Crash Deluxe (26 page)

James’s and mine.
Three little words that continued to burn into me. A warning and a crucial item of information all at once.

Don’t let them know about us, Parrish
, they told me.
Don’t for a second let them know.

I let go of Kat’s hand. She looked amazing. Lean and magnificent, skin sheen courtesy of the best nutrient supplements and the perfect muscle tone of the physically elite - how easy to believe she could leap tall buildings and outrun a fire.

And sexy, her breasts swelling in the vee of her suit coat. She wore nothing underneath it, the material so fine that you could see the sculpting of her muscles, the curve of her back.

Only the slightest tell-tale yellowing of her eyes told me that her liver was under stress. The tightness around her mouth indicated duress of a different type.

In one choreographed movement Kat tore her hair free of its tight braid and let it spill down over her shoulders. The highlights glinted with obscene health.

I suddenly knew why I hated narcissism.

It had come between us always - beauty and self-interest before sisterhood.

Just look where those different values had gotten us.

I
definitely
had it wrong.

Kat interrupted my silent musings with a sharp nudge to indicate I should make room for Monk.

I glanced across at Lindstrom.

He eyed me greedily and I wondered what he’d been told I could - or would - do.

‘Lat, I must apologise for Jales’s appearance. She had a most unfortunate accident, tripping and falling from the cable car. It hasn’t, of course, dampened her spirits. Jales?’

I nodded, still incapable of getting my tongue to play the seductress. My mind was too busy making sense of events; accepting that
Kat
must have recommended my ‘services’ to Monk; and that it was
Kat
who had stepped over me last night. Kat with the new silky, cultured voice. What had she been doing these last few years? And why was she with Monk?

I had to talk to her.

‘I like it. It’s so butch. Come stand next to me, Jales. Tall women always make me feel so safe.’ Lindstrom gurgled like a baby.

Kat and I exchanged glances, brief, innocent enough: a collusion of tall women - not sisters.

Before I could reply, our happy tête-à-tête grew by two.

‘Laud.’ Monk’s voice had a tighter edge. ‘I hope you are content.’

The ex-musician of the media-famous
ménage à trois
stepped into the circle, bringing his dance partner along.

If this got any more ridiculous I’d laugh till I died.

It did.

The band started up.
Garter Thin and the VBs.

I kept my back to them . . . just in case.

Introductions led to more talk. More drugs. Around us the crowd loosened, lubricated by whatever they needed to lower their inhibitions. But wherever our circle drifted on the dais the invisible barrier kept them at bay.

‘You kidnapped the kid to get me here,’ I said quietly to Kat when I got the chance.

‘Yes.’ Her eyes were sharp despite the amount of alcohol she’d drunk.

‘Why?’

She slipped open her coat and showed me a brief glimpse of the scarring on her ribs. ‘The organ rejuves won’t take. I can’t play any more. I got this . . . job and I saw what was happening. I wanted you to have a chance to prove that you didn’t kill Razz. You didn’t, did you?’ she whispered.

I wanted to believe her - that she had my best interests at heart. But I didn’t know her any more. ‘Where’s Wombebe?’ I said urgently.

Kat leaned closer to whisper but Esky Laud interrupted us, complaining to me about the quality of the band.

I agreed heartily even though I wanted a gorge to open and swallow him for his bad timing. ‘Yes, they suck.’

On my other side, Monk was back in Kat’s face. ‘Go and flirt with the male whore. It will annoy Laud. If you are good, I might watch you both later,’ he told her loud enough for me to hear.

Kat’s Intimate brought her a tiny box. Obediently she selected a patch from it and slid it under her tongue. She kept her gaze averted from mine as she crossed the circle and slipped her arm through Loyl’s.

Kat and Daac flirting.

He seemed captivated by her.

Laud got petulant. Monk seemed entertained by it as he kept up a quiet monologue into his comm.

Inside me emotions welled that I hadn’t felt since living at home, and all the while Lindstrom’s sweaty hand roamed my back.

