Nylon Angel (2 page)

Cabal Coomera were The Tert’s real lawmakers. A mysterious, unaccountable sect who operated above the daily Tert politics. Some said they were descendants of the Kadaitcha, the feather feet police of the original indigenous tribes, but that sounded like romance to me. More importantly, though, they protected their own. If I could gain entry to the Cabal, then Jamon Mondo wouldn’t be able to touch me.

I wasn’t totally inexperienced at their game either. I’d ridden with a vigilante group for a few months, before Jamon, but their race politics bothered me. So I concentrated on bodyguarding and building my own weapons cache.

You had to be able to take care of yourself in The Tert. Most babes are chocked up with enhancements. Wired so tight their buns act like capacitors!

I’ve got different ideas. Sure, some things you can’t live without - compass implant and olfactory augmentations (
olfaugs
) - but the rest is pure me. Nearly two metres of well-honed skin. In hand-to-hand combat I can match anyone.

Yet I didn’t know much about guns. That was the one small plus to being owned by Jamon Mondo. I’m in good shape for fighting but it means fairy sprinkles if someone shoves a Smith and Wesson up your nostrils.

When Mondo took over my life he insisted I train in a shooting gallery with his dingoboys. For him I’m just another cheap soldier in his muscle pool.

So why don’t I take Mondo out?

Believe me I’ve thought about it. But it’s not that simple.

So I’m working on this other way.

‘Parrish. Deep in wonder? Thinking about me?’

The voice was silky and heavy and sarcastic. I knew it in my nightmares.

‘Jamon.’
Breathe, Parrish. He can’t see what you’re thinking.

‘Where were you last night? I wanted you.’ He reached forward and pinched my skin through my clothes.

‘Earning a living,’ I snapped, pulling away.

Undeterred he reached with his other hand and trailed his fingers down my body to my crutch. ‘Don’t I pay you enough?’

I stared him full in the face, this time without flinching. ‘You could never pay me enough.’

He whitened at my jibe and removed his hand, but his look of cool amusement never faltered.

He was shorter than me, fair and slender. Fine boned. A holographic tattoo shimmered on his cheekbone, a naked girl on top of a man. Her head bobbed from side to side. One day I planned to gouge that implant out.

‘Come, Parrish. You’re the envy of the stretch. You have my protection. My attentions. . .’ He kissed the tips of his fingers meaningfully.

I ignored the public display. Jamon’s way. Like wearing his brand on my butt.

Lucky me! Luring a perverted death adder!

It wasn’t the first time I’d pictured Jamon like that. The net’s holo zoo featured death adders regularly on its
Nearly Extinct Creatures
series. Jamon had all the characteristics of one. Small, sinister, deceptive, deadly. You could mistake an adder for a harmless lizard, meanwhile it poisoned you in seconds.

A shudder rolled through me.

‘Trembling with anticipation, little one?’

I arranged my facial muscles into a blank expression. I’d given too much away already.

Casting an eye over Hein’s dismal crowd, he continued, ‘I’m entertaining tonight. Be there early. And wear something . . . interesting.’

His eyes refracted then, like a crystal in the light. Something new. I wondered how much they had cost. Rainbow eyes. The idea made me want to howl. The one beautiful free thing left in this whole grey world was imaged in Jamon Mondo’s eyes.

‘Be there, won’t you, Parrish?’

I nodded and hated my guts for it.

T
he aged Trans-train limped out of the station and headed south past Fishertown where the view wasn’t pretty. I often wondered who paid who to keep it running. Mostly its passengers were like me, locals taking the quick way from one end of The Tert to the other - Torley’s to Plastique in a couple of hours. The rest of the passengers either couldn’t afford the Hi-way bypass, or were bent on glimpsing real misery.

The Tert stretched for a hundred klicks or more between the sea and the snaking river, a turtle shaped strip of land that should have been priceless. Instead, it harboured the wretched, the sick and the downright sicko. No dinkum ‘straight’ would dream of going there, with its toxic soil and crazy population.

Years ago it had been a massive foundry and industrial site - whispers of long-buried tek as well - way out past the limits of the expanding city, Viva. Now, Viva was called Vivacity, one of the world’s carnivorous super-cities, spreading down the east coast of Australia.

