Broken Mirror (42 page)

They passed warehouses and pinched their noses as a blood-and-shit reek invaded the car.

“Slaughterhouses,” Elena explained.

Downtown, a few buildings reached as high as two stories, but most were as low rise as elsewhere. They parked in a half-empty lot, got out, and wandered past a few worn-down shops selling secondhand goods and cheap trinkets. Amarillo’s central plaza lay ahead: a dusty, sunbaked slick of asphalt surrounded by a few restaurants, a post office, and a general store.

Elena pointed to the far side of the plaza, where catering tents shaded tables of produce from the harsh sun.

“The Puros will be there,” she said. “But I need to talk to them alone. We didn’t part on great terms.”

She pointed Victor to a nearby café and insisted that he go there and wait, saying that Puros didn’t like strangers, which seemed like flimsy reasoning to him. If he was going to ask for help investigating the kennel, he should get to know them and vice versa. More likely, Elena had some other rationale. She always seemed to have hidden motives, and
—
if Victor was being honest with himself
—
part of him must like that about her. Otherwise he wouldn’t have welcomed her back into his life as easily as he did. It was a difficult irony that the things he liked in her
—
her unpredictability, her impulsiveness
—
were the things he couldn’t afford to be himself.

As he walked across the plaza, Victor examined the town more closely and realized it wasn’t as bleak as he’d first assumed. The architecture was surprisingly contemporary. A fountain tucked into one corner of the square provided limited relief from the steadily building heat. He’d assumed the town would be stuck in the Repartition era since, as a rule, only big cities thrived after the devolution of U.S. federal powers to the nations of the American Union. Although Amarillo didn’t appear to be wealthy, neither was it falling down.

Tall-fluted elm trees lined a broad promenade stretching from the plaza to the main train station. He recognized the species. They had been genetically engineered to resist a fungi that had caused massive tree die-offs in the early twentieth century, a real-world application of science and a public demonstration of the benefits of biotechnology.

However, beneath the patina of civilization, something menacing lurked in Amarillo. People avoided eye contact, which he did all the time in SeCa, but here he felt it was the norm. They watched him when he wasn’t looking, but when he turned his gaze to meet theirs, they looked away. Fine. He was as eager to slip past them and go about his business as they were.

Café Magyar, the place Elena suggested, had an outdoor area that wrapped around a mirror-faced building. A broad red-white-and-green-striped awning shaded the chairs and tables. Couples and a few loners lazed at various stages of eating, drinking, and taking in the best scenery Amarillo had to offer: the almost featureless plaza.

A fleet of young, fresh-faced staff in gaudy Hungarian-peasant-inspired suits and dresses navigated between tables. One of the young ladies came up to Victor and asked where he would like to sit. Her direct stare and flashing smile reminded him of a sweet bubbling drink, clear and sparkling in the sun. He could almost hear the server fizzing in front of him. Maybe the Pump he’d ingested was still in his system. He should probably double his dose of fumewort to get control over the sensations, but then he would run through his supplies too quickly, and besides, for the moment, it was a pleasant feeling.

The hostess tilted her head, waiting for a response.

Victor smiled, nodded to a seat, and then followed her, sat, and ordered a faux-café. There was no chance of finding real coffee in a town as small as Amarillo.

Victor rubbed the data egg in his pocket and wished it would open. He resisted the urge to bring it to his lips and speak whatever magic words might trigger it
—
although his voice print was more likely than semen to unlock it, he was certain of that at least.

Eventually Tosh would catch up to Victor, and he wouldn’t be pleased by how he had been ditched. Victor would play it cool and call fleeing with Elena a spur-of-the-moment, tactically necessary decision. Of course he knew that Tosh would find him, he would say
—
he was counting on it. And Victor could use his help with breaking into the kennel.

The hostess returned with a steaming cup. He sipped the bitter drink and realized with a puzzled smile that he was actually in a pretty good mood. Maybe it was because he was on his own in a new place. Despite the setbacks he’d faced, and the feeling that worse things lurked just over the horizon, all the same, he was enjoying the drink, the solitude, and the novelty of his surroundings. For the moment, he was free, and it felt as good as a sun-break after rain.

