I thought of Leila Begin and our talk of psychopaths on the virtual beach. Of my own flippant responses.
“Sullivan wouldn’t be the first person to call me a psychopath. And you wouldn’t be the first person to buy it either. The Envoys, well, it’s…” I shrugged and looked away. “It’s a label. Simplification for public consumption.”
“They say a lot of you turned. That twenty per cent of the serious crime in the Protectorate is caused by renegade Envoys. Is it true?”
“The percentage?” I stared away through the rain. “I wouldn’t know. There are a lot of us out there, yes. There’s not much else to do once you’ve been discharged from the Corps. They won’t let you into anything that might lead to a position of power or influence. On most worlds you’re barred from holding public office. Nobody trusts Envoys, and that means no promotion. No prospects. No loans, no credit.”
I turned back to her. “And the stuff we’ve been trained to do is so close to crime, there’s almost no difference. Except that crime is easier. Most criminals are stupid, you probably know that. Even the organised syndicates are like kid gangs compared to the Corps. It’s easy to get respect. And when you’ve spent the last decade of your life jacking in and out of sleeves, cooling out on stack and living virtual, the threats that law enforcement has to offer are pretty bland.”
We stood together in silence for a while.
“I’m sorry,” she said finally.
“Don’t be. Anyone reading those files on me would have—”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“Oh.” I looked down at the disc in my hands. “Well, if you were looking to atone for something, I’d say you just have. And take it from me, no one stays totally clean. The only place you get to do that is on stack.”
“Yes. I know.”
“Yeah, well. There is just one more thing I’d like to know.”
“Yes?”
“Is Sullivan at Bay City Central right now?”
“He was when I went out.”
“And what time is he likely to leave this evening?”
“It’s usually around seven.” She compressed her lips. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to ask him some questions,” I said truthfully.
“And if he won’t answer them?”
“Like you said, he’s not stupid.” I put the disc into my jacket pocket. “Thank you for your help, doctor. I’d suggest you try not to be around the facility at seven tonight. And thank you.”
“As I said Mr. Kovacs, I am doing this for myself.”
“That’s not what I meant, doctor.”
“Oh.”
I placed one hand lightly on her arm, then stepped away from her and so back out into the rain.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The wood of the bench had been worn by decades of occupants into a series of comfortable, buttock-shaped depressions, and the arms were similarly sculpted. I moulded myself lengthwise into the curves, cocked my boots on the bench end nearest the doors I was watching, and settled down to read the graffiti etched into the wood. I was soaked from the long walk back across town, but the hall was pleasantly heated and the rain rattled impotently on the long transparent panels of the tilted roof high above my head. After a while, one of the dog-sized cleaning robots came to wipe away my muddy footprints from the fused glass paving. I watched it idly until the job was done and the record of my arrival on the bench was totally erased.
It would have been nice to think my electronic traces could be wiped in the same way, but that kind of escape belonged to the legendary heroes of another age.
The cleaning robot trundled off and I went back to the graffiti. Most of it was Amanglic or Spanish, old jokes that I’d seen before in a hundred similar places; Cabron Modificado! and Absent without Sleeve! the old crack The Altered Native Was Here! but high on the bench’s backrest and chiselled upside down, like a tiny pool of inverted calm in all the rage and desperate pride, I found a curious haiku in Kanji:
The author must have been leaning over the back of the bench when he cut it into the wood, but still each character was executed with elegant care. I gazed at the calligraphy for what was probably a long time, while memories of Harlan’s World sang in my head like high-tension cables.
A sudden burst of crying over to my right jolted me out of the reverie. A young black woman and her two children, also black, were staring at the stooped, middle-aged white man standing before them in tattered UN surplus fatigues. Family reunion. The young woman’s face was a mask of shock, it hadn’t hit her properly yet, and the smaller child, probably no more than four, just didn’t get it at all. She was looking right through the white man, mouth forming the repeated question Where’s Daddy? Where’s Daddy? The man’s features were glistening in the rainy light from the roof—he looked like he’d been crying since they dragged him out of the tank.
I rolled my head to an empty quadrant of the hall. My own father had walked right past his waiting family and out of our lives when he was re-sleeved. We never even knew which one he was, although I sometimes wonder if my mother didn’t catch some splinter of recognition in an averted gaze, some echo of stance or gait as he passed. I don’t know if he was too ashamed to confront us, or more likely too set up with the luck of drawing a sleeve sounder than his own alcohol-wrecked body had been, and already plotting a new course for other cities and younger women. I was ten at the time. The first I knew about it was when the attendants ushered us out of the facility just short of locking up for the night. We’d been there since noon.
The chief attendant was an old man, conciliatory and very good with kids. He put his hand on my shoulder and spoke kindly to me before leading us out. To my mother, he made a short bow and murmured something formal that allowed her to keep the dam of her self-control intact.
He probably saw a few like us every week.
I memorised Ortega’s discreet destination code, for something to do with my mind, then shredded that panel of the cigarette packet and ate it.
My clothes were almost dried through by the time Sullivan came through the doors leading out of the facility and started down the steps. His thin frame was cloaked in a long grey raincoat, and he wore a brimmed hat, something I hadn’t seen so far in Bay City. Framed in the V between my propped feet and reeled into close-up with the neurachem, his face looked pale and tired. I shifted a little on the bench and brushed the bolstered Philips gun with the tips of my fingers. Sullivan was coming straight towards me, but when he saw my form sprawled on the bench he pursed his mouth with disapproval and altered course to avoid what he presumably took for a derelict cluttering up the facility. He passed without giving me another glance.
I gave him a few metres start and then swung silently to my feet and went after him, slipping the Philips gun out of its holster under my coat. I caught up just as he reached the exit. As the doors parted for him, I shoved him rudely in the small of the back and stepped quickly outside in his wake. He was swinging back to face me, features contorted with anger, as the doors started to close.
“What do you think you’re—” The rest of it died on his lips as he saw who I was.
“Warden Sullivan,” I said affably, and showed him the Philips gun under my jacket. “This is a silent weapon, and I’m not in a good mood. Please do exactly as I tell you.”
He swallowed. “What do you want?”