Principles of Angels (4 page)

Read Principles of Angels Online

Authors: Jaine Fenn

 
That had to be the Assembly building; Taro had heard somewhere that those pillars were made of real stone.
 
The enclosed lift ride down to Street level was a relief after the wide-open spaces surrounding the circle-car, though gravity bit extra hard when it stopped, leaving his knees aching.
 
He wasn’t sure how long he had before the removal was due, or where to watch from, but he decided to get nearer to the Assembly building, as that would be where the mark would most likely be heading when he took his final walk. He wanted a good view. This was what Angels did, what made them special. These people were here for one reason only, even if they were pretending otherwise: to see death at its most skilled, its most just, its most perfect.
 
Because almost all removals took place in the State Quarter, Taro had never seen Malia do her duty for her City. And now he never would.
 
But today he would see the Concord go on without her, and know that justice would continue to be done. He aimed for a point to the right of the statue in the centre of the square. The statue was the size of a small building, three figures reaching up so their fingers just touched a floating ball. He supposed the ball must be Vellern, and the old coves in robes were meant to be the three nations of the Confederacy. Maybe that kind of thing made Tri-Confed citizens feel all warm inside, but Taro thought it was just plain ugly. His height gave him a clear view sinwards over everyone’s heads, where he could make out the line of floating grey grav-batons sealing the officials and politicians off from the plebs. Every few minutes groups of smart-dressed coves walked out of one of the smaller buildings and crossed to the big one, some of them looking pretty nervous as they emerged into the open. Whenever anyone appeared, the interest level amongst the watchers in the square went up for a while. Occasionally Taro stopped and looked back rimwards, on the tiny chance he might see the Angel getting into position, but the orange static of the forcedome was as featureless as ever - and painful, if you stared at it for too long. The buildings here were higher and cleaner than those in the Leisure Quarter, decorated with columns and carvings, and the ground was free of litter and dirt. The punters were better dressed too, but who was to say that after the excitement was over some of them wouldn’t head back sunwise for a different sort of gratification?
 
He’d just drawn level with the big ugly statue when the crowd noise changed. The hubbub died down, and he started to hear the name ‘Vidoran’ as attention focused on the rimwards corner of the square, all pretence at casual curiosity forgotten. Hurrying a little now, he cut in sinwards and rimwards. Most people moved aside without him having to say anything; to the less observant, or stubborn, he used his elbows and muttered, ‘City business, make way, please.’
 
By the time he had found himself a good vantage point, everyone had fallen silent and all eyes were on a group of three people walking along the sinwards edge of the square. That must be Consul Vidoran in the middle: perfect suit, perfect hair, perfect smile. He was playing it cool, smiling like that, walking out to his death like he hadn’t a care in the world.
 
Just to this side of him and a couple of steps behind he spotted a woman in the high-necked red tunic and black cap of the City militia: an official guard, here for the sake of form. She looked nervous. Taro didn’t blame her. Removals could be messy, with frequent collateral damage. She should be safe enough though; from what he knew of her rep, Nual never took out bystanders. Of course, the militia-woman didn’t know who was going to perform the removal. No one here did except Taro, and possibly the Consul, who was about to experience invisible, silent death from an Angel’s gun.
 
The past no longer mattered. He was here, in the centre of things, an official agent of the Concord, one of the Minister’s chosen. He was part of history.
 
The third figure was on the far side of Consul Vidoran, so Taro couldn’t see him very well, but he was wearing green and yellow: Yazil City colours. That made sense; Taro had heard something about the Consul doing some smoky trade deal with Yazil City, which was presumably why he was up for removal. The Yazilers probably felt obliged to put one of their men on the line too.
 
As the three of them turned to head towards the Assembly building, the third figure drew slightly ahead.
 
Taro saw him clearly for the first time - and knew him.
 
 
Nual sat on air.
 
She floated a few metres out from the edge of the disc of Khesh City, legs crossed, toes pointed to control the gravitic implants that kept her aloft. Her mimetic shimmer-cloak hung around her in loose folds, rendering her invisible against the forcedome.
 
Her head was bowed, her gaze fixed on the black object in her lap. The laser was as long as her arm, with a heavy triangular stock and a slender barrel. A sensor pad on the trigger was coded to her alone and would discharge a lethal shock into anybody else who tried to fire the laser.
 
She raised the gun to her shoulder and rested her cheek against the smooth stock, watching the distant throng in the square with un-augmented vision for a few seconds before shifting her head to put her eye to the sight. She would be visible from directly in front now, the foreshortened gun a dark smudge against her pale, narrow face.
 
