Lie low for tonight, Dragan said. Contact me tomorrow to let me know you’re safe and I should know more then.
I will.
My turn at the gate came up and I passed through. When the hiccup passed, my foot came down on solid pavement again as the grand entrance of Ginzho tower appeared in front of me. All at once the subdued lights of Tùzi-wo were replaced with the bright blaze of Ginzho in full swing, streams of vibrant electric color painting the square and flowing down all five strips of the traffic star as far as the eye could see. The tower blazed from across the street, looming over the heads of the men and women mobbed at the Ginzho gate hub, which was the largest in Hangfei. Past the queues, throngs of people flowed down the sidewalks, edging between the bumper-to-bumper traffic that converged on the star, inching around the huge statue of former Military Governor Jianguo Hwong, Hangfei’s illustrious murderer, across four lanes like cogs in a giant machine.
I headed for the closest walkway and rode it to the arch, then crossed over looking down on the vast circles of traffic below while vendors barked at me from the tight rows of carts assembled along either rail. Most were selling souvenirs, junk jewelry and knock-off haan tech to any suckers they could reel in, but some were selling clothes, gate passes, art, and music someone might actually be halfway interested in.
As I started down the end of the bridge, the big screen over the tower’s main entrance began displaying an ad where a haan female with an impossibly beautiful face smiled at the crowd below. She wore a skintight black dress that hugged her large breasts into mounds of smoke gray cleavage while she held a haan ration bar in front of the swell, the unwrapped end pointed up at her chin like a human phallus. As I gazed over the crowd, I saw men staring, like they were in a trance. It didn’t matter that you could see through her skin, or that she wasn’t even human. It didn’t even matter that, as far as anyone knew, the only haan female alive was Ava and since that wasn’t her, she was most likely a virtual construct. They stared anyway.
Are we that easy to sway? I wanted to chalk it up to men being men, but when I’d first met Nix, as an adult, anyway, hadn’t I found him handsome in his own way? Hadn’t his looks and his clothes bought him some slack? Didn’t they still?
Below, the Shangzho haan seal floated among other haan symbols that were interleaved with nutritional information and other, fuzzier promises like better memory retention and enhanced sex life. The haan remained perfectly still, her perfect doll’s face molded into a static smile.
When the ad faded, a new face faded in right behind it, one with narrow black eyes and shiny, plastic hair. I curled one hand into a fist as he smiled that weird smile of his.
Most of the men’s heads turned as they realized the cleavage had gone away and wasn’t coming back, but I found myself watching him. Underneath Gohan’s face, words faded into view and as they did, his grin twitched a little broader.
ARE YOU PREPARED?
Some people booed, while others laughed it off. Most just shook their heads and went back to their business, even when Gohan’s calm, sure voice came from the speakers like the low chant of an ancient wise man.
“The little star has crossed Fangwenzhe,” he said. “The Reunification is at hand. Join—”
The screen flickered, and the image was covered by a security override. When it blinked away, the face had been replaced by a picture of the Pingi whiskey soda logo.
I moved through the crowds in Ginzho square, around the side of the tower where a set of concrete stairs led down to a fenced-off maintenance gate. A few people glanced over as I opened the chain-link gate and slipped through, pulling it closed behind me and fishing my key chain out of my pocket. I shook out Dragan’s security twistkey and slipped it into the socket on the gate frame.
“Override accepted,” the A.I. said.
The field crackled when I turned the key and the cinder-block wall behind it disappeared. A second later the doorway looked straight down the side of the tower, a floor of dark glass windows stretching off into the distance toward the busy streets below. I slipped through, and stepped out onto the sheet of hexagonal graviton plating on the other side. I stood between the rows of dark windows, looking down at my own reflection in freshly clean glass that was already starting to speckle with scalefly biocide again.
I took a minute to let my brain adjust to the new perspective. Above my head, instead of the sky I saw the face of the building across the street from Ginzho tower where a line of haan constructs skittered along the length of a rain gutter, looking for leaks. Ahead, eighty stories in the distance and past the hanging washer rig platform and layers of aircars, was the blazing lights of the city square like a living wall that went on forever in every direction. Headlights and flashing vehicle lightpaint coursed through the streets like electric blood through arteries and veins while the columns and spires of smaller towers reached back toward me. I watched it for a moment, listening to the far away street noises, then turned around and faced the starry night sky.
Alexei sat a few floors away with his back to me and his reflection cast in the window next to him. I could see his profile staring down at his shoes as I approached.
“Got room for two?” I asked. He started when I spoke, but nodded.
“Sure,” he said.
I sat down next to him. With my back toward the streets below, I fished out the cigarillo Fang had snuck me earlier. Before I could change my mind, I pinched off the sticky, opiate-infused end and flicked it away. It went out of range of the graviton field and flitted down toward the street. The paper tasted like clove when I clamped my lips around the end and found my lighter. I flicked it and held the end of the smoke to the dancing flame, shielding it against the breeze as I sucked until the fibers crackled bright red.
You shouldn’t smoke, Alexei sent.
I know.
I drew in a thick mouthful of bittersweet smoke and inhaled deeply. The hit carried a chemical undertone, a speck of the opiate oil I’d missed, but just a speck. I let myself have it, holding it in until my eyelids drooped and my muscles relaxed just a notch. When I couldn’t hold it any longer I blew it away from Alexei in a long blue-gray stream that swirled away into the night air.
You’re in trouble, aren’t you? he asked.
“When am I not?”
I took another drag off the smoke, and blew out a plume that swirled back over our heads on a downdraft. Alexei picked at the toe of his shoe, looking miserable with his chin on one knee.
Will you get fired? For us coming up here? he asked.
It was the least of my worries at the moment, but I would get in trouble for it. I’d get flak for using the company gate after hours, but I didn’t think they’d fire me over it. Assuming I wasn’t already in a detention center by then.
“No, I’ll tell them I forgot my phone on the rigging and went up to get it.”
He nodded, picking at his shoe again. I nudged him with my shoulder.
I’m sorry I called you a selfish piece of shit.
“Whatever.”
You’re just a regular piece of shit.
He nudged me back with his shoulder.
You’re a regular piece of shit, he said, but I saw the hint of a smile on his face.
You should talk out loud more. Your Mandarin is getting not half bad. I can almost stand to listen to it now, I told him.