His vision filled with a blinking red square. He’d never seen that before, either. And didn’t want to now. It spelled trouble.
ACCOUNT CLOSED. Red, black, red; the words stayed hanging there.
“What?” He’d expected zero; that would’ve made sense.
ACCOUNT CLOSED. CLIENT DECEASED.
Something cold, with ice teeth frozen to diamonds, seized his heart. “What -” His voice caught in his throat. “What do you mean?”
CLIENT AXXTER (NY) DECEASED. Red. Black. ACCOUNT CLOSED.
“But – that’s me; I’m Ny Axx -”
DECEASED. INQUIRY TERMINATED.
Then it was just black.
TEN
Maybe his agent would front him some money. He had to. If Brevis wouldn’t do that much for him, what with his being stuck out here starving in the ass-end of nowhere, then what the hell good was he? The sonuvabitch.
Axxter reversed the charges, praying that Brevis would accept a collect call. Just this once.
WHAT NAME (CALLING PARTY)? The Wire Syndicate logo waited for his reply.
“Uh – tell him it’s Ny. Ny Axxter.”
He listened to the distant ringing, a world away. The wire from the plug-in jack ran all the way through the building and up to the toplevel; his only link.
Then he heard Brevis’s voice. “Yeah, I’ll take it. Give him to me.”
Sweet Jesus. “Brevis -” he blurted out.
The agent cut him off. “Listen, mac – whoever you are – I don’t appreciate little jokes like this. You got a sick sense of humor to try something like this. Now fuck off, and don’t -”
“Brevis – hey, no, it’s really me -”
“Yeah, right, very funny; now go get -”
All he could think of was the agent hanging up, breaking the connection. Desperate: “It’s really me, for Christ’s sake, this isn’t a joke. I’m not dead. Brevis, you gotta believe me.”
Silence. But at least not a click and a buzz.
“Ny?” Brevis’s voice was half skeptical, half wondering. “That’s you? How -”
Keep him on the line. “Brevis, I swear it.” Don’t let him get away. “I know what you probably heard, but it’s not true. I’m not dead. This is really Ny Axxter talking to you.”
Another beat of silence. “Prove it. I mean, prove it’s you.”
“For Christ’s sake, what do you want me to do?” He studied his finger in the plug-in jack, as though it might be possible to squeeze himself through the hole and confront the agent. “I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”
“Could be anybody.” The skeptical tone hardened. “Sounds like it’s Axxter – but that’s easy enough to fake.”
“Okay. Okay, just hold on a second.” His thoughts sped up. “All right, how’s this: the first thing I ever did, the first piece after I signed on with you. It was a commission from a little band, about a dozen guys, they’re all dead now, they were called – um -” He snapped his fingers. “Abrasion Surtax. Right? And the piece I did, I went blank and I couldn’t think of anything, so I ripped off a dragon spreadeagle from a collection of old tattoo flash that Howe Drafe lent me. Only the Abrasion guys found out about it, and they were all pissed off ’cause they’d paid for an original, so you had to give ’em their money back plus ten percent, which you deducted from my next job, only it wasn’t true, they hadn’t dinged you for any ten percent penalty at all -”
“Jeez – you still remember that? Christ, talk about carrying a grudge.”
Axxter allowed himself a smile. “So is it me, or not?”
“Well, yeah; I suppose so.” No skepticism now in Brevis’s voice, just baffled wondering. “But how come you’re not dead?”
“Just lucky, I guess.”
“No, no; I mean it. What the hell’s going on?”
He shrugged. “I’m still alive. That’s all there is to it. Whatever you heard -”
“‘Heard’ ain’t it. I saw it, man. There’s a tape of you heading for the clouds. After getting all whammed to shit against the wall. The Havoc Mass – that bunch had a telephoto trained on the whole thing; they had one of their archives men right behind the thugs who were on your tail. He was sending the signal back on a tightbeam to the camp; that was the only way it got recorded, because he bit it along with the rest of them when the cable went boing. Whose bright idea was that, anyway?”
