The Age of Scorpio (19 page)

Jeremy realised that he couldn’t remember her name any more. He shrugged and looked back at the monitor. He still found it easier to use high-spec monitors than do it entirely in his head. The situation in Portsmouth was very interesting and pointed towards more of the lost tech, as they had started calling it because it sounded cooler than super tech or alien tech. They still had no idea what it was or where it came from, though much of it seemed to be very old.

Jeremy had first heard rumours in the darker parts of the black market that dealt in technology far in advance of what people thought possible. Jeremy had been in his second year at MIT. Hacking, various data crimes and all-out electronic theft had not enabled him to afford the sort of prices that the lost tech commanded. They had, however, provided him with more than enough money to hire military contractors, as mercenaries were called these days, to hit one of the deals and steal the item.

Despite the multiple electronic blinds and go-betweens he had put between himself and the contractors, it had been the most frightening thing that Jeremy had ever done, but he’d hit the jackpot. As far as he could tell, what they had stolen was some sort of miniature nano-machine factory capable – assuming enough energy and raw materials – of producing the tiny machines that could create just about anything and alter matter at its molecular level. He’d named it Cornucopia after the magic item on the final level of Pagan Earth.

Once he had worked out how to use it, he no longer had to rely on contractors. King Jeremy could augment and hardwire the skills he required to mimic most of the characters he played in games. He had done this and then taken out the contractors just to be on the safe side. Since then he had got hold of more of the lost tech. Some of it was spectacularly advanced software, some biotech, but most of it was hardware. He had bought some, though rarely for money; most of the rest he had killed and stolen for, or arranged proxies to do so. In one spectacular case, an entire nanite-slaved battalion of the Chinese army had done his dirty work on a mountain plateau in Tibet.

Then through a series of games he had designed himself to psychometrically and intellectually test other gamers, he had recruited the rest of the Do As You Please Clan.

He was reading a blog about some emo kid with hallucinogenic blood on some vampire wannabe’s blog. As he watched, the words started to disappear.

‘What the fuck?’ he muttered to himself. He had set his systems to automatically save any information he came across on the Portsmouth situation. It was a minor AI search routine. Not only was the search routine violated, but when he checked his own internal systems he saw the scant information he did have being eaten.

‘No, no, no, no!’ The amount of time it had taken to violate his security, security far in advanced of what modern technology was supposed to be capable of, had been so small it had been difficult to measure. Only someone with access to lost tech would be able to do this, and they would either have to have better lost tech or be more skilled at utilising it than Jeremy was. He had been aware that other groups had access to the powerful technology but had always tried to avoid them unless he was stealing from them. Even then he tried to pick on people on the lower echelons, for example the ultra-rich who had just stumbled on the technology or poorer countries’ black science programmes that had found the technology purely by chance.

King Jeremy stared at the monitor, which was swiftly becoming a focus for his rage. The sounds of heavy metal and simulated warfare came from the other room. Dracimus was playing a first-person shooter. This acted as Jeremy’s soundtrack as he tore the monitor off the table, flung it across the room and reduced the rest of his immediate surroundings to so much destroyed junk.

Seething, he headed towards the pleasure dome – what they called the main area of the Boston warehouse. They had used Cornucopia to terraform, as they liked to term it, the warehouse.

When King Jeremy had found himself capable of redesigning flesh, he had kept his basic look but got rid of his imperfections, made himself more handsome and a lot more athletic, aping the look of characters he saw in films, games and comics. The irony – that he now looked like the high-school alpha males he hated – was lost on him.

Dracimus was gaming old-style. There was little challenge in gaming now, when you could control the characters with your mind. Besides, they had the capabilities to make the real world like their games if they so chose. At the moment Dracimus was using an old-fashioned controller on one of the intermediate levels on the hardest setting of the Wild Boys FPS. He was playing the hacked game at lightning speed, slumped in his shorts in the middle of their massive line of sofas. The future war played out on the cinema-sized screen that took up one of the warehouse walls.

