Spares (24 page)

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?

3) Nanune’s desecrated head and the stealing of Mal’s display pointed to either Blue Lights or his accomplice being behind the facial damage homicides—as did the tie-ins to Vinaldi. In that case, why were the NRPD files security locked? Blue Lights wasn’t a cop, I’d lay money on that—so how did he rate protection? The shooter I’d killed outside Mal’s apartment had no rap sheet, and I’d a hunch Blue Lights wouldn’t have either. Which meant either that all the trouble was coming from out of town or that someone was going to a lot of trouble to make it look that way.

Fine thinking as far as it went, but it didn’t go far enough. Instead of making me feel like I was getting somewhere, it made me unsettled and nervous. The downside of Suej being the key was that it meant that the other spares were probably expendable, and none of it got me much closer to understanding what was going on or how I could rescue them. There was at least one part of the puzzle still missing, and until I knew what it was I couldn’t go after the spares, or even ensure that Suej was safe. I couldn’t do anything.

I looked up to see Suej’s eyes on me.

“Are you okay, Jack?” she asked; I stopped drumming my fingers on the tabletop and smiled.

“Sure,” I said. “How was the burger?”

“Good.” She grinned. “Nicer than Ratchet’s.” Ratchet had been a droid out of the top drawer, but, as discussed, cooking hadn’t been one of his key skills—and especially not short-order stuff. On the other hand, it wasn’t supposed to have been, and it was surprising he’d been able to cook at all. For the first time since leaving the Farm I experienced my recurrent curiosity as to what exactly Ratchet had been. I also felt a sudden twinge of loneliness and melancholy on realizing that the machine which had saved my life was probably unrecognizable now. Trashed or reprogrammed by the company, his mind dead forever as punishment for exceeding his role. There ought to be a warning on my forehead, I thought:
Think carefully before entering this man’s life, because very few people make it back out alive
. Then I thought it was time to can the self-pity before I started boring even myself.

“Can we go there?” Suej asked, and I turned to follow her finger. One of the monitors was showing a news report about some mountain, huge and covered with snow. Suej probably thought the mountain was somewhere just outside New Richmond, back near the way we’d come down from the hills.

“Maybe,” I said. I was about to make it sound more convincing when suddenly I stopped.

Mount Everest.

“You’re
not
okay,” Suej said, immediately. “I see it in your face. What’s wrong?”

I’d realized what Nearly had inadvertently reminded me of the night before: the report I’d already seen about someone discovering a mountain higher than Everest. Presumably I was now seeing it again.

But that was bullshit. Mount Everest
was
the highest mountain on Earth. Of course it fucking was.

And now the gates were opening, I realized something else: Wall-diving. Jumping out of windows with nothing but some weird fiberglass rod for company. How likely was that? Did that make any sense
at all?

“Jack, what’s
wrong?”

Ignoring her, I looked toward the ladies’ room. A sudden influx had turned the area round the bar into a crush of people. Nearly was a way back from the counter, talking to some guy. From her body language I could tell the conversation wasn’t especially welcome, but no more than that.

“I’m sorry, Suej, but we’re going to have to go,” I said. Suej pouted, but she knew something was wrong. She stood up with me and I waited while she gathered her bags, and then she let me lead her down into the throng.

When we got to Nearly, she was alone. “We have to leave,” I said. “We have to leave right
now.”

Nearly looked at Suej, then back at me. “Says who? I’m thirsty.” I grabbed her arm and tried to pull her away, aware that I was appearing a Neanderthal. She yanked it back again. “What is your problem?”

“What’s the highest mountain in the world?” I asked, fighting to stay patient. Nearly just stared at me, buffeted by the people around us.
“Quickly.”

“Well, Mount Fyi, of course. They just found out. Do I win a prize?”

“No. That’s why we have to go.” I looked around the crowd. The man Nearly’d been talking to had disappeared, “Who was that guy?”

Nearly looked confused, then realized whom I was talking about. “Said he was a John of mine from a couple of years back; wanted to play tonight. I told him to go away. Why?”

“Didn’t you recognize him?”

“No, but—how can I put this?—it’s not like I keep a lock of each one’s hair.”

“Nearly, trust me. We really have to go.”

She stood her ground for a moment longer, then rolled her eyes. “Jesus, you’re no fun at all,” she grumbled, and allowed me to pull her toward the door.

Too late.

I suddenly sensed time rushing toward me again, without really knowing what I was reacting to. Maybe it was some sound from deep in the crowd. Or perhaps I felt the crush of people parting. Some sixth sense from long ago, stirring sluggishly. I instinctively put myself between Suej and the rest of the bar, shoving Nearly toward the door. As I surreptitiously pulled my gun out I felt Suej move behind me and glanced to see that Nearly had taken her hand and was taking her with her. I didn’t know whether she’d started to believe me or was just doing what she was told for once. Either way, I was grateful.

I quickly slipped a few yards to the right through the crowd, keeping my gun hidden and low. Scanned the faces, and kept moving in unpredictable directions six feet at a time, turning my head as far round as I could, trying to feel where he’d be. It was like moving through grasping and twisted trees. I used to be good at that. But he was obviously better than me.

“Shutdown,” a voice whispered an inch behind my ear.

With a whole-body spasm I crunched my heel backward and felt it connect solidly with his shin. Whirling on my other foot I brought the gun up, cracking it against people in the crowd. Surprised mouths opened in front of me. The man had gone but at least people were getting the fuck out of my way. I searched the crowd, saw no one, then my head snapped toward the door. He’d twisted behind me and was ten feet away, carving his way through the throng toward Suej. But it wasn’t Blue Lights: It was someone new.

I could see Nearly’s head just outside but she didn’t catch my desperate signals. Suej was looking somewhere else entirely, staring at the wooden frame of the door, I forgot the secret of slipping through people and
threw myself forward, fighting the crowd as if it was a thicket of undergrowth. A mass of arms and legs and red angry faces. Hard elbows, jabbing into me.

He was getting to the door much more quickly than I, slipping through the crowd as if it wasn’t there. There was something in the way he moved, a murderous grace, which told me he’d been trained for this. I had been, too; and once upon a time maybe could have caught him. But not now. It was far too long ago.

When I started going backward, I knew I was going to have to do something unusual. I changed course and headed for the bar like a lumbering missile, slamming people out of the way with both hands. I made it to the counter and hoisted myself up, sending rows of glasses flying. I scrambled to my feet, slipping on spillage, and whirled to face the crowd.