“I had help. All right? I didn’t think of it all by myself.” The agent’s old-womanish hectoring got under his skin. He would’ve thought Brevis would be happy just to know he was alive.
“Yeah, well, that little number cost you, Jack. The Public Works Department was in here so fast, sucking out your account… They took the wad, buddy. That tape was prima facie evidence. When it got broadcast, and everybody from the toplevel on down saw it -”
“What? Who saw it -”
“Everybody; that’s what I’m telling you.” Brevis’s voice went shrill. “The Havoc Mass sold the tape to Ask & Receive’s entertainment division – it was on the air while you were supposedly still falling through the cloud barrier. A bunch like the Mass doesn’t need the money they got for it; they just enjoy making people they don’t like look like assholes.”
“Jeez..” Everybody on or in Cylinder had seen him sawing away at the transit cable, like an idiot. The kind of thing you saw in an ancient kiddy cartoon, the cat cutting off the tree limb he’s sitting on. His girlfriend had no doubt seen it, too. Her last memory of him, on the ‘Here’s a cutie for you’ segment of the evening news. Great.
“So how do you think I feel about it? You think it does an agent any good to have the whole world know you got clients with shit for brains? You ever try to do business with people, they gotta ring off and get back to you later, ’cause they’re laughing too hard?”
That was the problem in dealing with Brevis: no one had ever suffered the way he had.
“Okay, okay; look, you don’t have to tell me it wasn’t a great idea.” Axxter tried to get the call back on track. “I was under a lot of pressure at the time. Those guys were trying to kill me. All right?”
“Yeah, well, just don’t do it again. Jesus Christ!” Brevis’s voice broke into a yelp. “Do you know what this call is costing me? Where the hell are you calling me from?”
He must’ve seen the Wire Syndicate’s charges piling up. “Look, Brevis, you’re going to find this hard to believe, but I’m a long way away from you -”
“I’ll bet – mother of God -”
“ – I’m on the other side. Of the building. I’m on Cylinder’s eveningside. You understand? I’m on the other side.”
Brevis was silent for a moment. “Jeez, Ny, you’re full of surprises today. Am I supposed to believe that? Just because I believed you’re alive?”
“It’s true, I swear it. Look, have the Wire Syndicate run a locate on this jack. You’ll need to get the number anyway, so you can call me back.”
“What the hell should I call you back for? You’re broke, you’re officially dead, and as a client you’re a liability, not an asset. I should get the Havoc Mass looking to cut my nuts off, too?”
Axxter felt his palm sweating, his finger trembling in the plug-in. If Brevis should hang up… “You’re gonna want to call me back. Because I can make money – big money – for you.”
“Yeah?” Skeptical again. “How?”
“I’m talking big money now.” He had to give himself time to think. “The biggest deal you’ve ever done; I mean, this is the one that’ll put you right up in the front rank of agents -” Come on, come on, think. “Top dollar; top dollar, Brevis -” Blank, blank, blank.
Then it popped out, all in a piece. The words came spinning out, effortless.
“I may not be worth much as a graffex – not right now, at any rate – but we got something else to sell. I’m on the other side. Don’t you see? I’m someplace no one else has ever been, at least no one who’s ever talked about it. We got info-gathering here, tons of fresh data, stuff we can unload to Ask & Receive for whatever price we ask. Plus – there’s the entertainment value. This is real-time adventure we got going here, Brevis. This isn’t some little stroll around some diddly-shit morningside sector that everybody’s seen a million times before. I’m going to hike all the way across some unknown wallscape – without even a rig to carry me – and encounter God knows what – there could be fuckin’ anything out here, man – then cross over through whichever Linear Fair I come to – all that just to make it home. What more could you want? That’s a goddamn odyssey, for Christ’s sake.”