Code Noir (18 page)

Didn’t work?
I took a breath. ‘Where I live, some kids have mekanical parts. We call them Pets. Medics fooled around on them, is that how it happened?’

‘Just one medic, boss.’

I swivelled where I crouched. ‘You!’ I accused the darkness.

Roo picked his way across the cut-thru and balanced on the beam in front of me. He scratched his hair under his hat. In the other hand he carried a pack. ‘Yeah. Me.’

‘What the—’

‘Teece told me to tell you that if you send me back he’s quitting his day job.’

‘That’s blackmail!’ I growled.

‘Yeah.’

Glida crept up to him and put a small, furred hand tentatively on his arm.

‘She’s . . . jus’ like youse said,’ whispered Glida. ‘Nuts.’

I felt annoyed - and pleased beyond words - to see Roo. ‘How did you find—?’

‘Him.’ He un-Velcroed the sack and a mangy canrat poked his head out.

‘Loser!’ I felt like the moon had suddenly risen on a pitch-black night.

‘That what you call him?’ said Roo. ‘I’ve been trailing you since back before the canal.’ His eyes widened. ‘How’s them dinosaurs?’

‘Lizards,’ I snapped. ‘You mean you watched all that happen and didn’t lift a damn finger to help me?’

‘Teece said not to interfere unless you was frigged. I figured you could handle it . . . mostly.’

Roo was scratching again. ‘Beats me how he fixed up that big canrat.’

Loser scrambled out of the pack on to the ceiling floor. I stared hypnotised by the mangy creature scratching its balls with its extra half foot. ‘Charisma.’

‘Car-what?’

I sighed. ‘Never mind.’

‘I lost you for a while after that but he found me near the canal. He was barking so hard I guessed you must have dumped him. Anyways he jumped on the raft I made.’ He held up corroded digits on his left hand. ‘That water bites.’

‘Copper sulphate,’ I said automatically.

‘He sat on my head the whole way across. Then wouldn’t let me touch him. I guess you two got some special . . . y’know . . . bond.’

My mouth opened and closed, suffocating fish-like.

‘I found you again near that bar. She came along while you was drinkin’ and I was waitin’.’ He nodded to Glida. ‘She was stealing food. While I wuz watchin’ her I lost you again. She showed me some safe place to sleep.’

His injured hand tightened on Glida’s furry arm in gratitude. Glida grinned at him, and the flush crept back on to her face.

Not to be ignored, Loser limped over to me, panting like trouble. Unable to stop myself I scratched his matted, vermin-riddled hide. The movement sent energy and certainty flooding through me. Whether Loser was my spirit guide or just a filthy piece of fur, I didn’t care. I wouldn’t dump him again.

Inside I felt the shrinking Eskaalim protest at the sentiment.

‘You look different from the others, Glida,’ I said.

‘That’s cos my hair is worth somethin’.’ She rubbed her mostly bald scalp. ‘They don’t get as much for theirs.’

I noticed the ma’soops had tufts missing here and there. Nothing like Glida’s.

The abusiveness of it fired my boosters. These children had been crossbred right here in Mo-Vay. Why would anyone want to do this?
Who
would want to do this?

I thought of Loyl Daac. What he was doing wasn’t such a large step away. His genetic mods might not be as dire as these but his notion of breeding selectivity was.

In a single heart wrench my resolve was restored.

 

Over the next few hours Glida and Roo showed me a dozen different ways down to the street, safe access between conjoined villas and a couple of routes to Splitty’s bar, including an attic cut-thru. I logged them carefully in my compass memory.

Glida described food vendors whose food might kill me, and those that wouldn’t. Then I told her to wait until I’d done what I’d come here to do and that afterwards I’d find her, and the ma’soops, and take them with me.

I took Roo aside. ‘If I’m not back by tomorrow, I want you to take Glida and the ma’soops back to Torley’s without me.’

He gave me a look. ‘But Teece—’

I stared him down. ‘Who do you think needs protecting, Roo? These kids? Or me?’

His young face hinted at warring emotions, his eyes straying to Glida as she played with the ma’soops.

