SPEAK.
I looked around and back at the screen.
No one.
I cleared my throat.
The characters blurred and shifted. SELECT LANGUAGE.
“I’m looking for a room,” I tried, in Japanese out of pure curiosity.
The screen jumped into life so dramatically that I took a step backwards. From whirling, multi-coloured fragments it rapidly assembled a tanned Asian face above a dark collar and tie. The face smiled and changed into a Caucasian female, aged fractionally, and I was facing a blonde thirty-year-old woman in a sober business suit. Having generated my interpersonal ideal, the hotel also decided that I couldn’t speak Japanese after all.
“Good day, sir. Welcome to the Hotel Hendrix, established 2087 and still here today. How may we serve you?”
I repeated my request, following the move into Amanglic.
“Thank you, sir. We have a number of rooms, all fully cabled to the city’s information and entertainment stack. Please indicate your preference for floor and size.”
“I’d like a tower room, west facing. The biggest you’ve got.”
The face recoiled into a corner inset and a three-dimensional skeleton of the hotel’s room structure etched itself into place. A selector pulsed efficiently through the rooms and stopped in one corner, then blew up and rotated the room in question. A column of fine print data shuttered down on one side of the screen.
“The Watchtower suite, three rooms, dormitory thirteen point eight seven metres by—
“That’s fine, I’ll take it.”
The three-dimensional map disappeared like a conjuror’s trick and the woman leapt back to full screen.
“How many nights will you be with us, sir?”
“Indefinite.”
“A deposit is required,” said the hotel diffidently, “For stays of more than fourteen days the sum of six hundred dollars UN should be deposited now. In the event of departure before said fourteen days, a proportion of this deposit will be refunded.”
“Fine.”
“Thank you sir.” From the tone of voice, I began to suspect that paying customers were a novelty at the Hotel Hendrix. “How will you be paying?”
“DNA trace. First Colony Bank of California.”
The payment details were scrolling out when I felt a cold circle of metal touch the base of my skull.
“That’s exactly what you think it is,” said a calm voice. “You do the wrong thing, and the cops are going to be picking bits of your cortical stack out of that wall for weeks. I’m talking about real death, friend. Now, lift your hands away from your body.”
I complied, feeling an unaccustomed chill shoot up my spine to the point the gun muzzle was touching. It was a while since I’d been threatened with real death.
“That’s good,” said the same calm voice. “Now, my associate here is going to pat you down. You let her do that, and no sudden moves.”
“Please key your DNA signature onto the pad beside this screen.” The hotel had accessed First Colony’s database. I waited impassively while a slim, black-clad woman in a ski mask stepped around and ran a purring grey scanner over me from head to foot. The gun at my neck never wavered. It was no longer cold. My flesh had warmed it to a more intimate temperature.
“He’s clean.” Another crisp, professional voice. “Basic neurachem, but it’s inoperative. No hardware.”
“Really? Travelling kind of light, aren’t you, Kovacs?”
My heart dropped out of my chest and landed soggily in my guts. I’d hoped this was just local crime.
“I don’t know you,” I said cautiously, turning my head a couple of millimetres. The gun jabbed and I stopped.
“That’s right, you don’t. Now, here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to walk outside—
“Credit access will cease in thirty seconds,” said the hotel patiently. “Please key in your DNA signature now.”
“Mr Kovacs won’t be needing his reservation,” said the man behind me, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Come on, Kovacs, we’re going for a ride.”
“I cannot assume host prerogatives without payment,” said the woman on the screen.
Something in the tone of that phrase stopped me as I was turning, and on impulse I forced out a sudden, racking cough.
“What—”
Bending forward with the force of the cough, I raised a hand to my mouth and licked my thumb.
“The fuck are you playing at, Kovacs?”
I straightened again and snapped my hand out to the keypad beside the screen. Traces of fresh spittle smeared over the matt black receiver. A split second later a calloused palm edge cracked into the left side of my skull and I collapsed to my hands and knees on the floor. A boot lashed into my face and I went the rest of the way down.
“Thank you sir.” I heard the voice of the hotel through a roaring in my head. “Your account is being processed.”
I tried to get up and got a second boot in the ribs for the trouble. Blood dripped from my nose onto the carpet. The barrel of the gun ground into my neck.
“That wasn’t smart, Kovacs.” The voice was marginally less calm. “If you think the cops are going to trace us where you’re going, then the stack must have fucked your brain. Now get up!”
He was pulling me to my feet when the thunder cut loose.
Why someone had seen fit to equip the Hendrix’s security systems with twenty-millimetre automatic cannon was beyond me, but they did the job with devastating totality. Out of the corner of one eye I glimpsed the twin-mounted autoturret come snaking down from the ceiling just a moment before it channelled a three-second burst of fire through my primary assailant. Enough firepower to bring down a small aircraft. The noise was deafening.
The masked woman ran for the doors, and with the echoes of fire still hammering in my ears I saw the turret swivel to follow. She made about a dozen paces through the gloom before a prism of ruby laser light dappled across her back and a fresh fusillade exploded in the confines of the lobby. I clapped both hands over my ears, still on my knees, and the shells punched through her. She went over in a graceless tangle of limbs.
The firing stopped.
In the cordite reeking quiet that followed, nothing moved. The autoturret had gone dormant, barrels slanting at a downward angle, smoke coiling from the breeches. I unclasped my hands from my ears and climbed to my feet, pressing gingerly on my nose and face to ascertain the extent of the damage done. The bleeding seemed to be slowing down and though there were cuts in my mouth I couldn’t find any loosened teeth. My ribs hurt where the second kick had hit me, but it didn’t feel as if anything was broken. I glanced over at the nearest corpse, and wished I hadn’t. Someone was going to have to get a mop.
To my left an elevator door opened with a faint chime.
“Your room is ready, sir,” said the hotel.
Chapter Six
Kristin Ortega was remarkably restrained.
She came through the hotel doors with a loping stride that bounced one heavily weighted jacket pocket against her thigh, came to a halt in the centre of the lobby and surveyed the carnage with her tongue thrust into one cheek.
“You do this sort of thing a lot, Kovacs?”
“I’ve been waiting a while,” I told her mildly. “I’m not in a great mood.”
The hotel had placed a call to the Bay City police about the time the autoturret had cut loose, but it was a good half hour before the first cruisers came spiralling down out of the sky traffic. I hadn’t bothered to go to my room, since I knew they were going to drag me out of bed anyway, and once they arrived there was no question of me going anywhere until Ortega got there. A police medic gave me a cursory check, ascertained that I wasn’t suffering from concussion and left me with a retardant spray to stop the nose bleed, after which I sat in the lobby and let my new sleeve smoke some of the lieutenant’s cigarettes. I was still sitting there an hour later when she arrived.