Children played a catch-and-carry game in the plaza while their mas watched. The children’s calls and hoots were aggressive, aggrieved. At any moment, the game seemed like it might dissolve into a fist fight.

Victor took out his Handy 1000, which told him, via squiggles, sigils, and letters, that Amarillo was blessed with fifteen Mesh towers, one of which he could see poking its silver-pronged crown above the multistory buildings by the train station. The computing capacity of the local node was negligible, especially compared to the bounty in Las Vegas. There couldn’t be more than a couple hundred devices in total.

He wished Ozie had explained more of the features of his Handy 1000 before they left Springboard Café, but he’d been too busy manipulating Victor. The way Lucky and Bandit kept showing up meant they had some way of tracking him. The Handy 1000 might be able to disrupt it.

Playing with the analytics, Victor found a scatterplot showing the relative contribution of each device in the node. Aside from the towers themselves, the Handy 1000 topped the list. Ozie had clearly assembled powerful hardware. Victor was grateful for whatever tricks were masking his presence from the Mesh operators. If they saw the Handy 1000, they would surely want to get their hands on it.

A skull and crossbones icon near the bottom of the vidscreen caught his eye: alert settings. Victor reviewed the options and set an alert for any connection to a device that had “countermeasures”
—
whatever those were, they sounded problematic.

Elena emerged from the canopy of white tents on the other side of the plaza and half-jogged toward Victor. She was breathless when she sank into the seat across from him.

“They’re not here. None of the big dogs. Just the farmers. Purely secular.”

“When you say that—”

“I know it’s not the right word.” Elena rolled her eyes. “I mean the nonfighters, the ones who till the dirt. They’re the moral center of the Puro movement. The guys I know, they were the enforcers, the protectors.”

“The people who know how to handle a stunstick.”

“Exactly. Stunsticks and more. They’re not here.”

“So what next?”

“Word will get out that I’m looking for them. We should make contact in an hour. Maybe two. We stay put.”

“We can wait with drinks, I guess.”

“You done with that coffee? Want a beer?” she asked.

“Yeah, a dark one.”

Elena walked to the bar.

Victor turned again to his Handy 1000. There was another alert option: “Proximity.” He activated it at the default ten-meter option. The alarm immediately sounded. Someone in Amarillo had been tagged. He tapped on the blinking icon. The details were unrevealing:

MeshID: 8428-94988-223585

Model: BioLoc.32 v2x03

Power: 32w

Distance: 8m

Victor reset the distance threshold for five meters, which would include only the people sitting in the outside patio.

“Doneghy’s is all they had,” Elena said, gently lowering a dark pint onto the table. She sat and took a sip from her own lighter brew, which had a full head of white-golden foam.

Victor took a sip. The alarm sounded again. He looked down. The distance now read
<1m
.

He looked up.

“What’s wrong?” Elena asked.

A sinking feeling dragged on his bowels. “A BioLoc alarm went off. It means there’s a flesh-compatible MeshID nearby.” He took three full gulps of his beer before saying in a carefully level voice, “I think you have a chip in you.”

Elena reared up as if he’d struck her. “No way. Why . . .”

He swiveled the Handy 1000’s screen so that she could see. “That’s you. No other explanation. It showed when you walked back just now.”

Elena’s eyes pleaded for him to say he was joking.

“You know what this means, right?” Victor said. “They’re tracking you. That’s how they found us in Vegas.”

She pushed against the table and beer sloshed over. “I bet that fucking clinic chipped me! I went there to recover, not lose every shred of my privacy. Is chipping people without their consent legal in the Louisiana Territories? Does your ma knows about this?”

Victor smacked his hand onto the table top. “Forget that. We need to be practical. Maybe Ozie can figure out a way to deactivate your chip. Until then, we have to keep moving.” Victor stood up. “I think I need to go to the kennel alone. Maybe I can talk my way inside.”

Elena stood up too. “You’re not thinking straight. Those Corps probably have the same orders as the ones who stopped us at the border. They’re an
organization
. We need the Puros to
—
”

Revving engines interrupted her. Screams rose from the catering tents and market stalls, and people began to stream across the plaza.

“We should go,” Victor warned.

Elena jumped up and started trotting past the café’s tables and chairs, toward the commotion. “Let’s see what it is,” she said.