Dracimus, if anything, looked more like a high-school jock than Jeremy, if the jock had a serious steroid problem. He acted like one as well. What Dracimus wanted he had to have, immediately.

Baron Albedo was asleep, entwined with three of his latest sex zombies. After all, nano-technology was better than Rohypnol. His face was still white from burying it in the small mountain of synthetic cocaine on the table in front of him.

Inflictor Doorstep – King Jeremy had no idea where the name had come from – was looking more and more demonic. His skin had taken on a grey cast and was starting to look more like armour plate. His eyes were black-and-red spirals. He was rendering down one of the sex zombies he had broken. Feeding the woman head first into Cornucopia, something he liked doing. Inflictor Doorstep even scared Jeremy a little.

‘We’ve just been hacked.’ That even got Inflictor’s attention. ‘We’re going to England.’

Another night on the street. Despite the warmth during the day, Beth had spent most of the night awake, shivering in her sleeping bag and staring at graffiti. Someone had painted the words
THE EMPIRE NEVER ENDED
on the wall opposite. Beth had no idea what it meant but had initially thought it a little profound. Now it was just irritating her.

She was going to go back tomorrow. Hitch to London and get a train home. She had no idea what she was going to tell her dad. She could not see her sister as a terrorist. It would have been too much like hard work. Even with Talia’s near-suicidal taste in men, Beth still couldn’t see her even getting involved with that. On the other hand, Talia hadn’t visited her in prison, and a lot could have changed in the years since she had last seen her sister. Maybe she had been unknowingly sharing digs with a bomb-maker, but even that sounded far-fetched.
On the other hand
, Beth thought,
someone had to share digs with terrorists. You just never think it will happen to someone you know.
Her dad was going to have to be happy with what little she could give him. Maybe she should tell him to get in contact with the police.

Every time Beth felt herself falling asleep, the same question echoed around her head.
Who’s to blame?
She hadn’t liked Talia, but she was family. Beth couldn’t accept the pure bad luck of Talia being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Someone had to know more about this than she did. Talia had always been the tragic social butterfly on the alternative scene. Everyone had known her in Bradford. It would have involved a radical change of personality for her not to want to be the centre of attention in Portsmouth as well. If nothing else, someone would know what she had been doing in the run-up to this.

In the early hours of the morning Beth got up and found a place to hide her kitbag. She took an old picture of Talia, the Balisong knife and her brass knuckles, and started to wander.

It hadn’t been difficult. The clothes might have changed a little, same with the hairstyles, but all subcultures had their uniforms. She spotted them on a wide street called Elm Grove. Followed them into a narrow street with what looked like some kind of clock tower at the bottom of it where it intersected with another road. Beth was pretty sure she wasn’t too far from the sea.

The pub was in the middle of the street. It was called the Colonial Arms and had a late licence. She had heard the bustle and noise as soon as she turned into the street. It had a paved beer garden packed with people.

Inside it was warm and seemed to Beth to be full of light, though the atmosphere was strangely subdued. She wondered if it had anything to do with the terrorist incident. Had these people lost friends? The pub was made up of two large wooden-floored rooms and a smaller area up some steps set back from the bar. The bar was close to the door and it was standing room only. Beth had to push her way to the bar to order a pint of bitter with her scarce cash.

She got some looks on the way in but she had on her leather, her combat trousers and her army-surplus boots. She wore the uniform even if it was an older variant. The bouncers had sized her up on the way in as well. Wondering if she was going to be trouble. Beth hoped not but she was pleased they hadn’t searched her.

She took stock of the place and then started showing the photograph around, asking people if they had seen Talia. Beth started with the goth/emo crowd and got negatives. She was pretty sure some of them were lying because they didn’t want to get involved but she wasn’t going to push it yet.

Eventually she spoke to someone who at least admitted to having seen her. This led to Beth cornering another girl in the bathroom. Beth had put a leather-clad arm in the girl’s way and asked her to look closely at the picture. The frightened girl had tried to bluster her way out of it, but Beth had just stared at her. Finally she had given her a name. Jaime. Beth had got her to describe this Jaime. He was in tonight. He was here every night. Where was he sitting? How many people were with him? Finally she’d let the girl go.