He sighed. ‘OK, boss. But if you get killed or anythin’ Teece said he’d pull my implants out. That wouldn’t leave me much.’

‘Nice type, that Teece,’ I consoled, hiding a grin.

I left the ma’soops jumping and somersaulting in excitement and nervousness at the idea of leaving Mo-Vay with Glida growling parental warnings about the brittle ceiling and Roo shyly watching her.

She went to tug out her last knot of head hair and slip some of it into my hand.

I stayed her hand and patted Loser, sloughing off a handful of his instead. ‘He’s good currency,’ I said. ‘Look after him until I get back.’

She blinked at me, unsure of what to say. ‘If youse come back.’

‘I might need you to help some others. Keep a watch over Splitty’s. If you see some people come out of there that aren’t from round here, show them how to be safe until I get back to you,’ I said.

She rolled her eyes. ‘More like you?’

I grinned. ‘I’ve been told there’s
no one
like me.’

 

I wasted precious time finding someone who’d trade for a Zippo and information. As the day got old, I risked food and water from one vendor on Glida’s recommended list. The water swelled my tongue again, but my stomach toughed the food despite its peculiar taste. That was one puzzle I hadn’t solved. How did they get food in this place?

As far as I could tell nothing came in from the rest of The Tert, which left Fishertown bay.

After I’d eaten I found my way back to Splitty’s. The python still hung from the doorway, flies buzzing, mouth in mortis as the afternoon switched to evening.

Tears stung my eyelids and I pushed down a resurgence of misery. I sent a mental plea for forgiveness to the snake - along with a picture of some serious arse kicking.

Then I marched into Splitty’s, a knife carelessly loose.

I stood in the middle of the room with my back to the bar. ‘Who killed the python?’ I demanded.

Most of the patrons turned their backs. A couple headed for the door. I hustled over to stop them.

‘No one leaves until I know who killed the python.’

‘What’s it to you?’ said the barkeep. I saw him whispering into his bio-comm. How long until the Twitchers came? No turning back now.

‘What about it?’ A thickset man at a table, tattooed like the kids in the alley. Pig-faced and belligerent.

He wasn’t the only one. Belligerent didn’t go close to describing my mood.

‘Take the python down and bury it,’ I told him.

He turned his head away and kept on drinking.

‘TAKE IT DOWN!’

He slammed his beaker on the table. ‘Fuck you.’

In two steps I was on him, letting his blood. I forced him from his chair across to the door.

The rest of the bar froze into uncertainty. Who was I? What would I do? Everyone waited for someone else to act. I kicked the door open and yanked his hand up high on the frame. Then I stabbed the dagger into it with all the force of my anger. He hung there, crucified by one hand and still screaming.

In minutes, glistening-naked Twitchers swarmed the bar.

I busted outside, using my logged memory of Glida’s knowledge to lead them on an elaborate chase. Several times I doubled back over their heads, climbing in and out of attic cut-thrus. They got easily confused, sparking fights among themselves.

An hour or more of exhaustive dodging and I circled back using another of Glida’s cut-thrus to get back into the ceiling at Splitty’s. With steady hands I disabled the movement detectors, smashing the heat sensor into shards against a beam with the butt of the Gurkha. I let myself down through the manhole and into the corridor. Half a dozen steps to the closet and I was in the cellar.

Like a berserker I kicked the stills over and unscrewed every keg, until the place was awash with grog.

Then I scrambled up to the hatch. This time it was wide open. Moonlight spilled in. Half a dozen Twitchers had climbed through in a hurry.

One hadn’t.

I catapulted straight into her arms - a close-up of a savagely hormonal face, down to the wildly dilating pupils, pussing acne and a gaping, ugly neck jack. Ike’s army came complete with anger, skin complaints and programming plug. But something was wrong.

I tilted my headband down the length of her body. Her genitals were grossly overdeveloped and her muscle mass was huge. As if someone had flicked the puberty-on button and jammed it.

She banged my thigh with her shok for peeking.

My leg buckled, but I compensated. When she moved to shove it into my stomach I was quicker, and much, MUCH madder.