Through the sight the distant mass of people in Confederacy Square resolved into individuals. She let her gaze wash over them, getting a feel for the crowd, reading her target’s approach in their faces. They were a varied lot, united only in their desire to vicariously experience another’s death. One figure, conspicuous by his height, caught her eye: a youth with a thin, dirty face and scraps of red-and-black fabric plaited into his long dark hair. A downsider, Angel lineage judging by his colours. Interesting. The Minister must have sent him as an observer. From the look on his face he thought this was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
 
She was about to move off him when the youth’s expression changed from self-satisfaction into shock and hatred and she gasped as the force of the downsider’s emotions washed over her. She turned her head away from the gun-sight to catch her breath. Whatever was wrong with the boy, she couldn’t let it break her concentration. She had to stay focused. She swung the sight away from the downsider’s contorted face to the place where she expected to get a visual lock on the target; some twenty metres in front of the Confederacy Monument. That’s where Vidoran should emerge from the shade cast by the rimwards buildings.
 
She slid a finger under the trigger-guard. The sensor warmed to her touch.
 
 
Taro was stunned.
 
He knew that man - not his
name
; punters rarely bothered with such niceties - but he would never forget that face, that body, nor would he ever forget what the bastard had done. What the fuck was he doing here? He wasn’t just an honour guard, a token gesture from Yazil City: he was a Screamer, an agent from the Yazil League of Concord.
 
The Screamer was walking in front of Vidoran now, scanning the crowd. He noticed Taro and a corner of his mouth twitched, before the twitch resolved itself into an expression of mild surprise. He looked away and moved on.
 
The Screamer’s indifference jolted Taro out of his paralysis and he started to shove his way through the crowd. He wanted to shout, attract the fucker’s attention, but his throat was constricted. In his head all he could hear was his own voice, shouting
I’ll kill you!
- the silent vow he’d made the last time they had met. The wall of bodies gave way as he pressed towards the grav-batons separating the crowd from the three figures crossing the square.
 
 
Something was wrong.
 
Was she just fazed by the youth’s strange reaction or was it her own unease? The senses she tried not to rely on had told her not to accept this mission, but to refuse would make her rogue, fair game for her own, or any other, League. She just wanted to get the removal over and done with so she could return to the dark sanctuary of the Undertow.
 
He was close now. No distractions. No thought. Just focus.
 
Her vision tracked across the back of a man’s head: blond pony-tail, flash of yellow and green. Yaziler. Not in uniform, might even be a Screamer. Interesting, but not important now. There was someone else on the other side, a woman: Kheshi guard. Ignore her too.
 
And there, in the middle, his back to her now, was Vidoran himself, moving without haste, thoroughly self-possessed. She watched him for a moment, then took a deep breath, poised on the cusp, that glorious, awful moment between life and death.
 
 
Taro thrust the last few people out of his way and slammed into the grav-batons. The invisible force-field winded him, but the pain released his voice. He pressed himself against the barrier and screamed at the top of his voice—
 
‘—I’ll kill you, you fucker!’
 
For a timeless moment, everything froze.
 
Then the Screamer leapt backwards, pushing Vidoran down. Taro was vaguely aware of the politician falling and of the look of puzzled surprise on the face of the Kheshi guard before she fell.
 
 
Nual dimly registered the boy’s distant cry, but there was no time to reconsider. She was committed to the shot now.
 
Her finger tensed on the trigger-pad, began to draw back
 
There was a flurry of movement and Vidoran dropped out of her sights.
 
Too late.
 
She felt the subtle vibration as the gun discharged.
 
 
Taro was still shouting as the Kheshi guard hit the ground. The Screamer stared at him for a moment, his face expressionless, then looked around, searching for the real threat, the person who’d fired the shot. Vidoran was already scrambling towards the Assembly building when the Screamer turned and ran over to the politician, putting a protective arm across his shoulders as he hurried him back into the shadows.
 
Someone was screaming. Taro, hoarse and out of breath, tore his gaze from the Yaziler’s departing back and looked at the militia-woman, lying where she had fallen, her upper body curled in on itself and her legs twitching wildly. Her high, thin screech was the only sound in the square.
 
 
Nual expelled her breath in a low moan.
 
Vidoran was already under cover and out of the line of fire. She hugged the gun to her chest, flicked her legs out and dived down below the disc of the City, away from the faint sound of the guard’s agony.
 
 
The crowd were in shock. They’d wanted violence, but not like this, not an innocent bystander. Within the Concord an individual’s death was a matter of ritual and tradition: clean and efficient, an almost antiseptic state-sponsored thrill. The accidental shooting of a guard instead of the mark because of a random distraction wasn’t part of the deal.
 
People had pulled away from Taro; they had heard him cry out. This terrible thing was his fault. No one approached him, no one said anything, but he could feel the weight of their eyes upon him, glaring at him in accusation and confusion.
 
Taro ran, oblivious to the pain in his limbs. No one got in his way. By the time he reached the edge of the square, the screaming had stopped.
 
CHAPTER FOUR
 
From space, Vellern was an orange-brown wasteland. The screens showed magnified views of the Three Cities as the liner passed over each one. The text at the bottom of the screen currently read:
Passengers for Khesh City please wait in the reception lounge for the shuttle.
 
Elarn Reen wished there was something else to look at while she queued with the other passengers. The dome of the force-field that enclosed the City reminded her of a boil on desiccated skin.

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