Hammerjack (13 page)

“You really oughta be careful with that thing,” Cray said, toying with him. “I’m not responsible for what happens if you set it off.”

The guards were not amused. They broke out the cuffs.

“That’s enough, gentlemen,” Avalon called out. Her voice echoed between the stone pillars that flanked the entryway. Cray looked past the guards and saw her emerging from the building, dressed in a variant of the same black attire she had worn the day before. The onyx lenses were still perched on her nose—although by now Cray was thinking that it was more than her sense of style that dictated her wardrobe.

“Dr. Alden is a guest of the Assembly,” she finished, plucking Cray’s MFI from the guards. “I’ll be escorting him from here.”

The two men exchanged a doubtful look, but said nothing. They departed immediately, returning to their posts as the crowd from the Bristol lingered on, eyeing the imposing figure that came to Cray’s aid.

“Nice of you to show up,” Cray said to her. “I was just about to do a number on those guys.”

“You need to learn how to manage risk, Dr. Alden,” she replied, walking him toward the entrance. “Those men would have killed you if you kept provoking them.”

“I’ve met killers, Avalon,” he assured her. “Those two were just ball busters. They like to make trouble, but they won’t shoot anybody who might be important. That’s why I always walk into a place like I own it.”

“And what if the person you’re dealing with doesn’t know the rules?”

“They
all
know the rules,” Cray said. “Take you, for instance—I’d bet real money that shooting me wouldn’t present you with any problems. That’s why they sent you to babysit me.”

She was actually curious. “Because I’m a killer?”

“We all have our jobs,” he observed with a shrug. “I’m good at mine—and I have an idea that you’re extremely good at yours.”

“Good,” Avalon said. “Then you won’t be foolish enough to make another mistake. To be honest, I find it a wonder you’re still alive.”

He laughed. “You have a sense of humor after all.”

“No,” Avalon said quite seriously as they went inside. “I don’t.”

Like the camouflage that was the opera house itself, the interior of the building suggested little of how the Assembly directed the course of nations. The appointments were smart but not lavish, revealing an underlying modesty absent from most other seats of power. Cray might have respected that, had he believed the sentiment born from restraint or dignity. Instead, he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was just a
façade
—an elaboration of a grand hoax, perpetrated for reasons yet unknown.

He caught several curious glances from the people he passed, but as Cray looked more closely he realized the attention came because of his escort. Avalon seemed to walk in slow motion, commanding others to get out of the way. They all knew who she was, or at the very least
what
she was. More than that, her presence in the halls was a clear indication that events were being put into motion.

The two of them walked into the grand foyer, over which hung a constellation of crystal spun into a dazzling chandelier. Beneath that, two mammoth decorative doors opened into what he assumed was the Audience Chamber—a theater in the days when the place was still an opera house, since converted into parliamentary space. Instead of facing a stage, the rows of empty seats now faced a large podium flanked by two lecterns, all of the pieces carved out of solid blocks of cherrywood—relics from some age of royalty.

Inside, a few custodial people were setting up some virtual-conferencing and translation equipment. Without thinking, Cray headed into the theater. He stopped when Avalon touched him on the shoulder and pulled him back.

“Not there,” she said.

“This isn’t the chamber?”

“That’s just the Corporate Council,” she explained. “They won’t be in session until next week. Come on, let’s go.”

Cray went along without asking questions, even though he was starting to learn how little he knew about the entity he had served for the last ten years. He had heard of the Council—enough to know that it was a largely ceremonial body, comprised of select board members from various corporations doing business outside the Zone. They debated all aspects of Collective policy, with an aim toward giving the smaller fish a sense they had a say in the way things were done. The
real
authority, however, rested squarely with the Assembly—a small congregate made up of the CEOs of the Big Seven, vested with special executive powers that gave them the final word on everything.

Cray always assumed they were part of the same whole, that dealing with one meant dealing with the other. But if Cray had learned anything, it was that the servant was not so different from the master. Phao Yin operated in the shadows of commerce, and so Cray did as well. Avalon’s place was in the shadows of politics. That would make the Assembly less like an arm of government and more like—

More like what? A bunch of spooks?

Their journey took them farther into the building, down a set of stairs and into a corridor that terminated at the foot of a large blast door. Two armed guards—deadlier in appearance than the two Cray had met outside—stood watch in front of the door, pulse rifles constantly held at the ready. Walking through, Cray heard a magnetic seal kicking in as the automated sentry detected their presence—insurance against ricochets bouncing into the occupied areas above, should any weapons fire erupt.

The guards stood aside for Avalon, who leaned over to punch a key code into the security panel, then provided a retinal scan for confirmation. The blast door gave a loud clang as the locking bolts disengaged, then opened with little more than a low hiss. Beyond, a series of lights came on and revealed a pressurized sterile corridor that stretched on for several meters. A puff of air skittered across Cray’s face as he stepped up to the entryway, lights meshing with the whiteness of the walls to create a spectral tunnel. At the other end, another closed area awaited.

The blast door slid shut behind them as soon as they were inside. A decontamination field then went to work, eradicating microbes from the surface of their skin. Cray felt nothing in a conventional sense—though he was unsettled by a vague notion of life being drained from the room—and after a few seconds the process was over. That was when the second door opened, revealing for the first time what the Assembly had in mind for him.

It made Cray remember the first time he had been in a jack house. He didn’t know how many of them had been in there—twenty, maybe thirty altogether. They had all come to interface, with each other or with the Axis, their heads sprouting electrodes and plugged into a common hub. Some of them had died that way, the passage of days marked by the smell that savaged the place. Those who were still alive never even noticed.

