No, Beauvoir said, snapping the magazine into the Nambu, because they couldnt have known you hadnt stashed it in your mothers place, right?
But maybe they went there and looked...
So how did they know Lucas wasnt carrying it in Ahmed?
Jammer said, walking back to the bar.
Finn thought someone sent those three ninjas to kill him, too, Bobby said. Said they had stuff to make him answer questions first, though...
Maas again, Beauvoir said. Whoever, heres the deal with the Kasuals and Gothicks. Wed know more, but Alix the Lobe got on his high horse and wouldnt parley with Raymond. No co-employment with the hated Kasuals. Near as our cowboys could make out, the armys outside to keep you people in. And to keep people like me out. People with guns and stuff. He handed the loaded Nambu to Jackie. You know how to use a gun? he asked Bobby.
Sure, Bobby lied.
No, Jammer said, we got enough trouble without arming him. Jesus Christ...
What all that suggests to me, Beauvoir said, is that we can expect somebody else to come in after us. Somebody a little more professional...
Unless they just blow Hypermart all to shit and gone, Jammer said, and all those zombies with it...
No, Bobby said, or else theyd already have done it.
They all stared at him.
Give the boy credit, Jackie said. Hes got it right.
Thirty minutes later and Jammer was staring glumly at Beauvoir. I gotta hand it to you. Thats the most half-assed plan Ive heard in a long time.
Yeah, Beauvoir, Bobby cut in, why cant we just crawl back up that vent, sneak across the roof, and get over to the next building? Use the line you came over on.
Theres Kasuals on the roof like flies on shit, Beauvoir said. Some of them might even have brain enough to have found the cap I opened to get down here. I left a couple of baby frag mines on my way in. He grinned mirthlessly. Aside from that, the building next door is taller. I had to go up on that roof and shoot the monomol down to this one. You cant hand-over-hand up monomolecular filament; your fingers fall off.
Then how the hell did you expect to get out? Bobby said.
Drop it, Bobby, Jackie said quietly. Beauvoirs done what he had to do. Now hes in here with us, and were armed
Bobby, Beauvoir said, why dont you run the plan back to us, make sure we understand it.
Bobby had the uncomfortable feeling that Beauvoir wanted to make sure he understood it, but he leaned back against the bar and began. We get ourselves all armed up and we wait, okay? Jammer and I, we go out with his deck and scout around the matrix, maybe we get some idea whats happening.
I think I can handle that by myself, Jammer said.
Shit! Bobby was off the bar Beauvoir said! I wanna go, I wanna jack! How am I ever supposed to learn anything?
Never mind, Bobby, Jackie said, you go on.
Okay, Bobby said, sulkily, so, sooner or later, the guys who hired the Gothicks and Kasuals to keep us here, theyre gonna come for us. When they do, we take em. We get at least one of em alive. Same time, were on our way out, and the Goths n all, they wont expect all the fire-power, so we get to the street and head for the Projects.
I think that about covers it, Jammer said, strolling across the carpet to the locked and curtained door. I think that about sums it up. He pressed his thumb against a coded latch plate and pulled the door half open. Hey, you! he bellowed. Not you! You with the hat! Get your ass over here. I want to talk
The pencil-thick red beam pierced door and curtain, two of Jammers fingers, and winked over the bar. A bottle exploded, its contents billowing out as steam and vaporized esters. Jammer let the door swing shut again, stared at his ruined hand, then sat down hard on the carpet. The club slowly filled with the Christmas-tree smell of boiled gin. Beauvoir took a silver pressure bottle from the bar counter and hosed the smoldering curtain with seltzer, until the CO2 cartridge was exhausted and the stream faltered. Youre in luck, Bobby, Beauvoir said, tossing the bottle over his shoulder, cause brother Jammer, he aint gonna be punching any deck.
Jackie was making clucking sounds over Jammers hand, kneeling down. Bobby caught a glimpse of cauterized flesh, then quickly looked away.
26 THE WIG
YOU KNOW, REZ said, hanging upside down in front of Marly, its strictly no biz of mine, but is somebody maybe expecting you when we get there? I mean, Im taking you there, for sure, and if you cant get in, Ill take you back to JAL Term But if nobody wants to let you in, I dont know how long I want to hang around. That things scrap, and we get some funny people hanging out in the hulks, out here. Rez or Therse, Marly gathered, from the laminated pilots license clipped to the Sweet Janes console had removed her canvas work vest for the trip.
Marly, numb with the rainbow of derms Rez had pasted along her wrist to counteract the convulsive nausea of space adaptation syndrome, stared at the rose tattoo. It had been executed in a Japanese style hundreds of years old, and Marly woozily decided that she liked it. That, in fact, she liked Rez, who was at once hard and girlish and concerned for her strange passenger. Rez had admired her leather jacket and purse, before bundling them into a kind of narrow nylon net hammock already stuffed with cassettes, print books, and unwashed clothing.
I dont know, Marly managed, Ill just have to try to getting...
You know what that thing is, sister? Rez was adjusting the g-web around Marlys shoulders and armpits.
What thing? Marly blinked.
Where were going. Its part of the old Tessier-Ashpool cores. Used to be the mainframes for their corporate memory.
Ive heard of them, Marly said, closing her eyes. Andrea told me
Sure, everybodys heard of em they used to own all of Freeside. Built it, even. Then they went tits up and sold out. Had their family place cut off the spindle and towed to another orbit, but they had the cores wiped before they did that, and torched em off and sold em to a scrapper. The scrappers never done anything with em I never heard anybody was squatting there, but out here you live where you can... I guess thats true for anybody. Like they say that Lady Jane, old Ashpools daughter, shes still living in their old place, stone crazy... She gave the g-web a last professional tug. Okay. You just relax. Im gonna burn Jane hard for twenty minutes, but itll get us there fast, which I figure is what youre paying for...
And Marly slid back into a landscape built all of boxes, vast wooden Cornell constructions where the solid residues of love and memory were displayed behind rain-streaked sheets of dusty glass, and the figure of the mysterious boxmaker fled before her down avenues paved with mosaics of human teeth, Marlys Paris boots clicking blindly over symbols outlined in dull gold crowns. The boxmaker was male and wore Alains green jacket, and feared her above all things. Im sorry, she cried, running after him, Im sorry...
Yeah. Therse Lorenz, the Sweet Jane. You want the numbers? What? Yeah, sure were pirates. Im Captain fucking Hook already... Look, Jack, lemme give you the numbers, you can check it out... I said already. I gotta passenger. Request permission, et Goddamn cetera... Marly Something, speaks French in her sleep...
Manys lids flickered, opened Rez was webbed in front of her, each small muscle of her back precisely defined. Hey, Rez said, twisting around in the web, Im sorry. I raised em for you, but they sound pretty flaky. You religious?
No, Marly said, baffled.