Xenoform (12 page)

I do believe I have been shot. Strange. It hardly hurts at all.

He knew where he must go – the only place he could go. He needed someone who knew people who could help. He had to leave the city. He had money, lots of money. There was one man who could help him. But time was not on Debian’s side, he knew. He disconnected from the net with mingled relief and regret: How contradictorily empowering and dangerous that world had become. Achingly, he limped on up the street. His would-be assassins, busy saving their own lives, were several blocks away already.

Tec banged the console, setting a host of tiny capacitors and reeferette roaches jumping on the tabletop. ‘Damn it!’ he yelled. His hands began to caress his illuminated head, which was pulsing an angry red. ‘All I get from the Smithson’s computer is the same old stuff: His address, his employment record, his pension plan details. Nothing we can follow up. If I knew who his doctor was, maybe we could find something there. I could find out, maybe, but…’ He trailed off.

Whistler put a hand on his shoulder. ‘We’ll think of something,’ she said.

Spider Junior was creeping up one of the table legs to get a better view of what the humans were doing. ‘Fuck off, Junior,’ said Tec, brushing the robot onto the cluttered floor. He turned to Whistler, who stood behind him with Roberts and Sofi, watching Tec’s progress on the monitors as he wheedled his way into the Smithson’s computers. ‘I don’t think there’s anything else here,’ he said in tones of defeat.

‘Maybe we could go to his address. There might be something there – some sort of trail, some – I don’t know,’ said Sofi hopelessly.

‘Yeah, I don’t think we can go round to his house, Sofi, really. He lived with his wife, remember? What the hell do we say to her? We abducted the bloke and fed him into HGR for dissection. Even with our legal immunity contract there are likely to be problems. Keep up.’ Sofi scowled but said nothing. She knew Whistler was right.

‘Maybe we should go to Smithson’s, ask around – think of some blag for being there,’ suggested Roberts.

‘Like what?’ asked Tec. ‘They won’t even let us in.’
‘Yeah,’ admitted Roberts. ‘And they might call the police. Smith wouldn’t be pleased. Maybe we could claim to
be
police. Not City Police, one of the little private corps. Bare face it.’ He looked around at the expressions of the others. ‘Maybe not,’ he concluded.

Spider Junior was climbing back up the table leg and had become partially tangled in a speaker cable, which was hanging from its oily body like a cobweb.

‘What the hell’s got into him?’ asked Whistler. ‘Junior seems dumber and clumsier than usual today.’

‘Not sure,’ said Tec dismissively, staring into the three screens above his desk, fingers playing across keyboards like a concert pianist. ‘He’s been a bit funny since he auto-updated today. I’m gonna set up an avatar to trawl through all the patient lists of all the doctors in the city.’ Everyone nodded mutely. None of them could think of anything better. ‘But strap yourselves in – it’s gonna be a long ride. Even if I find his doctor I can pretty much assure you that there won’t be any record on the files related to those illegal wings.’

‘So we are basically assuming that he got the green thing wherever he got the wings, then?’ asserted Sofi. ‘That might not even be correct, right? And even if he did get them at the same time and place, there won’t be anything on his medical record to suggest where that may be? And Tec might not even find, or get into, his record in the first place? That sucks! Can’t we do better than that? And where the hell is Spider?’

‘He’s doing some maintenance on that stupid mag-rifle of his, says it can’t be left. I think it’s had a software problem or something,’ replied Roberts, staring into Tec’s screens, trying to make sense of the streaming ribbons of data there. ‘We could go back to where we picked him up. Or get Tallen’s details from HGR, see if we can find a hook on him. But I’m guessing that we’ll have the same problems with Tallen.’

‘We should follow up on him, anyway, of course,’ answered Whistler. ‘I’ll ask Smith for what they have on him. But they won’t know much. Leo had a wallet full of ID. Tallen had nothing on him but a stubby of Get-Up.’ Whistler was pacing as far as the cramped lab would allow, her sharp claws drumming against her thighs. Her usually doll-like features were lined in thought and paler grey than usual. She was dog-tired. ‘Let’s do it, then – go back to where we picked Leo up. Maybe we’ll think of something if we actually stand there. We could ask around there – no-one cares in the Undercity – money loosens tongues. Someone might have seen him around. Juke addict, wasn’t he?’