Beth found him quickly. She had intended watching him for a bit before going to speak to him. He had a narrow pockmarked face, long lank hair pulled back into a ponytail. Wearing jeans and a T-shirt. She reckoned he was a bit older than the majority of those in the pub, probably of an age with her. He was at a table with a couple of cronies and several girls a few years younger. He had minor-league dealer written all over him.

Beth sighed when he saw the girl from the toilet rush over to Jaime and point at her. He said something harsh to her and the girl backed away. Then he looked over at Beth. She sighed and headed over to his table. He glared at her all the way over.

‘You looking for me?’ he shouted over the din of the music and people talking. Beth nodded and showed him the picture.

‘You know her.’ She made sure that it didn’t sound like a question. Jaime barely glanced at it.

‘She’s dead,’ he told her.
Nice
, Beth thought. People were starting to listen now. One of the girls at the table, a pretty young goth who had the look of a nice middle-class girl slumming – Beth knew the type – was trying very hard not to look at the photo.

‘I know. I’m her sister.’

‘So?’ She was getting hard stares from the two guys with Jaime.

‘Look, I’m just trying to find out about her. Speak to someone who knew her. It’s been a long time.’

‘Bit late now, isn’t it? Should’ve picked up the phone.’

‘I’ve been away,’ she told him evenly, hoping he got the message. He did, and looked at her with renewed interest, maybe a bit more caution.

‘That supposed to impress me?’

‘I’m not trying to impress you. Look, if not you then point me in the direction of one of her friends, and I’ll get out of your hair.’ As she said ‘friends’ one of Jaime’s cronies, an ugly skinhead with blue biro tattoos, glanced over at the girl. Beth tried not to let on that she’d noticed.

‘Why don’t we go and talk about this outside? A bit quieter. Hear ourselves think, like. Delicate stuff this.’ Suddenly he was all smiles.
Here we go
. Beth sighed.

They’d come out of the pub and headed down towards the sea but turned off into a parking bay underneath some flats. Beth couldn’t help but think that the little block of flats looked like a nice place to live. She couldn’t even be bothered to ask Jaime why he needed his two mates for their private little chat. Reaching into a pocket she turned to face the three of them. As she did, he was on her, grabbing her leather jacket and slamming her against the wall. Something about it made her think that he was used to trying to intimidate women – there was a rehearsed familiarity to his actions.

‘You’re one ugly—’ he managed to get out. There wasn’t much power in the headbutt but she’d placed it correctly and nobody likes getting hit in the nose. Jaime grabbed his nose instinctively. Beth pushed him back to give herself room and kicked him in the knee, hard. There was a
crack
and he screamed and went down. The ugly skinhead moved faster than the guy in the shell suit. He grabbed for her, but his momentum brought him onto Beth’s hook. His nose exploded and he staggered back holding his face. The brass knuckles came away bloody. She hit him again, a fast jab to the side of the head just to discourage him from any more involvement. He sat down hard on the ground.

The
click
of the switchblade opening was unmistakable. Beth turned to look at the guy in the shell suit. Jaime tried getting up. Beth helped him back to the ground with the sole of her boot. It wasn’t the first time she’d had a blade pulled on her. Most of the time it was just a threat. Shell suit looked like it was just a threat, like he was used to showing people the blade and getting what he wanted. Problem was, it could be difficult to be sure.

‘Come on then,’ she said and gave him the hard stare. Even if he went for her she was pretty sure she could take him. He looked like a long streak of piss to Beth.

Shell suit looked at skinhead and Jaime and started backing away. If he left there was always the chance he’d come back with friends, but she didn’t think he would tell anyone. When you’re a guy you don’t expect to see your mates knocked down by a girl, particularly if you think you’re a hard man.

Beth had to smile as he turned and tried to walk away casually. She turned back to the other two. Skinhead was trying to get up. His eyes couldn’t focus. Beth was a little worried that she had hit him too hard but didn’t think he would bother her any time soon.