‘He still does. He puts himself first. Watch him, Jack.’
Fist cut in. [Sounds like a fucking psychopath to me.]
Jack ignored him. ‘That’s not the sort of thing I’d expect to hear from someone’s wife,’ he told Andrea.
‘Harry and I help each other out,’ she replied, ‘but you should know we’re not a couple any more.’
For a moment something in Jack thrilled. Then he remembered that the Andrea he’d known was dead. He covered his confusion by standing up and turning away, reaching for his coat.
‘I’ll come out with you.’
‘No. I don’t want you walking with me.’
‘For safety?’
‘In part. But also – this.’ She indicated her cowl. ‘Entertainment venues have a special licence. People don’t always like being reminded what they’re listening to. So, they hide the bone. Outside, there’s nothing like that. It shows.’
‘But – I don’t mind.’
‘I do, Jack. You’ll walk in the street behind me. You’ll stay back all the way. You can see me when we’re back home and I’m wearing my true face again.’
‘I can look away.’
‘Wait two minutes, then follow me. I’ve flicked my permissions so you can see me outside. I’ll wait at the head of the street, then I’ll start walking. I won’t look back. If you do try and catch up, I’ll let myself fall back into the Coffin Drives. I’ll make sure Harry finds you, but you won’t be seeing me ever again.’
Chapter 14
The late evening street was half-empty. Dim spinelight painted grey shadows across the road. Andrea was at the end of the street, facing away from Jack. She no longer wore a cowl. Her skull was moon-white in the darkness, seeming to shine with its own light.
[Let’s go see what she looks like!] said Fist. [ You won’t really miss her, Jack. 3! 2! 1! Go!]
Jack stood by the club exit and waited. After thirty seconds or so, Andrea moved away round the corner. He followed.
[ Run, Jack, run!]
Prayer Heights gave way to Kanji District. The streets became busier. For a while they were on a main road. Throngs were enjoying a night out, chasing after entertainment that ranged from the virtuous to the vicious. Andrea moved ahead of Jack, a dissonant presence in the festive crowds. Jack remembered how she’d dragged him out to explore Docklands. She took a hatchet to what he now recognised as snobbery, forcing him to find ways of enjoying his birthplace again.
He wondered if their favourite bar, the Vista Club, was still open. It had always been a specialised taste. It was set deep in the meteor gash that gave the Wound its name, showing views of the distant, broken Earth. They’d spent some great nights in there together.
Jack had spent hours alone there too, watching storms tear at the dead lands below, mulling over the past and the future. His thoughts had often drifted to the war machines that still ravaged Earth. Sometimes there was a sharp burst of light beneath the clouds – some war-machine battle reaching a climax that resolved nothing. Sometimes the light would be higher up, nearly in space – one of the Rose’s satellites neutralising an attempt to escape Earth’s gravity well. East would soon trumpet her success. Most of the bar would applaud, then turn back to drinks and quiet conversations.
Jack’s thoughts drifted away from the dead Earth towards other, subtler struggles. It was easier than he’d thought to be walking towards Harry. The affair ended because Andrea had rejected Jack. That helped Jack feel he’d not at last taken anything of any real significance from Harry. Guilt settled in him, almost falling away entirely. Then Jack thought of Andrea’s passing. It struck him that he’d barely mourned her. He wondered if, with that realisation, grief would come. But there was nothing. Jack looked ahead to the woman he was following. Through her fetch, Andrea was such a vivid presence in his life. It was impossible to feel any real sense of loss.
The streets became quieter. Jack should have been able to relax a bit, but he found that he was still tense. In Kanji District, the buildings were carved from asteroid shards, creating narrow passages edged by sharp rock fragments. Years ago, Jack had found these buildings comfortingly substantial, the streets snugly enclosed. Now their high dark walls seemed oppressive. Each shard was pierced with silent windows. To Jack they all seemed empty, but some of the street-level ones must be bright with music and movement, catching at the eyes of the woven. Small crowds gathered round them, staring into darkness.
[ If I was uncaged,] remarked Fist, [ I’d be able to make those windows show them whatever I wanted. I wonder how many people I could make scream? Or vomit?] Jack ignored him. Fist chattered on nonetheless. [ This cage, Jack. I hate it! Held back like this. It’s like working for you, only worse. At least we wiped a few minds before you trapped us in that prison.] He was silent for a bit, then, [So many people at that window! It’s got to be shagging, that’s the only thing that draws a crowd like that. I’d crack the shop front style sheet and replace them with – I don’t know – dead bodies? Two corpses fucking. Mind you, they’d probably lap it up. Never underestimate the masses, old boy. Oh, I forgot. We’re off to visit a dead man ourselves, aren’t we? The social whirl, Jack, the social whirl …]
The Kanji shards receded. At last Jack found himself in a quiet backstreet of compact multi-storey housing units. They were built from rectangular oil tanks, piled up seemingly at random. A light breeze forced resonance on them, creating a strange, low moaning sound. One of the units had been painted with bright, geometric designs. Andrea stopped at it and pressed her hand against the door. Jack stopped too, wary of getting too close. He could just see small squares flashing beneath her fingers. The tiny lightshow ended and Andrea vanished. [Lost her again!] giggled Fist.
Jack walked towards the house. The door opened, revealing darkness. And then the dead came out to meet him. Soft light shimmered in the shadows of the doorway. It flashed and sparkled and slowly began to coalesce into something coherent. Jack imagined drives somewhere humming with activity, sifting through a lifetime’s worth of carefully managed photographs, family films, CCTV footage; picking out just the right self to display. A pair of shoes appeared, beautifully polished, and then the rolled up bottoms of two trouser legs. He recognised the shoes – handmade to a strictly limited design, stitched together from pseudo-cowhide grown in one of the farm stations hanging in close orbit to Station. Harry once boasted that the five year lease on them had cost him six months’ salary. ‘Take that to Homelands and show it to your posh friends,’ he’d said. ‘Even they’d have to admit – quality.’
The reconstruction stopped for a moment, halfway up Harry’s legs. It was as if the rest of him was lost in shadow. Normally fetches didn’t appear in such a theatrical way. Jack wondered if this was an artefact of Harry’s self-managed status. A belt buckle gleamed in the darkness. Then there were two arms, then a chest, then more. At first, Harry’s face was little more than a soft blur. The weave ground through more life data and it sharpened into focus. The imprecision of his soft, slightly overweight face was perfectly caught. Two sharp eyes appeared. There was a moment of stillness as the fetch found a language that was uniquely Harry’s, then it opened its mouth and spoke.
‘Jack!’ He still had his strong Docklands accent. ‘Great to see you, old man. And your little friend, too. I’ve heard so much about him. Come in, come in, where it’s warm and safe.’
Jack pulled the front door shut behind him. A harsh, metallic clang reverberated through the apartment as Harry bustled down the hallway. ‘Andrea,’ he shouted, his voice a collage of memories, ‘how could you leave him standing out in the cold?’ Harry’s warmth made guilt pang in Jack. He followed him into the sitting room. A sofa and a couple of armchairs faced each other across a little coffee table. They had the unused freshness of a publicity image for one of Silver’s furniture brands.