This setup was infinitely cleaner and more sophisticated, but only masked the same dark purpose. Individual link stations, a dozen in all, were arranged in two neat rows—each one containing an unconscious occupant, strapped down to keep the slack bodies from sliding out. Their faces were not visible, heads encased within link sheaths that pumped information in and out of adjoining nodes like so much raw sewage. When he saw the technicians running around and keeping watch over their people, Cray could not disjoin the images of that jack house—or the belief that what happened here was little better than self-mutilation.

Then there was the chair at the end of the row. The empty chair waiting for
him.

Two technicians stood behind the link station. One of them unbuckled the restraints that would hold him, while the other opened the sheath that would ensnare his head. Cray turned to Avalon, his eyes narrowing. He saw his reflection in the black of her lenses.

“What the hell is this?”

“The Audience Chamber,” she replied impassively. “These people will monitor you during your interface with the Assembly.”

“Nobody said anything about an interface,” Cray protested. He was still cool, but let a trickle of rage seep through to show her that he was dead serious. “Phao Yin said the Assembly would be
meeting
with me, directly.”

“The Assembly conducts all of its affairs in this manner,” Avalon said, as if she were explaining to an idiot child. “You are no exception to the rule, Dr. Alden.”

“Forget the
rule,
Avalon. If your bosses want to deal with me, they can do it face-to-face. Otherwise, I’m out of here.”

“I don’t understand the problem.”

“I don’t interface,” Cray said. “As long as we have that clear, we
have
no problem.”

Avalon considered this new development. Clearly, it was a segment of his personality missing from his profile, which put her in the position of having to make a choice. Cray knew he was shit out of luck if she decided to use force—there was nothing to stop her from tying him down to the chair, if those were her orders. It was just a matter of how important Cray was to her employers.

Avalon nodded at the two technicians. They shut down the link station, moving to tend to the others.

Cray released a long, slow breath. He didn’t gloat over it. He had spent too much luck already. But as Avalon turned back toward him, her posture made it clear that she would tolerate no more. Business was business—and one more step in the wrong direction would change Cray from an asset into a liability.

“Come with me,” she told him.

Cray sensed the acceleration dampers kicking in as soon as the elevator doors closed. They descended far and fast—much farther than he would have expected in a diplomatic facility. It continued on for over half a minute, by which time the elevator had dropped well over a thousand meters—a hole deep enough to bury the GenTec tower with room to spare. Cray had seen nukeproof military installations without that much earth over them.

What are they protecting here?

“So what’s the deal?” Avalon asked him.

“What?”

“Up there,” she clarified. “The interface. A spook getting weirded out over a simple input—it doesn’t make much sense.”

“There’s a lot about me that doesn’t make sense.”

Avalon took out his MFI. “That’s what you use this for,” she said, examining the device. “Face kits, virtual terminals—all so you don’t have to plug into the Axis.”

“Something like that.”

“You ever done it before?”

“A long time ago.” Cray raised an eyebrow. “You?”

“Not possible,” she replied, putting the device away.

“Any particular reason?”

“Nerve injury,” she said dispassionately. “The Olympus Mons virus. You survive the disease, the damage is permanent.”

“How bad?”

Avalon considered it for a few moments, as if nobody had ever asked before. She then lowered her head, reaching up slowly to pull off her glasses. When Avalon opened her eyes, what stared back at Cray put an even greater wedge between what she was and what she used to be. Two misty sacs stared back at him—a cornucopia of murky colors swirling within, repositories for the virus that still infected her. Beneath that, tiny bursts of light punctuated a dull, constant glow.

Neurostatic implants,
Cray thought. The microscopic devices stopped the progression of the disease, though nothing could fully eradicate it. At best, it was survival by margins: Avalon had survived the process, but paid dearly with her senses. Sight, sound, touch, taste—all of them were memories, replaced by artificial means.

“You didn’t notice,” she remarked, putting the glasses back on.

He checked her out more closely, realizing he
should
have seen it. Thousands of tiny clusters were woven into the fabric of her clothing, forming an intricate web that covered her entire body.
A sensuit,
Cray thought, marveling at its elegance. The virus had destroyed her ability to feel, but the suit provided her with a sensory range that far exceeded his own—a useful edge in her line of work. Cray wouldn’t have been surprised if she had hyperaccurate readings of his heart rate, body temperature, blood pressure—all of which raised intriguing possibilities if he ever found himself having to lie to her. Avalon would probably detect it in an instant.

The elevator decelerated, the dampers playing a brief game with his balance before it came to a stop. Cray’s ears popped slightly as the car equalized with the atmosphere outside the doors and Avalon keyed another sequence into the code panel. “We keep a minimal staff in the lower chambers,” she said. “That includes security personnel, so you’ll have to be careful about the sentry. The threat detectors are set to an
extremely
low threshold. You run off into an area you’re not supposed to, you’re going to get lit up.”

“You don’t get many visitors, do you?”

“No, Dr. Alden,” she said as the doors opened. “We don’t get
any
visitors.”

Outside, the lights didn’t even come on until the sensors detected their presence—and when they did, Cray came up against what looked like a solid wall. A loud Klaxon sounded at their arrival, and the wall began to rise. A cloud of frost particles sublimated out of the air beneath, spreading out in a hazy curtain that obscured the chamber behind it. Cray detected the smell of cryogenic elements—a kind of wet, charged taste that settled on the back of his tongue—while a chill enveloped the rest of his body. On a subconscious level, he had already guessed what he would find when the mists parted.