‘Yeah,’ said Roberts distastefully.

‘Well, he most likely went there to score, then. He probably had a regular dealer. People might have seen him there before. Someone might know him.’ She spread her hands as if to say that was all she had. Roberts and Sofi nodded. Tec was still lost in the net, his head glittering white now that he was back at work. ‘Tec?’

‘Yeah, sure, go,’ he answered absently, not shifting his gaze from the screens.

‘Okay, that’s settled then. I’d rather do anything than nothing. Tec, let me know if you find anything before we’re back.’

‘Yeah…’

‘Er, boss?’

‘What, Sofi? What?’

‘It’s eleven at night. Maybe we should get some sleep first. You haven’t slept since before we picked up Tallen.’

‘Sofi, I don’t mind if you want to sleep. I’m going to the Lanes for a walk. No time like the present. I don’t need sleep, I have Get-Up.’

‘For what it’s worth, I guess I’m in,’ said Roberts. He looked to Tec, who was lost in the world of the electronic, seemingly one with his jumble of equipment.

Sofi sighed heavily. ‘Right, let’s go then,’ she said reluctantly.

‘Yay, team!’ enthused Whistler with exaggerated cheerfulness. She slung her slender arms around her companions’ necks, forcing them into a huddle. ‘What a team!’

‘Fuck off!’ objected Sofi, worming free. After ensuring that whatever point it was had been made, Whistler released Roberts, too, and the trio trooped out of the lab and down the corridor to the garage. They wasted no breath wishing Tec farewell – he was entwined in the web now. Spider Junior was tramping round unnoticed in a small circle on the cluttered desk. Torrents of data flooded the computer screens in bewildering patterns. Tec sat bathed in dim, multicoloured light, hunched and intent.

Whistler and her two reluctant helpers headed to the garage. The van was as one with the shadows until Roberts turned on the lights, and then it congealed into menacing solidity. The hole in its front end gaped like a snarling mouth. The team had simply not had time to repair it yet and Whistler was aware that it appeared suspicious. But she didn’t believe anyone would care where they were going.

They piled into the van and its systems came to life in greeting. Roberts sat up front beside Whistler and Sofi took her preferred seat in the back. The stretcher was conspicuously empty, as it would continue to be until this mess was sorted out. The DNI cable hung like a dead arm from Tec’s console. The harvesters were subdued, tired, and their conversation was reserved and tetchy.

Whistler drove the van out into the shared underground car park and headed for the exit. Roberts was idly tracing his facial scar with one finger as he gazed out of the translucent wall. Whistler didn’t ask for directions. She knew the Lanes well, remembered picking up Leo as if it had been only hours ago. She knew the spot where they had first sighted him, the spot where she had wiped the drug onto his arm, the spot where he had fallen in the alley and the route he would have likely taken from his workplace. There was a sullen mood in the van. Roberts tried putting some classical music on – Brahms – but Sofi harangued him until he killed it again. Whistler could feel him breathing deeply beside her, containing his discontentment.

The Undercity was dark and lively around them, like a carcass alive with maggots. Traffic was fairly heavy as they neared the Lanes. Gravpods whooshed up and down the dirty roads and pedestrians went about their mostly illegal activities in a calm and businesslike manner. The cogs of the black market turned within the greater machine of the city whole. A scruffy dog with a single wheel in place of its back legs bounded in front of the van, and Whistler nearly hit it, stopping the van dead and cursing under her breath. Above and to their right, several people in differing gang colours were shooting crossbows and small arms at each other from opposing balconies, ducking in and out of the limited cover while somewhere a woman shouted, ‘You’re waking my baby up! Shoot each other somewhere else!’

‘Let’s leave the van somewhere, then,’ said Whistler. ‘We picked him up just round the corner from here.’

‘Very well,’ replied Roberts, coming out of his daydream. One of the gang fighters fell from the balcony and was swallowed by a mountain of rubbish bags in the street below. Someone fired down at him –
crack! crack!
– and he didn’t emerge again. ‘Not here, though.’