Only a bit longer
, I told myself.
Just put up with this crap a bit longer.

 

Sera Bau made her entrance around one a.m. as I drank straight from the champagne bottle.

Lindstrom had wedged his crotch against my thigh, rubbing against me like a tom-cat happy to find a tree that his competitor had urinated on.

Possession. I hated it.

And soon it would be over.

I felt the wash of Eskaalim adrenalin purge me of all the deceptions and the pretence. In a few moments I could be Parrish again.

Without regret.

Whatever the consequences.

Finally.

I idled in those minutes like a prizefighter preparing for the ring, a runner for the race. From a distance and without emotion I watched everything being played out in front of me. Daac and Kat dancing close, Monk working, Lindstrom pawing me, the sharp tone of Garter Thin’s voice pack, the whiteness of the fish against the silver tray the waiter brandished, the security drone.

Sera Bau making her way towards her host. Gracious, powerful and dirty with death.

At another level I ran a check of the things I had planned, right up to my feelings when the creator came face to face with what she had created.

I didn’t contemplate failure. What would be the point?

Win or die was how I would play it.

I keyed the numbers of the complimentary diary I’d planted in the Orchid House into Merry 3# and pushed connect.

As I took the first step, Daac let go of Kat and whirled towards me as if he’d been waiting. My name formed on his lips.

I faltered for the briefest of seconds, testament to the feelings I had for him, and gave him a smile. No apologies. Not angry. Not smug.

Just me. Parrish.

His face was stripped of artifice. He reached out for me but it was too late for that.

Way too late.

The explosion rained unique orchids and shredded bark chip down the mountainside on to the roof of the pavilion. I catapulted Lindstrom straight into Sera Bau’s closest bodyguard and broke the champagne bottle on the bar. I put the jagged edge to Bau’s throat and the whole party went crazy.

 

 

 

 

S
era Bau was pretty calm on the face of it. More so than me. I was on an adrenalin rocket. I tried to look everywhere at once. Behind and above at the security drones, at Monk, Loyl and Kat. At the party-goers running for the cable cars and scrambling to hide under tables. Everyone was going somewhere.

‘What do you want?’ she breathed.

‘I want to show you something.’

‘Couldn’t you have just asked?’

Her perfume was so subtle and pervasive that I guessed it was manufactured in the pores of her skin. I wondered what other personal accoutrements she had. What weapons were concealed under the folds of her evening wear?

‘Strip.’

Her composure slipped. ‘No.’

I raised my voice to the knot of security that had gathered around us. ‘If anyone bothers me I will cut her head off. Even this expensive body won’t recover from that.’

Their expressions showed disbelief and expectation. Disbelief that this was real. Expectation that the hoax drama would end.

The moment stretched against a backdrop of confusion and panic.

‘Believe her. She’ll do it.’ Daac’s voice came loud and hoarse from the back of the group. I heard the emotion in his tone. I’d just signed a death sentence for myself. It bothered him and that made me glad.

Now he was risking himself by adding weight to my threat - a sacrifice. I forgave him a lot for that.

Laud’s bodyguards were straight on to him. I couldn’t do anything to help.

His choice.

Instead I sought Monk. His mouth moved, issuing instructions to his security.

When he howled I figured that he’d worked out what the explosion had brought crashing down the side of his hill. Yet he didn’t look to me. His stare was fixed on Kat. The woman who had convinced him to let me inside his sanctum.

What my actions meant for her, and for Loyl, and for Mal waiting for me on the top of the mountain - I didn’t know. But the thing had gone too far now. I couldn’t worry about their fates. They had to fight their own battles.

‘Strip now or I will cut out your comm implant with this.’ I held the broken bottle against Bau’s neck and nicked the skin on the side of the transceiver. From the confusion on her face I reckoned it was enough to interrupt her data-flow.

She gagged and swallowed, then began to peel off her dress. The silk dropped to the floor like a puddle of tequila. I kicked it out of the way.

