He was right. It was one thing to get hassled by the System Pigs; everyone did. It was one thing to even get charged with something-everyone did, eventually. But to really piss off a cop, to maybe get your name thrown around a DIA Blank Room, to maybe have the whole fucking SSF on your ass for revenge-shit, I wouldn’t want to be seen talking to me either. Even the Crushers would stop taking your bribes.
I looked up and rubbed my stubble. “Okay, let’s move.”
It was good to move when you’d decided the time had come, because people who hesitate tend to get popped. I grabbed my coat and started walking, and Gatz was right behind me. Down the escalator, shrugging our coats on, and then into the street, still a mess of humanity pushing against the walls around them and looking for a way out. The whole fucking world was like this. There was no place left to go.
We’d only made it about six blocks against the tide when Gatz stumbled and put a hand to his head, just fingertips on his forehead, and winced. “Oh, shit, I feel like shit.”
I was debating whether I wanted to go check on him or just leave him be, whether I really needed an introduction to Marcel after all, fuck, he’d know me, everyone in New York knew Avery Cates. But then I heard it: hover displacement. And then everyone in the street was moving and shouting.
“Police!”
“Cops!”
“Policia!”
“Pigs!”
“SSF!”
A second before the searchlight hit me, I closed my eyes and knew I was fucked.
The light made everyone scatter, and within seconds Gatz and I were standing in a bright pool of light, and the rest of the fuckers were crawling along the edges of the light, staying clear of it. Figuring, fuck, if the Pigs weren’t interested in them, why make them interested? Fucking roaches, running from light.
I adjusted my sunglasses and considered. The hover was about ten seconds from close enough to drop Stormers-but they could always shoot you down in the street, too. The fucking cops could do whatever the fuck they wanted. If they hadn’t shot me yet, I reasoned that they weren’t going to, so I stood there, and kept my hands in the open.
The fucking hover landed.
I’d never seen an SSF hover land in the street. People went diving in all directions as it settled heavily on the asphalt, just a few feet away from me. Displacement kicked up. It was like standing in the path of a hurricane for a moment, wind whipping mercilessly, my face trying to peel off my skull. The street was just barely wide enough. The fucking bastards kept the searchlight on me and Gatz, trying to blind us. I’d had my glasses made specially for that, though, and I could see fine.
Little things made you feel good, when it came to the System Pigs.
The hatch popped open and two Stormers were out, darker than shadows in their black Obfuscation Kit, the uniforms taking on the color and texture of whatever they were standing in front of as they moved, giving me an instant headache. In ObFu, the bastards could stand against a wall and blend in like goddamn chameleons, and you’d never see them until they moved for you.
These two just knelt and covered me and Gatz with their KL-101s, automatic rifles with built-in grenade launchers. I made a mental note not to move. I knew I should be terrified, but I just felt empty. And tired.
“Weapons!” one of the Stormers shouted. “We want to see weapons!”
I nodded and slowly pulled my gun from its shoulder holster, my backup from the small of my back, and a razor from my boot, leaving them on the ground in front of me. Gatz just shook his head.
“Weapons, fuckface!” the other Stormer shouted.
“I don’t have any!” Gatz shouted back, bless his soul.
The Stormers looked at each other, apparently having never heard of such a thing. Gatz relied on the Push to get him by. After a moment, however, the decision was made, because a couple of hapless Crushers in their loose, generic uniforms were dispatched to give us both an old-fashioned frisk, rough and thorough. Satisfied, they signaled and a System Cop emerged from the hover and stepped forward, looking dapper in a perfectly tailored suit and a mind-blowingly expensive overcoat. He glowed with health.
I hated him, hated them all, strutting around wearing more than I fucking earned in a year, and me earning it with blood everywhere, staining me forever. Motherfucker.
“Avery Cates, Kev Gatz,” the motherfucker drawled. “Elias Moje, colonel, SSF.” He nodded curtly. “Come on, then.” He was about my size, but broader and heavier, carrying himself like a man used to throwing his weight around and getting the desired response. His salt-and-pepper hair was cut close, and a neat beard pointed downward from his chin. He grinned, but his eyes didn’t. His suit was tailored, the material expensive, but what really drew the eye was his walking stick: black and shellacked and covered in thorns, its pommel a thick, heavy knot.
Outside the bright circle of light, I could see the gray mass of people moving like water, roiling, scrabbling, looking over their shoulders at us. I smiled at Moje, enjoying the curiously numb feeling that smothered all the fear, all the anger. “Nervous?”
He blinked, and then laughed. He threw his head back, and a rich, easy laugh emerged from him, spilling out in bubbling waves. “Mr. Cates, that’s hilarious. Now, move it. You’re late for an appointment with DIA Chief Marin.”
I had already started to head for the hover-when the SSF sends a fucking hover to pick you up, you’re already in deep shit and struggling will just make you sink faster-but the name Marin made me stumble a little.
All I knew about Dick Marin was what everyone else knew. He was the director of the SSF Department of Internal Affairs.
It was likely that Marin was the most powerful man on the planet, aside from twenty-five old bastards from around the world who called all the shots, the Joint Council (theoretically elected, but I couldn’t recall an election). The DIA had been formed as a check on the System Cops, who were otherwise almost totally autonomous. The SSF had authority over everyone-the entire System. The DIA was the only body with authority over the cops. And at the top of that pyramid was Director Richard Marin. The facts on Marin were scarce: He’d been a real shitheel cop, a total bust, incompetent, lacking the usual cruelty and arrogance, his career saved only when he got shot about six million times in some remote hellhole in the Pacific. After years of physical rehab, he’d emerged as the newly minted director of the SSFDIA, the King Worm, newly molted. That was it for sure-thing facts.
Walking slowly toward the hover, knowing that I would be on all the Vids in a few minutes, I closed my eyes. I thought, with calm, defeated happiness: I’m fucked.
VII
GRIN ON THE TOP OF MY HEAD LIKE HEAT FROM A SUN
I’d never actually been in a Blank Room. It was all in gray. Everything, gray. After about ten minutes I started to wonder if I was going blind. I was starving; I hadn’t eaten since yesterday, and felt thinned, wasted. There was an almost imperceptible hum in the air, but whenever I concentrated, it seemed to disappear.
They left me for a long time, just me and the cup of coffee. I didn’t know what they did with Gatz, and I didn’t worry over it for very long. The coffee confused me. I hadn’t had real coffee in months, and the smell of it made my stomach hurt. I’d never been brought in by the System Cops and not beaten up.
When the door snicked open I didn’t get the goon squad I’d expected. Instead, I got a single man. Short, well-dressed, wearing a pair of snazzy wrap-around sunglasses, and moving in sudden bursts. And smiling. He entered the room at a brisk walk and didn’t stop until he was looming over me, holding out one hand.