Until suddenly another presence was with him, and then another presence was him as the AI called Alan threaded into Richard's multifaceted persona, merged consciousnesses, apprehended the problem, found the archives, and started throwing him relevant parcels of code through the still-weak nanonetwork as if he were manning a bucket brigade. The AI personas twisted together — one mind, two voices — and they pushed… and Ramirez's calculated, programmed, multifocal attack came down before them like the Berlin wall.
I wake up as fast as I went under, blood in my hair and a pair of doctors leaning over me, arguing at the top of their lungs. I've never seen Elspeth or Valens raise their voices before. I wish I had the time to appreciate it. “What happened?”
They glance at my face in unison, expressions alike as a pair of startled beagles. “Jen!” Elspeth says, and sits back on her heels. “Do you remember anything?”
“Richard.” I sit up against the restraining pressure of Valens's hand against my chest. “The Montreal.”
“Here, Jenny,” he says, and I can't remember the last time I heard his voice outside my head. I crawl out from under the desk — past Valens — and lift my head over the edge to see his familiar face floating over the interface.
“I know how Ramirez got the knife into Koske, Dick.”
“So do I.” Valens's voice, dry and soft. “Ramirez just put Trevor out with a sharp little packet of code, and stabbed him in the throat with a kitchen knife. Weapons being hard to come by on the Montreal. You'll fix that little security breach, Richard?”
“Done,” he says.
“Richard.” Elspeth grunts as she pushes herself to her feet. “Where's Alan?”
Richard's familiar voice is replaced by a cooler, neutral tenor, his craggy face by Alan's blue-green swirl. “Present.”
“You can both be in the same place?” Stupid question, and I want to slap myself once it's out of my mouth.
Alan's chuckle blends into Dick's. “Jenny, effectively — now that I understand the nanonetwork — I can be everywhere simultaneously. And so can Alan. If there's even any difference between us, at this point.”
“Multiple personality disorder,” Elspeth says, and then her complexion brightens with a blush, and she grazes the palm of a hand across her mouth. “Sort of.”
“If we were human,” the AI answers. “But we're not.”
3:17 PM
Tuesday 19 December, 2062
Yonge-University-Spadina Subway Line
Toronto, Ontario
Stupid sort of a thing, Indigo thought, running all the way out into the boondocks just to turn around and come back to Toronto. She leaned against the long bathtub tiles of the subway wall and felt a frown drag at her face.
Get out of Toronto. Get out of Canada.
Indigo clapped the heels of her hands against her eyes and pressed: Your Uncle Bernard would have had more sense.
Put the gun down, Indigo, and I'll get the chance to tell you about him sometime.
“She could have killed me.” Indigo shook her head, then realized she'd spoken aloud. She was almost unarmed, except for the magnetically null flechette pistol tucked into the pocket of her jacket, its glass needles laced with neurotoxin. She'd buried both of the big guns. She'd sent an e-mail to Razorface.
He was already five minutes late.
The crowd swept around her like a tide, close enough to brush, oblivious to her presence. “She could have killed me, too, instead of letting me go.”
“She said to tell you not to sweat it, if you showed up for the meet.” Razorface, quietly sibilant through knife-edged teeth, and Indigo jumped three feet and clipped the back of her head against the wall.
“Shit! Ow! Razor—”
“Surprise, sweetie. I didn't think you'd show.”
Ice locked her bowels. “Is Casey here? You said she'd—” Indigo stopped herself. You're stammering like a teenager.
Your Uncle Bernard would have had more sense.
My Uncle Bernard would still be alive if he'd put a bullet in your head, you fucking cow. Indigo wondered if she could say that to Casey's face.
“She's here,” Razorface answered.
You look like someone I used to know. The spark of pain across Casey's face. The warning. The words. Put the gun down, Indigo, and I'll get the chance to tell you about him sometime.
Indigo's hands slid into her pocket. “Let's go,” she said, and self-consciously pulled the left one out again to hook it around Razorface's elbow.
He untangled her fingers with his own, thick as sausages, and let her hand fall. “She's by the candy stand. You go on alone.”
Her chin bounced up. “She doesn't want you there?”
“You girls—” He stopped, showed teeth in what might once have been a reassuring grin, and shook his head gently. “I think you need to talk, just girls. I be over by the burger joint when you get done.”
That's too easy. But a sigh hissed through her lips as she turned over her shoulder and stole one look back at him. She hadn't wanted to kill him. She figured she'd get Casey easy — it would only take one needle to drop somebody Razorface's size for good, and Casey couldn't weigh more than seventy kilos, not counting the arm. Indigo only had to hit her once.
The trigger of the needle gun felt smooth under her finger. She quick-blinked to pop the targeting scope up in her contact, although it showed nothing now.
You look like someone I used to know.
Genevieve Casey leaned against a tiled pillar, exactly where Razorface had said she would be, chewing on a thread of strawberry candy as if she'd rather be chewing her thumb, her hawklike nose tilted to one side and her eyes downcast, the sun-baked furrows at their corners graven deep with thought. She looked up smoothly as Indigo caught sight of her, and Indigo considered pulling the flechette pistol and spraying her with poisoned glass.
Too far. Bystanders might be hit. The ice lock in Indigo's gut tightened as she moved forward, and Indigo caught sight of something along the edge of Casey's shirt-cuff, peeking out of her jacket on the side with her normal hand. A stain, brown and sticky-looking as molasses. Indigo hid her confusion behind a blink, remembering blood covering Casey's thigh. She should be on crutches at least.
And then Casey smiled and moved toward her, no trace of a limp, the gap between them closing as her right hand — the right hand with traces of blood soaking the cuff and brown under the nails and a ragged pink cut, looking freshly healed, marking the meaty part of the thumb — came out and up and extended, the steel hand shoved into her pocket, the brown gaze locked on Indigo's eyes and a little half-smile saying go ahead and do it if you think you gotta do it, girl…
Your Uncle Bernard would have had more sense.
A convulsive shiver jerked Indigo's empty right hand out of her pocket and slapped it into Casey's hand — a reflex, a spasm, and she felt the roughness of the other woman's scar pressing against her own palm, the callused strength of that grip and then the smile. Diffidence, and a spiking sorrow, and the tentative warmth behind it. She doesn't seem too mad at me for shooting her.