It was the kind of scheme Howie had been trying to emulate all his life. Perfect, in every way. Relief from tedium for the men, fewer bored sighs for the women to endure—and free labor for the Maxen Corporation, cheaper even than droids. Everybody won, but Cedrif Maxen won most of all. Thirty years later he was the richest man in New Richmond—and now his youngest son had it all.
That’s the history, for those of you who’re interested, but that wasn’t what I was thinking about. Walking into the store had carelessly wiped a cloth across a window blackened and opaque with time. The path of that cloth was still filthy, but just transparent enough to reveal glints on the edges of memories lost in the darkness beyond. I’d tried so hard not to think of any of it. Not even of the horror at the end, just of the times before that Bad things done, and said; things which could never be undone. Not just the bad, either; good and bad memories hurt in different ways, but they hurt just about the same.
At that moment, I would have given anything to walk round a shoe store following Henna’s glee, watching the way her eyes calculated cost, the way her hands reached out to caress and assay, it could never happen, and for a moment I was seized with a distraught desire to go down to 72 and the clothes left in our old apartment; to look at them, touch them, see if I could remember the day when they were bought. To try to take myself back to that day and this time not grunt and yawn, or bury myself in MaxWork, but be there with her and live every minute as it passed. So many minutes, and hours; so many days ignored away. And then suddenly it’s over, and she can never come back, and all that time returns to stay.
At a squeal from the shop door I looked up to see Suej running toward me. It took me a long moment to recognize her. I’d never seen her face looking that happy, and she was wearing different clothes. My cast-offs were gone, and she was wearing a thin summer dress, a subtle print that twisted and changed as she moved. She looked younger, and older; like someone I knew and someone I’d never seen before. Behind her came Nearly, a wry smile on her lips and a different look in her eyes. As Suej thudded into me and wrapped her arms around me I raised an eyebrow at Nearly, and she shrugged.
“Been a good month,” she said.
And then, an afternoon that really felt like summer, though winter was in full force outside. I found I still couldn’t go in the stores, but waited happily enough outside, smoking on benches and standing in doorways, nodding sagely when required. A coat for Suej, at Nearly’s insistence, and a small bag to keep her nonexistent things in. Almost the last of Howie’s money from me, on a pair of shoes’ to go with the dress. Coffee and sandwiches in the square, surrounded by the contentedly weary; Suej’s eyes as they went from bag to bag, alight with acquisitive joy.
We should have been running, or I should have been searching for the rest of the spares. A man I didn’t know had my death on his mind, and the spares didn’t have anyone but me to care about what happened to them. But this was an afternoon I should have had long ago, and while having it now didn’t change anything, at least it was one that was squared away. You have to accept gifts occasionally, because there are some things you can’t give yourself. That afternoon was a small present from the gods, one which was heavily overdue. I took it, and was glad.
It took a long time for the pennies to start dropping. I’ve no real excuse for that; guess I’m just a stupid man. At least when they did they fell together, like a scattered handful of change.
We were sitting in a bar on 67 at the time, it was mid-evening and I was within shouting distance of drunk. I can’t help it. That’s the way I am. The bar was long and old fashioned; the walls wood paneled, with hanging TV screens burbling in corners. Someone had gone to the trouble of building small rectangular contraptions to house the flat LCD sheets so they resembled antique TV sets, and the overall effect was of a bygone age. The patrons were talking fast and hard, and seemed to be having a good time. As far as I could tell, I was having one too.
Nearly and I were drinking steadily, sitting with Suej in a raised booth. I was vaguely considering the idea of food—a burger the size of Texas with everything on it, possibly; Nearly had already eaten a salad and a twenty-degree slice of pecan pie. I think the afternoon had quieted us all down, and we weren’t talking much. I’d learned a small amount of Nearly’s history, but hadn’t told her any of mine. She was twenty-six and had been in the life for four years, operating toward the higher end of the scale. She reckoned that by thirty she’d have enough to get out, and I was trying not to picture what she’d look like by then. I gathered that Suej must have given her the bones of my last five years, because Nearly’s attitude toward me seemed to have altered. I couldn’t put my finger on what the difference was. I’d obviously changed from being just a big violent dude with a drug problem, but to what I wasn’t sure.
It was during a break in the conversation that the first small revelation came. I was looking vaguely in Suej’s direction, watching her finish her burger, her jaws chomping gamely as her eyes followed people with fascination.
And blearily I thought: Maybe she’s the key.
The guy with the blue lights had to have been part of the team who killed Mal and took the spares. Yet when I’d returned to Mal’s building, far from taking me out, he’d stopped Rat-face from trying to kill me. He must have known I would try and avenge Mal, and it had probably been he who’d kept me in New Richmond by hiding Mal’s body. I could only think of one possible reason for wanting me to be still alive and in the city: Blue Lights hadn’t yet gotten something that he’d been sent to find, and I was the key to him getting it.
He had all the spares, except one.
“My treat,” said Nearly, necking the last of her wine. “But I’m going to the John first.” She winked, a pantomime gesture which involved most of her face and half her upper body, and I guessed a pharmaceutical top-up was on the agenda. I watched her as she made her way across the floor to the ladies’, drawing a quiver of appreciative glances. She was living proof that being top-to-bottom slim didn’t stop you from looking like a woman. Meantime, my mind was working. For the first time in two days I felt awake.
Suej was important: to make up the set, or in her own right? If the set was the issue Nanune wouldn’t have died the way she did. I suddenly believed that whoever had set Blue Lights on us was mainly interested in Suej, and that he’d been waiting for me to lead him to her. By keeping her stashed I’d inadvertently been doing the right thing, which figured. My good moves are generally accidents.
Did that make him SafetyNet? Not necessarily. I couldn’t believe that the corporation would allow an operative to conduct business in the way he did. Plus three other missing links:
1) The day we blew the Farm, it was Jenny they had wanted. Her twin had to have been near death for the operations they were considering. So how come Suej was the issue now?
2) What was Blue Lights’s problem with Vinaldi? How could Vinaldi fit with a SafetyNet scenario?