She let out a sigh, wondering where her Inge and Elke were now. Not Petra - she was in a cemetery in Brandenburg, courtesy of a downward spiral that no one had been able to pull her out of.
So bright, the moon.
One may utilize extended fixation of the eyesight upon an object, such as the traditional fob watch, or indeed any bright object, to induce mesmeric trance.
She drifted amid echoes of a dream, fragments of hallucination, shards of imagination.
—I am Kenna.
—And you’re the leader.
—Yes, Gavriela.
—And the others?
—You’re the first.
The moon, so enchanting, so silver, so bright.
She wrote in her notebook, pen-nib and pencil-lead lightly scraping the paper. Although the moon appeared bright against the night-sky backdrop, inside the room it provided poor illumination; but that did not matter.
Beneath her closed eyelids, as she wrote with a pen in one hand and a pencil in the other, Gavriela’s eyes flicked from side to side.
FORTY-SIX
FULGOR, 2603 AD
Banners and holosculptures, quickglass birds and persistent fireworks, smartkites and dirigibles, were proliferating over every district of Lucis City - even the exotic parts, like Parallaville, and the sleazy areas, like Quarter Moon - for today was Last Lupus, the final day of Festival, and the last chance for everyone to party.
Ingram’s Corner was a crossroads, a juxtaposition of opposing architectural styles, yet an apposite communion of appetites: from the battered building that contained several dozen fifteen-minutes-and-you’re-finished brothels and smackjoints, to Ebony Tower, a rearing quickglass monstrosity, home to some two hundred floors of restaurants and stores, and clubs that never closed, not to mention a hard-to-classify establishment called The Church of the Continual Orgasm.
Roger watched from a window on the twentieth floor, staring across the way at the squat building opposite, plotting his entrance to Drone Dollies. Part of him was yelling that this was stupid, that he should call the peacekeepers and damn the consequences; but Roger Blackstone’s name, image and voiceprint would be on the detain-immediately list, and there was no telling how long it would take before he could get someone to listen to him.
One option was to take time to create a false ident, using the new utilities in his tu-ring - or he could take direct action, and make somebody pay.
The squat building from above was an eight-storey hollow rectangle. From here he could see how to work it: ascend to roof level, go over the inner edge, get in through a quickglass wall. The building’s logs would tell him where she was; but he had no hope of cracking the security without the breach causing alarms to execute. The extraction needed to be fast, and that meant having Superintendent Sunadomari’s ident in his call buffer, ready to make contact. Roger could report Alisha’s circumstances even if building security took him down.
I still can’t believe I’m doing this.
He had a visceral hatred of heights and a civilized horror of violence; but this was going to happen. With a last look at the target building, he turned away, took one of Ebony Tower’s flowshafts down to ground level, and went outside.
Overhead, a smiling blimp with cartoon smile was waving stubby arms, chuckling and singing a children’s song. On the ground, the number of revellers was growing by the minute, some waving streamers or causing holofountains to sparkle, virtual fireworks to bring on the party mood; while in the distance, a silver dragon stood out among the floating marvels. But Roger was not here for Festival.
Head down and swallowing, he went through the ground floor entrance, not looking at the six hulking men and women who lurked there on guard. But nervous young men were welcome, ideal customers for the trades practised inside.
The more he tried not to think of what might be happening to Alisha, the more his muscles shook.
Access to each floor was by flowramp. He went up them in sequence, trying not to pause overlong at the fifth floor, seeing the Drone Dollies holosign, then continuing up to the top floor. His hands were bare as he pressed his tu-ring against the wall, sending infiltration sprites through the system, their questing algorithms keyed on Alisha’s appearance. Leaving them running, he stepped back, looked up at the ceiling, then beamed a command. An oval opening melted, revealing green sky, and the edge of a dirigible passing overhead.
No one saw the quickthread tendril descend then haul him up to the roof. He rolled sideways on to the surface as the tendril slurped back and the opening closed up.
A small holo opened, showing Alisha’s location. He transferred a mapping to his smartlenses, and blinked. Now a glowing blue line appeared to cross the roof, leading to the edge and over, with a straight three-storey drop to a highlighted cross-hair target: an innocuous portion of wall. It seemed Drone Dollies’ customers did not care to have windows opening on to the rooms where they received their services.
They can’t have done anything to her yet.
But he knew where she was. He blinked away the visual overlay, no longer needing it, then dabbed at his eyes and threw away his smartlenses. Damn what people might think if they saw obsidian eyes. For the first time in his life, he knew who he was.
From his sleeves, quickglass slithered over his hands, forming gloves once more.
He closed his eyes, visualizing, remembering his last experience being terrified by heights, knowing he had to watch himself as a detached observer in his mind.
Roger, himself, wobbles and nearly falls, walking along a too-narrow ridge in Quiller Park. No, back up. He is calm in the moment before he sees the trail, and starts to get afraid. Then afterwards. Cursing, rubbing tears from his eyes; and finally laughing, realizing he is safe once more.
It was an ancient technique but he never had the motivation to use it. He ran the memory backwards in his mind, five times over, concentrating hard, because the amygdala reacts faster than the frontal lobes, and that was where he had to change the unconscious process that the surface of the mind calls fear, making it ridiculous.
There was no time to create a new visualization of confidence, or to check if the partial neurocognitive recoding had worked. Instead, he extruded tendrils from his left glove, hooked into the roof material, then stepped over the edge, and looked down.
And for a moment, grinned.
Alisha.
He lowered himself into the abseil.
Bands of quickglass formed spirals around his torso, reinforcing the left sleeve and spreading the load, taking strain away from his shoulder. Leaning back, he walked down the wall.
It was an open atrium, and other businesses were less shy than Drone Dollies: they had windows overlooking the quadrangle below. He had the peripheral impression of people inside rooms, but whether they saw him or not, he was too busy to care. He counted steps, estimating his descent, and then he was in place.
His tu-ring broadcast its command signal, and the quickglass wall began to soften. Roger closed his eyes for a second - shit, I am scared - and brought his knees to his chest, torque keeping his soles against the surface so he squatted against the wall.
Oh shit oh shit oh shit.
And he thrust himself away, swinging back, before returning feet-first for the softened area - fuck I’m insane - and then he was sliding through - holy shit - and he was inside.
What he saw and smelled was awful.
Fat pale buttocks pumping, and then the man was rolling off her - ‘Oh God, oh no, I’m sorry’ - his hairy belly wobbling, while the stench of semen was awful. Roger’s only thought was: It shouldn’t be like this.