I brought the flat side of the Gurkha’s blade around, a semi open-shouldered swing that should have knocked her unconscious. All it did was send the knife ricocheting out of my hands, clanging into something nearby.

A fast squint spotted the outline of a quadrulma with outsized mudguards and alloy wheels shining, parked against the wall. Just like the one outside Chez Nutter.

The Twitcher staggered backwards but steadied, a stupid grin on her face. I’d given her my best whack and she was laughing. My strength came from hard work and some good genes and the occasional use of stim, hers had to be from a total endocrine jack-up.

I couldn’t beat that.

She uttered a guttural, totally meaningless sound, which I interpreted as
now it’s your turn, baby
.

I jumped away as the first punch came, but it caught me on the jaw, slamming me hard into the wall near the hatch.

Somehow I stayed on my feet. I fumbled for the Zippo.

Back inside the cellar I could hear the cavalry slopping about in the grog. Splitty’s bar would remember my visit for a while. Not only had I staked a regular to the doorframe, I’d also smashed up the booze cellar. There wasn’t much worse in the Big Country than a pub with no beer.

I ignited and jammed the Zippo and dropped it back through the hatch, flattening against the wall as flame spouted out and engulfed the Twitcher.

The taste of burning flesh clogged my airways as I vaulted on to the quad-runna and gunned it.

The glow lit my way toward the buildings.

As the wind cooled my skin, I started to come down from my fit of rage. The aftermath left me distressed at what I’d just done, and more than a little horny.

It was better than the numbness of the last day.

Whatever the next few hours brought, I just hoped I didn’t end up alone anywhere with Daac.

I knew he was still alive. The sky hadn’t fallen.

Not to say that it wouldn’t.

Which led me on to to Ike’s private army. Was their age and hormones their only qualification?

And what the hell had he done to them?

I gave up brain-straining over it, and took up eyeballing what was out ahead of me. The outcrop of buildings I was coming up on was ringed by a smooth, glistening expanse that could have been a lake.

The buildings looked neglected - dilapidated roofs, buckled window frames, rusted pylons, and above it all, a huge darkened canopy. Underneath one end of the canopy stood the litter of small rectangular objects that resembled statues.

Light seeped sideways from one of the buildings and like a suicidal moth I winged towards it. The sweat that drenched me set off a shivering fit. My neck prickled with the possibility other Twitchers might jump me.

As I reached the glistening lake, a musty smell wafted my way. It made me want to sneeze. I reined in the quad near the edge and examined the surface. It was coated in a mottled, vaguely luminescent, dry mould. Quad and ’ped marks crisscrossed everywhere, declaring earlier traffic and a solid base. It gave me confidence to nose a wheel out. The mould filaments crunched like thin ice, but the quad’s tracks gripped on to something hard underneath. I revved up and shot out on to it amongst the crazy confusion of old tracks. As I threaded between the eerie maze of statues I noticed that the front of each one had broken plas panels and defunct displays. Some even had hoses attached like long, flexible arms.

I got as close to the lit building as I dared before I powered down the quad and settled it snugly in behind a statue. Boots crunching, it took me a lifetime to creep the rest of the way, and another to decide it was empty and safe to enter.

The door was unlocked. Obviously Ike was short on uninvited guests.

It took me moments to comprehend what was inside. Hundreds - thousands - of petri dishes growing cultures sat on rows of old supermarket shelves. I threaded among them whispering the labels aloud.

‘“Zygo-my-cota”, “Bas-idio-mycota”, “Asco-mycota”. ’ I didn’t need the sci-speak to know they were fungus: brilliant but creepy colours and textures.

A popping noise drew me to the back where I found a bank of upright refrijerators containing vats brimming full of viscous muck, each with a skin across the top like two-month-old hummus.

The frij labels read ‘Pysarum polychephalum’.

What had Monts called it?
Crawl.

Voices suddenly interrupted my snoop. Two figures entered and stopped by the first row of shelves. One began checking the dishes.

I dropped down behind the last row of shelves and peeped along the aisle.

‘- set fire to one of the bars,’ said a male voice. ‘I can’t spare you any more people. I’ve got a drop coming in.’

That had to be Ike.

‘What if it’s Plessis?’