The industrial structures had long since been demolished. A spanking plastic villa metropolis arose on its remains, complete with pocket courtyards, identical black lacquer front doors and palm trees.

It took fifty years of high-density living before the side effects of the poisoned soil became obvious. Now the long-termers in The Tert were either morons or nutters. Short-termers paid a fortune in protectives or took their chances with the rest.

The villa metropolis was no longer recognisable as distinct pieces of architecture, only a morass of living.

The sea-side of The Tert was known as Fishertown, a grey stretch of ilmenite-black radioactive sand. Slums huddled like clumps of seaweed along it, home to a miserable collection of fishing families.

Not the place for romantic moonlight walks.

I was headed to pay a visit to Minoj Armaments and Software, on the south side of The Tert. The ‘scenic’ Trans-train was the quickest way there.

I found I was spending more and more time at Raul Minoj’s, ogling his range of weapons. It gave me a kind of peace when nothing else would. Peace from things like my evening ‘date’ with Jamon.

I stared at my reflection in the dull chrome piping of the train interior. ‘Wear something interesting,’ he’d said. Well, interesting he got! I’d changed to a funky black nylon suit with lime pleats interweaved into the flared legs and a leather tank top underneath.

And dangerous. The tank had specially worked compartments into which I slipped evil-long poisoned pins. Handy in a fight! Underneath the pants I wore a string that stretched like a cobweb, front and back. Garrotting wires wound into the web.

Shoes? Well, I felt naked without my boots. The first pair I ever had were steel caps. Not much good for running. These days I wore titanium inserts. You could still kick the crap out of someone and sprint if you had to.

The train slid into the Pomme de Tuyeau on the south-east tip of The Tert and the doors twitched translucent before they opened. I found this a useful little bit of teknology. It gave you time to change your mind if the scene didn’t look right. When you’re my size, you’re a target in any situation. I hated that. Being small had advantages.

The toll boys on the Pomme were Tert specials. Body-enhanced, skin-mixed, libido-jacked jerks. The latest craze in Plastique-ville was patchwork skin: Caucasoid, Negroid, Mongoloid with a splash of Albino thrown in for highlights. Infection rates were high amongst zigzags.

‘Who wants to look like a frigging zebra?’ Doll Feast would say to me. Then she’d laugh like a tracheotomy.

I cruised past the toll boys without paying. One blond giant with a piebald face and bulging triceps glowered at me but made no move.

How did they see me? I wondered. Doll Feast’s lover? Jamon Mondo’s whore?

Resentment squirted through my gut. One day it would just be about
me
, Parrish Plessis.

Inside the villa corridors and melded rooms anything and anyone that sells was for sale. Fishertown Slummers were everywhere, hawking shellfish aphrodisiacs and longevity oils smelling as potent as their scam. They had the voracious look of the half starved.

I silently counted my way to the hardware villas, reciting it like a litany.

Five villa sets north
: Pharmaceuticals and Pleasure. No coin needed to pass through Doll’s patch. The babes came here for fripperies and Doll was good to me.

Three villa sets east
: Bodyparts, Replacements, Makeovers. Frigging zebra country!

One villa set south
: Stolen Tekno Hmmm, tight ice. Who knows how far back that goes?

Then it’s . . .
Hardware.

I climbed up some battered stairs to the roof and across a planking arrangement, watching out for day-rats. Then down some defunct escalator steps to the fourth door along the bottom where I was scanned by security vid, optic ID, and decontaminated for blood residues and parasites. By the time Minoj’s face appeared on the vidset I was tugging my dreads impatiently.

Minoj’s greasy skin shone with angelic intensity, his grin was lecherous and rotting.

‘Little thing’- he knew how I hated that - ‘waiting always improves your mien. Come in and play with the toys.’

‘You know if you weren’t such a smart—’ I began. ‘What’s that?’

I stepped across the room and draped myself over his workbench to eyeball a gleaming spear.

‘Special order, little thing.
Ne touchez pas
.’

I could barely breathe with envy at its sleek lined sophistication.

Minoj raised a slicked, knowing eyebrow. ‘But what would
you
be needing?’

Ignoring him, I caressed its texture. ‘How much for this beauty?’

‘More than your simple lifetime could afford. The latest in explosive tips.’ He sucked on his teeth, giving a weirdly excited whistle.