‘No, okay,’ Whistler agreed and drove on, casting about left and right for a safe spot to park up. They found a small courtyard behind an abandoned and boarded-up takeaway and Whistler drove the van to the furthest, shadiest corner. There were halogen lights arrayed along the back wall of the shop here but all were broken, their glass smashed long since. Half hidden by the drooping fronds of a dead tree, the van would be invisible from the road altogether. People had seen it go in, but frankly anyone who wanted to take the vehicle, or even approach it in a manner it didn’t like, had better be fully armed and armoured, and even then would be taking their life in their hands.

The harvesters disembarked and Roberts gave the van free rein to defend itself as it saw fit. The floor of the courtyard crunched with debris underfoot as if nobody had walked its surface in years, even though the area was heavily-populated. They had found a good hidey-hole. Whistler turned around, studying what parts of skyline she could see from here, assuring herself of her bearings. Bass-heavy music was playing in the distance.

‘Right, we picked Leo up just around the corner from here. So do we start there and work back towards Smithson’s?’

‘Certainly, why not,’ said Roberts.

‘Because this whole idea sucks, that’s why not,’ muttered Sofi – but not too loudly, because she was aware that she had no better idea herself.

The three headed back to the street in rag-tag procession, checking weapons as subtly as they could. The shooting on the balconies had stopped now and the locals carried on as if nothing had ever happened. Roberts and Sofi followed Whistler’s directions uncomplainingly even though they both had map-overlays from the net. They knew that Whistler sometimes forgot how the other half lived.

They came to the square where Whistler had drugged Leo, where the band had played. There were relatively few people here now – only a few shady characters loitering in doorways, furtively exchanging unseen produce – and for a moment the scene was unrecognisable. But then they saw the pallets that had formed the makeshift stage still grouped roughly together on the filthy street. Several pieces of the stage had been strewn around or carried off for burning but the litter of an obvious party remained – drinks cans, syringes, food wrappers, splashes of blood and vomit.

Whistler wrinkled her nose prettily. ‘What a mess,’ she said disapprovingly. Sofi knew that although her companion had space within her moral code for unsolicited violence, she deplored certain kinds of antisocial behaviour, littering being one of them. ‘People have to live here,’ she explained to Roberts’s puzzled face.

He didn’t answer, said instead, ‘Let’s ask around, then. Carefully. If people think we’re police then we are in trouble.’

‘No offence, man, you look like a lot of things but police isn’t one of them,’ said Sofi seriously. Roberts gave her a dark look and wandered over to the group of people in the doorway.

Whistler headed into the alley where they had actually abducted Leo. It was dark and lined with doorways in various states of disuse. At one point near where Leo had fallen she had to step over a dead rat the size of a housecat. A voice called her from the shadows to her left and Whistler whirled to face the source of the sound, her hand going into her jacket pocket where the smartgun nested. It awoke keenly at her touch.

There was a tall man, thin and ancient, leaning out of the open top half of a solid metal door. He grinned with a seemingly random collection of teeth, each of which looked as if it had been pried from the head of a different person. His eyes had been modified to be completely black. ‘Hey pretty lady,’ he croaked in a sepulchral voice. ‘You shouldn’t be out here alone, unarmed.’

‘I am neither alone nor unarmed,’ she assured him, coming closer to prove that she was not afraid. She let a corner of the smartgun show out of her pocket briefly and the man’s tarry eyes seemed to twinkle.

He smiled slowly, the lines and folds of his face moving like a landslide. ‘Good,’ he crooned. ‘Good.’ He rested his hands on the sill of the lower door and Whistler saw they were made of fleshless, exposed bone, intricately scrimshawed. ‘That’s a Kalibe-S54 smartgun. Good little toy. Shame you have truncated it.’ He had a faint accent that Whistler couldn’t place.

Whistler smiled, aware that he had only seen a glimpse of the weapon for a moment. ‘Close,’ she admitted, impressed, ‘but it’s actually the T54. So the short barrel doesn’t affect it that much.’ Roberts and Sofi were following her down the alley now, picking their way through a slalom of decaying rubbish heaps. She turned and beckoned to them.