“Elena, wait!”

A crowd of young men wearing dark clothing and orange masks burst from the market and fled toward an alley. Three old roadsters pursued them. One sped around and cut off their escape, effectively corralling them.

“Laws!” Victor breathed. “What is this?”

People ran from the plaza, scooping up their children and hurrying to the alleyways. One man brushed past Victor, nearly knocking him over.

“Not good,” Elena said. “When Corps meet Puros, people die.” She took a few steps toward them.

Victor grabbed her arm. “Where are you going?”

Elena dragged Victor forward, stopping fifty meters away from the dickies. “We came here to find the Puros. There they are.”

The Puros were on the defensive, penned in by the Corps’ cars and menaced by additional members arriving on foot. The two groups circled, trying to slice each other with knives
—
machetes, stilettos, katanas, some so big they could have been cavalry swords.
There must be a thriving blade trade in Amarillo to supply the dickies with all these weapons
, Victor thought.

Victor tried to pull Elena away. The Corps might be too busy attacking to notice bystanders, but he didn’t want to be there when their attention shifted. Except Elena wouldn’t budge. She brought out her stunstick. The tip glowed red.

One Puro wearing a bright orange shirt backed away from the group. A purple-mohawked Corp who seemed to be the leader followed, flashing a foot-long knife. He hacked it down and up, lunging and cutting, grinning and laughing.

Victor had seen people like that in Oak Knoll, doped out of their minds, hallucinating voices and visitations from gods. Were all the Corps high?

The orange-shirted Puro, separated from his companions, glanced over his shoulder at the circling cars. The Corp must have sensed victory; he lunged forward. The Puro sidestepped, whirled, and jump-kicked the Corp in the back.

The Corp stumbled into the path of a black roadster. His hands flew up, knife abandoned, as he tried to lurch past the vehicle, but it was too late. The roadster was on him. His legs bent backward; then he disappeared under the car.

The Corp driver swerved, tires screeched, and the vehicle rolled, flinging two passengers to the ground. The other two roadsters slowed to a halt.

Victor felt tingling on his skin as he heard sirens. Two police vans barreled into the square. Officers jumped out and raised riot shields. Beyond the line of police, Victor spotted Lucky and Bandit scanning the plaza with viewfinders.

Victor hissed in Elena’s ear, “They’re here. Let’s go before they spot us!”

An officer stepped forward with an air cannon strapped to his belly.

“Get down!” Victor yelled, pulling Elena to the ground.

A thunderclap erupted from the air cannon. A wave of shimmering light pushed forward, followed by a wall of dust. The confused dickies were blown to the ground.

The dust cloud blew across the plaza and swept over Victor and Elena like a hurricane. Windows from nearby buildings shattered, raining shrapnel.

Victor clutched Elena’s hand. It was no use talking. His ears were ringing. They wouldn’t be able to hear for minutes. Through the clearing dust, Victor saw gas canisters launch from the vans and begin spewing white fog across the plaza. Sleeping gas. Toxic at high concentrations. Nothing he wanted to inhale. But at least it masked him and Elena from Lucky and Bandit.

Victor pulled Elena to her feet and led her away from the plaza to an alley around the back of Café Magyar, scattering broken glass in their wakes. The gas wouldn’t reach them in more than trace concentrations there. He patted Elena in a few places to signal he was concerned she might be hurt.

She did the same and made a fingerburst to say she was okay.

He patted his chest. “Me too,” he mouthed.

Movement flickered in the corner of Victor’s eye. The muscle-shirt Puro took a few lurching steps around the corner of the café. He doubled over and took one more slow, tottering step forward, then fell, rolling onto the ground on his side. The front of his shirt glistened with blood.

Elena approached him, leaving Victor yelling at her back. The Puro opened his eyes, locked them on Elena’s, and silently pleaded, “Help me.”

Victor crossed the alley’s stained and trash-strewn concrete with leaden feet. Orange-dyed scars decorated the young man’s arms and legs. Danger stabbed Victor’s nerves. He and Elena should leave before the Corps found them, before Lucky and Bandit found them, before the police found them. Maybe he could get inside the kennel
now
,
while the Corps were distracted.