For the second time in an hour he considered phoning his agent. If you had to trust someone, the rule ran, then trust your agent. But Conroy had said hed hired Oakey and the others through Turners agent, and the connection made Turner dubious. Where was Conroy tonight? Turner was fairly certain that it would have been Conroy who ordered Oakey after them with the laser. Would Hosaka have arranged the railgun, in Arizona, to erase evidence of a botched defection attempt? But if they had, why order Webber to destroy the medics, their neurosurgery, and the Maas-Neotek deck? And there was Maas again... Had Maas killed Mitchell? Was there any reason to believe that Mitchell was really dead? Yes, he thought, as the girl stirred beside him in uneasy sleep, there was: Angie. Mitchell had feared theyd kill her, hed arranged the defection in order to get her out, get her to Hosaka, with no plan for his own escape. Or that was Angies version, anyway.
He closed his eyes, shut out the reflections. Something stirred, deep in the silt of Mitchells recorded memories. Shame. He couldnt quite reach it... He opened his eyes suddenly. What had she said, at Rudys? That her father had put the thing into her head because she wasnt smart enough? Careful not to disturb her, he worked his arm from behind her neck and slid two fingers into the waist pocket of his pants, came up with Conroys little black nylon envelope on its neck cord. He undid the Velcro and shook the swollen, asymmetrical gray biosoft out onto his open palm. Machine dreams. Roller coaster. Too fast, too alien to grasp. But if you wanted something, something specific, you should be able to pull it out...
He dug his thumbnail under the sockets dustcover, pried it out, and put it down on the plastic seat beside him. The train was nearly empty, and none of the other passengers seemed to be paying any attention to him. He took a deep breath, set his teeth, and inserted the biosoft...
Twenty seconds later, he had it, the thing hed gone for. The strangeness hadnt touched him, this time, and he decided that that was because hed gone after this one specific thing, this fact, exactly the sort of data youd expect to find in the dossier of a top research man: his daughters IQ, as reflected by annual batteries of tests.
Angela Mitchell was well above the norm. Had been, all along.
He took the biosoft out of his socket and rolled it absently between thumb and forefinger. The shame. Mitchell and the shame and grad school... Grades, he thought. I want the bastards grades. I want his transcripts.
He jacked the dossier again.
Nothing. Hed gotten it, but there was nothing.
No. Again.
Again...
Goddamn, he said, seeing it.
A teenager with a shaved head glanced at him from a seat across the aisle, then turned back to the stream of his friends monologue: Theyre gonna run the games again, up on the hill, midnight. Were goin, but were just gonna hang, were not gonna make it, just kick back and let em thump each others butts, and were gonna laugh, see who gets thumped, cause last week Susan got her arm busted, you there for that? An it was funny, cause Cal was tryin t takem to the hospital but he was dusted n he ran that shitty Yamaha over a speedbump...
Turner snapped the biosoft back into his socket.
This time, when it was over, he said nothing at all. He put his arm back around Angie and smiled, seeing the smile in the window. It was a feral smile; it belonged to the edge
Mitchells academic record was good, extremely good Excellent. But the arc wasnt there. The arc was something Turner had learned to look for in the dossiers of research people, that certain signal curve of brilliance. He could spot the arc the way a master machinist could identify metals by observing the spark plume off a grinding wheel. And Mitchell hadnt had it.
The shame. The graduate dorms Mitchell had known, known he wasnt going to make it. And then, somehow, he had. How? It wouldnt be in the dossier. Mitchell, somehow, had known how to edit what he gave the Maas security machine. Otherwise, they would have been on to him Someone, something, had found Mitchell in his postgraduate slump and had started feeding him things. Clues, directions. And Mitchell had gone to the top, his arc hard and bright and perfect then, and it had carried him to the top. Who? What?
He watched Angies sleeping face in the shudder of subway light.
Faust.
Mitchell had cut a deal. Turner might never know the details of the agreement, or Mitchells price, but he knew he understood the other side of it. What Mitchell had been required to do in return.
Legba, Samedi, spittle curling from the girls contorted lips.
And the train swept into old Union in a black blast of midnight air.
Cab, sir? The mans eyes were moving behind glasses with a polychrome tint that swirled like oil slicks. There were flat, silvery sores across the backs of his hands. Turner stepped in close and caught his upper arm, without breaking stride, forcing him back against a wall of scratched white tile, between gray ranks of luggage lookers.
Cash, Turner said. Im paying New Yen. I want my cab. No trouble with the driver Understand? Im not a mark. He tightened his grip. Fuck up on me, Ill come back here and kill you, or make you wish I had.
Got it Yessir. Got it. We can do that, sir, yessir. Where d you wanna go to, sir? The mans wasted features contorted in pain.
Hired man. the voice came from Angie, a hoarse whisper. And then an address. Turner saw the touts eyes dart nervously behind the swirls of colors. Thats Madison? he croaked. Yessir. Get you a good cab, real good cab...
What is this place, Turner asked the cabby, leaning forward to thumb the SPEAK button beside the steel speaker grid, the address we gave you?
There was a crackle of static. Hypermart. Not much open there this time of night. Looking for anything in particular?
No, Turner said. He didnt know the place. He tried to remember that stretch of Madison, Residential, mostly. Uncounted living spaces carved out of the shells of commercial buildings that dated from a day when commerce had required clerical workers to be present physically at a central location. Some of the buildings were tall enough to penetrate a dome.
Where are we going? Angie asked, her hand on his arm.
Its okay, he said. Dont worry.
God, she said, leaning against his shoulder, looking up at the pink neon HYPERMART sign that slashed the granite face of the old building, I used to dream about New York, back on the mesa. I had a graphics program that would take me through all the streets, into museums and things. I wanted to come here more than anything in the world
Well, you made it. Youre here.
She started to sob, hugged him, her face against his bare chest, shaking. Im scared. Im so scared.
Itll be okay, he said, stroking her hair, his eyes on the main entrance. He had no reason to believe anything would ever be okay for either of them. She seemed to have no idea that the words that had brought them here had come from her mouth. But then, he thought, she hadnt spoken them. There were bag people huddled on either side of Hypermarts entranceway, prone hummocks of rag gone the exact shade of the sidewalk; they looked to Turner as though they were being slowly extruded from the dark concrete, to become mobile extensions of the city. Jammers, the voice said, muffled by his chest, and he felt a cold revulsion, a club. Find Danbalas horse. And then she was crying again He took her hand and walked past the sleeping transients, in under the tarnished gilt scrollwork and through the glass doors. He saw an espresso machine down an aisle of tents and shuttered stalls, a girl with a black crest of hair swabbing a counter. Coffee. he said. Food. Come on. You need to eat.
He smiled at the girl while Angie settled herself on a stool.
How about cash? he said. You ever take cash?
She stared at him, shrugged. He took a twenty from Rudys ziploc and showed it to her. What do you want?