‘It’s for the Cabal Coomera, isn’t it?’ I said flatly.

‘My perfect lips are sealed.’

‘Your perfect lips are as rotten as your teeth, Minoj.’

‘Ha, ha, Parrish.’ Minoj laughed like his gums - flappy and raw.

The ritual over, our banter shifted to serious haggling. I left with an ugly snub-nosed pistol and an upgrade for my hacker’s ‘dream’ pack. Bodyguards had to stay wired to the tek thing as well.

Cruising back along the same route, I lingered at Pharmaceuticals and Pleasure - P & P - checking out the latest erotic prolong syrups and sprays. The vendor offered me a free trial out the back, and I laughed in his lascivious face.

It was about then that I sniffed the tail.

It smelt of Jamon’s boys. The ’goboys lived in a converted barracks arrangement like the old-styled armies, out the back of Torley’s. The scent splintered through my brain like a migraine.
Semen on ferrocrete
. The ’goboy was imitating a punter by gawking at a nearby porn booth.

Jamon was having me followed again!

Gripped by panic, I ran, not stopping until I hit the tollbooths on the Pomme. Then I slung inside the first train headed north.

 

I didn’t have much time to mull over why Jamon had a tail on me because Mei was waiting outside my room when I got back.

The suit itched and the cobweb of my string bit like second-rate bondage. I hauled Mei inside with me and sat her on my bed while I stripped, shoved my whole suit into the dry clean, and stepped into the san unit. By the time I’d cleaned up the outfit would be ready to go.

Aah, modern conveniences!

‘What gives, Mei?’

The pink-haired shaman’s face coloured with excitement. ‘That guy, Dark, I’ve seen him!’

‘How much?’ Damn! I was running out of time. Jamon would have the troops out after me if I was late. In a way he already did. But this opportunity was too good to miss. Maybe things would work for me this time. ‘Hurry, Mei. I gotta job with Jamon.’

‘I need to meditate. Can I stay here for a while?’

I sent her a sharp look as the san unit blew me dry.
What was the thing with my room?
One tiny, over-priced firetrap of a back room on the top storey of a rundown villa. It used to have a view into the identical room of the next villa but the window had been permanently sealed. No one in The Tert wanted to look in on their neighbours.

I knew decent digs were premium around here, but hell . . .

‘OK, I guess. Don’t touch anything.’

My meagre savings were somewhere she’d never find them and if she wanted to frolic in my underwear then good luck to her - most of it bit back.

‘He’s in one of Hein’s sluice rooms.’

I wrinkled my nose. Hein’s sluice rooms were for those that preferred to do it by themselves with the help of inanimate objects. ‘One of those?’

She rolled her slanted eyes upwards.

‘How will I know him?’

‘Very broad. No hair. Leather. Oh yeah, and a prosthesis. ’

‘Where?’

She giggled. ‘It’s all right. It’s his hand.’

 

I sprawled near the south end of the bar in Hein’s, with a clear view to the corridor and the back rooms. The proprietor, Larry Hein, never spared me a flutter of his false eyelashes, but he gave me my drinks cheap ’cos Jamon was his boss too. He ran the keenest, toughest bar in Torley’s. I had a lot of respect for Larry Hein and I sure envied his dress sense. The sorta guy who could make chiffon hip.

Torley’s referred to Hein’s and a multitude of bars, plus Shadoville and the whole strip of business that ran the north end of the villa sprawl. Jamon’s patch. A lucrative but seedy spread that attracted plenty of Vivacity punters looking for a piece of action.

I was wearing my action. I patted my pins and felt for the garrotting filament I had concealed down the lengths of my web. Minoj’s pistol lay holstered on my waistband, barely diguised by my coat. I’d have to surrender it when I got to Jamon’s but for now it felt good. Minoj said it was a Glock, but I had a suspicion he had a cheap manufacturing deal with an Indo business cartel.

If it shot straight I didn’t really care if it was a Barbie.

I was on my second drink and getting edgy when a bald guy in black leather and a chain choker, fitting Mei’s description, filled the corridor. His bulk was pretty impressive, even to me, his face clean-lined and attractive, but his expression was mild. He surveyed Hein’s crowd for a vacant tactile, walked over to it and slumped down in front of the large vid screen.