voice hoarse with agitation. "I've paid up already.
McLean promised me that-"

She reached for
a fat figurine which looked much like a piggy bank and turned to the light. "I thought we'd discussed everything. He did promise that-" She froze, breathless. Her large dark eyes glinted with fear on a broad face.

I closed the door behind me, walked to the
desk and looked around. To my left was a bare wall. A derelict strong box stood behind the door opposite a wooden cabinet. Next to it, window curtains were open a crack.

I walked around the
desk to the window and looked out. The Studebaker stood at arm's reach. She must have seen it and mistaken us for McLean's raiders. So now she went up the ladder to get her piggy bank...

The woman stood on the ladder, figurine in hand, staring at me without blinking.

"I need a room for three," I said in a low voice. "For one night."

I took out the fiver and dropped it onto the
desk. The woman's face relaxed. She looked away, blinking, and very nearly fell down the ladder. I caught her, one arm under hers and the other round her waist, and helped her to her feet.

She recoiled, then pulled herself up. Clenching the figurine she squeezed herself between me and the
desk, rearranging the front of her dress. She sat up onto a stool and raised an already businesslike face.

She had to be just over forty. Puffy eyelids, crowfeet, her eyes tired and disillusioned. It was as if she wanted to get rid of me but couldn't, so she
put on a stern face waiting for me to speak.

"So what about that
room?" I said.

She studied me, her hands on the
desk.

"
And?" I was losing patience. I was hungry and sleepy, in reverse order. "I can take my custom elsewhere!"

A thought struck me. This woman didn't
have to be the owner. She was no Rita.

"A ruble per head," she finally said.
"Dinner in the room?"

I
nodded. She opened a drawer and brushed the coin into it in a practiced motion.

"Dinner is two rubles," she handed me a room key with a white ball on the key ring.

The white ball - which had to symbolize a pearl - bore a large number 3 and felt like a piece of plastic.

"Go up to the top floor. Ask-" she shook her head and glanced in the window. "No. I'll take
you there."

She took the key
and rose from the desk. I stepped aside letting her pass. Once she turned her back to me, I said,

"
Rita."

"Yes?" she turned cocking a brow.

"Let's go, then," I stepped aside and opened the door for her.

She paused, then walked out into the hallway.
She glanced at the Chinese bristling with guns, acknowledged Wladas' tired smile with a nod and walked upstairs.

On the top floor, a narrow hallway
led to both sides from the stairs. The weak odor of beeswax and herbs hung in the air. Some sort of fluffy mat covered the floor dampening our footsteps. The woman turned right and walked past the row of doors to a dimly-lit counter at the back.

"Claudie
," she called out as she walked. "You can't be sleeping, surely? How many times do I need to tell you..."

A cute sleepy face showed
from behind the counter. A girl jumped up, her expression clouding with fear, and started mumbling apologies.

"How on e
arth can you sleep with all that racket downstairs?"

I could see the owner
wasn't angry, just keeping up appearances in front of a client. The anthem-bawling voices ceased. I could catch a few words.

"We've got new guests.
Is the water tank full in room three?"

"Yes, Madame," C
laudie tucked in a few loose hairs away from her face, rearranged her homespun frock and looked up at the owner. "Uncle Vanya filled it today as soon as the room was vacated. It's cleaned and the sheets have been changed," the girl said in her melodious high-pitched voice it as she glanced at us with a smile.

"Oh well,"
the owner turned and handed me the key. "Make yourself at home."

Her hand on the key lingered.
"Get them their dinner now."

"Yes, Madame," the girl jumped up and hurried to the stairs.

Rita gave us another studious look and walked away without saying a word. I waited for her steps to die away, then unlocked the door.

The room had
three beds lined up against one wall, each with a bedside cabinet. Above one of the beds, the filmy pane of a tiny window let in the weak glow of a streetlight. To the right of the door, one corner was partitioned off with a plastic curtain. I pulled it aside: it was a shower, or rather a rusty water tank under the ceiling, with a bent shower head and a faucet. Plus a few slivers of soap on a shelf, three white towels on a rack and a drainage grate on the floor.

"And
what do they do when they need to take a-" Wladas started and stopped when I turned round. "No more questions," he waved me off. "Outdoor plumbing, I suppose. I'll hold it."

"
You sure you can?"

He shrugged and mumbled it could wait till morning
, then stretched out on the bed under the window.