Jack briefly wondered what had scared him, but his heart was elsewhere. Andrea’s dark hood nodded before the microphone. Hiding her skull, it let Jack imagine her face, as unreachable as the past. But her voice was present and it moved him profoundly. He realised that there was no real choice to be made. Of course he was going to talk to her. The song ended. Applause scattered itself away as another began. Jack realised he’d finished his whisky. He thought about going to the bar again, but then Andrea might see him and find some way of preventing him from reaching her. He let the last of the ice fall into his mouth and sucked at it until it was gone.
At last she finished her set and disappeared backstage. Looking around, Jack saw that the blonde woman was staring at him with a look somewhere between fascination and hunger. She’d forgotten her surroundings. There was a man just behind her, concentrating on not spilling two ornate drinks, who hadn’t seen her and was about to walk into her. Jack would have shouted a warning but there was no time, the man was already brushing against the blonde. Then there was a shimmer, and to Jack’s shock he’d walked straight through her and was handing the drink to his girlfriend. The blonde stood there untouched, revealed as an illusion. She flashed a smile at Jack, then let herself fade into the gloom. Her eyes were the last part of her to vanish.
Jack had to walk through the space where she’d manifested on his way to the stage door. All that was left of her was a taste of ozone on the air and a cocktail umbrella crushed on the floor. It looked like a bright, abandoned feather, fallen from some strange, fictional bird. As he perceived it, it winked out of existence.
[She has to be Pantheon, to be able to show herself to us like that,] said Fist nervously, from deep within Jack’s mind.
[ It must be East,] replied Jack. [She loves visiting clubs in disguise.]
[ We should leave.]
[Pure chance that we ran into her. And we’re quite unusual. It’s not surprising she took a second look.]
[ We meet one of her people, and then she appears the next day? I don’t like it. You’ll get damaged.]
Jack had never seen Fist so jittery. [ I’ve come to see Andrea,] he said. Her name was a talisman that strengthened his resolve.
[ Then see her!] Fist’s voice had a sudden half-panicked shriek to it. [And she’ll tell you to fuck off! And we can get the fuck out of here.]
There was a large man wearing a cheap suit at the door to the backstage area. ‘I want to see the singer who was on just now,’ Jack told him.
‘No socialising.’
‘I’ve come a long way. I’m – an old fan of hers.’
The bouncer grunted. ‘One of those. Well, if you want to piss your money away you can have her manifest at your table for twenty minutes. Got to be before her second set, she gets pulled back to the Coffin Drives after that. Pay at the bar.’
‘Is there anywhere more private?’
‘We’re not that kind of place.’
‘No, really. I just want to talk.’
‘I bet.’ The bouncer snorted. ‘I’ll ask the boss.’ His face went blank for a moment, then he said, ‘Empty dressing room out back. Cost you big. We monitor it.’ A fist slapped against a palm. ‘Don’t try anything funny.’
Jack paid. [Keep spending like that and we’ll have nothing left to live on,] whined Fist.
The bouncer ushered Jack through into a long, narrow corridor. ‘Third on the left. She’ll be waiting for you.’ Performers had tagged its walls with graffiti. There were barcodes too. Had Jack been onweave, they’d have summoned datasprites as soon as he perceived them. He wondered what he’d have seen. There’d probably have been nothing more than a shimmer at the edge of his vision as his anti-virals snuffed them out.
It was easy enough to find the dressing room, harder to knock confidently on the door. Seconds passed. Jack wondered if he’d been ripped off. At least he’d only have lost InSec’s money. Then Andrea shouted ‘Come in.’
The room was tiny. There was barely space for two chairs and a makeup desk. Andrea was sitting at the desk. A real dress, identical to her virtual one, hung shimmering behind her. It was like a field of stars, haloing her covered head. ‘Close the door,’ she told him. With a little contortion, Jack did so. ‘Sit down.’ She’d made her voice cold. ‘I didn’t want to see you. I hoped you wouldn’t try and find me.’
‘I had to. Especially after I found about – your situation.’
There was no adequate way of describing her death.
‘I needed some easy cash once, when I was alive. Signed away fetch performance rights to a few little clubs. Too cheap to even advertise the gigs onweave. I always thought I’d be able to buy the rights back. But then I died.’
‘I don’t mean the club,’ replied Jack. ‘You – she – you passed on. What happened to her, Andrea? And why didn’t you tell me?’
Jack sounded plaintive, even to himself. Andrea was silent for a moment. Then she said, ‘I wish I could smoke. This would be the perfect time.’
‘Andrea, please. I’ve only got twenty minutes with you.’
‘Oh Jack, I know, I’m sorry. But what can I say? I’m dead, I died, I was killed. And of course I couldn’t tell you. Because what would I have been then? So much code on a server.’
[Oi! What’s wrong with being code?]
‘But why get in touch at all?’ Jack asked, ignoring Fist.
Andrea half-smiled. ‘You should have seen how she remembered you, Jack. It was so different from Harry. So private, so intimate. Even after you’d gone. She kept it all in a little secret place, so close to her heart, and she went back to it again and again.’
Jack sighed, at once touched and saddened. ‘Thank you,’ he replied. ‘But I still don’t understand why you came and found me. Why you tricked me.’
‘Oh Jack.’ She turned the dark void beneath her hood to face him, and raised a hand to cup his face. He nerved himself to look back as directly, but when he did the shadows hid her white bone face. ‘I have all her memories,’ she told him. ‘I am her memories. So I missed you. I thought about you all the time. But I’d never even talked to you.’ There was such loss in her voice. Her hand drifted gently across his cheek. He felt the slightest of breezes, as if tiny feathers were flickering against his skin. ‘I thought you’d never come back to Station. I wanted to see how the war had changed you. To be as close to you as she’d been, when everything was so different. And then you found out about Fist’s licence, and you needed support, and I could give it.’ She let her hand drop. ‘I know all about coming to terms with death. And now, here we are.’
Jack wished he could take her hand in his. It was so strange to find himself moved by a ghost.
[ Time’s a-passing, lover boy.]
[ It always is.]
‘Is the puppet here too?’ she asked, breaking the silence.
‘Yes,’ replied Jack. ‘But he’s not very happy about it.’ [ Too bloody right!] interrupted Fist. ‘He’s hiding in the back of my head,’ continued Jack. ‘But I might be able to get him out, if you want to meet him.’
‘No,’ replied Andrea. ‘If he doesn’t want to – let’s just let him be.’
[ Thank the gods. Wake me up when you’re done with the nostalgia and we can get the fuck out of here.]
Jack was silent for a moment. He’d shared so much with this woman, who both was and was not the Andrea of his past. Her mails – pages long, coming every few days, in response to his own equally lengthy letters – had given him so much strength.
‘How did you manage to write to me?’ he asked.
‘Gods,’ she responded, shifting. ‘Straight to the practical.’
‘You shouldn’t have been able to.’
She laughed joylessly. Jack imagined a sad half-smile, then remembered the cold, hard skull that the shadows hid from him. ‘I know,’ she replied. ‘That’s another reason why I didn’t want you to come and see me.’