She stood there in her underwear, her flesh pimpling and Monk’s cams recording it all. How long before he went LTA on what was happening? Or was he already? A real hostage drama of this importance from his raw feed.

Would it be enough?

‘You’re going to bend down now and unstrap your shoes. Slowly,’ I said.

She jerked her head in agreement and leaned away from me.

I was watching the crowd so hard I almost missed her ambush.

Only my olfaugs saved me. I detected the scent of poison soon as it was released from her sweat glands. My vision started to swim.

Glancing down, I saw that she was holding her breath and I thumped her on the back. She took an involuntary breath and inhaled.

‘Switch it off,’ I gasped.

She coughed several times and the scent abated.

‘Try that again and I
will
skin you.’

I felt her first tremor of fear - an acknowledgement that I was serious and crazy, not just crazy.

‘What do you really want?’ she hissed.

‘Come. I’ll show you.’ I wrenched her upright and addressed the crowd around us, particularly Monk. ‘We’re going to walk out of here. I’m going to take Sera Bau for a ride. Then I’m going to bring her back. Nothing will happen to her. Clear?’

Monk stood frozen, desire for revenge radiating from his skin. I wondered what he would convince the Militia to give me for blowing up his precious plants. Prolonged life in quod with augmented memory?

To one side of him, Kat smiled and nodded. The faintest of movements. I was doing what she’d hoped.

Whatever that was.

We backed slowly off the dais. I held Bau by the neck, feeling her fury and embarrassment at her near-nakedness.

I walked us backwards to Monk’s luge, counting the steps and the kinks in the path.

Not one stumble, until one of my feet twisted on the luge rail.

I fell sideways, dragging Bau down with me.

It was all any decent sniper needed. He took a shot, grazing my arm, but I was so jacked that I barely felt the burning.

Another from behind. This one in my shoulder.

I dragged us upright again and sliced into the gel coating Bau’s comm transceiver. She screamed with the pain of an information junkie denied her juice.

‘Stop,’ she begged. ‘Not that.’

With relief I heard the luge slide in behind us as I’d programmed it to. I leaned back to spring the hatch but as I did I copped a rifle muzzle in the face. A guard started to lever himself out.

‘Give me the bottle,’ he ordered.

Bau relaxed in my grip, thinking she’d been saved.

The guards who had followed me from the dais surged towards us, then stopped again as the guard in the luge exploded.

Deafened in one ear, I ran a check of my body parts. Still in one piece but decorated with blood and bits of flesh.

Bau screamed in my good ear. Those who hadn’t run to the cable car joined in - all the frightened, bright galahs screeching together.

Who had done that?

Kat. She was kneeling down near a bush, a pistol in her hand. She hadn’t used one before much. I could tell by the way she held it. It had been a lucky shot.

‘I’m coming with you,’ she shouted and threw the pistol to me.

I caught it with one hand as she ran towards me. Quicker than any of them. Quicker than me.

I fired two shots to cover her but then the ammo ran out. A bullet hit her while she was still a few body lengths away from me.

She fell heavily and Monk’s guards swarmed towards her.

‘Parrish—’ she gasped.

‘Get over here,’ I bellowed, caught between conflicting impulses. ‘Get over here - I can’t help you from there.’

She ignored me, collecting her breath to finish her sentence. ‘I’m sorry about the kid . . . thought she’d be safe in the cage . . . Had no idea you would—’

Monk was on her then, strangling her unconscious.

The fist that had closed over my heart when Roo died tore it clean out of my chest.
In the cage
. . . I wanted to scream but I was on a road and travelling at speed - that didn’t allow pulling over to indulge in histrionics.

I scooped what was left of the guard out of the luge and pushed Sera Bau into the small compartment, wedging myself alongside.

She was still screaming at me.

I punched her in the mouth as we shot to the top of the mountain.

Monk tried to override the controls all the way up but my patch held and we made it to the top.