“We have skyscrapers,” she said, holding on to the right-hand door as she leant in. “And elevators.” There was the rather grimy-looking top of an elevator car reassuringly close beneath, only a metre or so down. Looking up she saw the shafts and cables climbing into the darkness. “I’ve just never seen inside a lift shaft before. Except in a screen, I suppose. Then there’s always just the one, you know, shaft.”
“Uh-huh,” Jolicci said. “Jump on; I’ll let go the doors. Careful, though; no safety net.”
She jumped onto the roof of the car beneath. Jolicci followed her, making the roof’s surface quiver. The doors above hissed closed and the car started to ascend immediately. She held on to one of the cables — it was greasy with dark, gritty oil — and looked over the edge. The great dark shaft held space for ten elevators, five on each side. The car accelerated smartly, the slipstream tugging at her hair and making Jolicci’s dressing gown flap as they whizzed upwards. She looked down, leaning a little further out as they shot past sets of closed double doors, almost too fast to count. The bottom of the shaft was lost in the darkness.
She was grabbed from behind by one shoulder.
She heard herself yelp as she thudded into Jolicci’s surprisingly solid body. An instant later a dark shape plunged past her in a storm of disturbed air. She had narrowly missed getting decapitated by a rapidly descending car. Jolicci released his hold on her. “Like I said; no safety net. This is a dangerously faithful physical re-creation. No sensors on the cars to stop them hitting or crushing you, no AG down the bottom if you fall. Nobody to see you fall, let alone stop you. You backed-up?”
She found she was shaking a little. “You mean my, my self? My personality?” He just looked at her. She suspected it was just as well it was so gloomy it was hard to tell precisely what his expression was. “I’m only a day out of a… a thing, a jar, a body tank.” She swallowed. “But no.”
The car was slowing, drawing to a stop. Jolicci looked upwards from the far side of the car. “Right. Here comes the fun bit.” He glanced at her. “You ready?”
“What for?” she asked.
“Get over here. Jump when I say. Don’t hesitate. You’ll need to let go of that cable first.”
She let go of the cable, stepped to stand beside him at the other side of the elevator roof. Looking up, tentatively, she saw the bottom of another dark car descending quickly towards them. She heard some sudden, distant whoops and then laughter from further down in the great depth of shadows; the sounds echoed and re-echoed. Their car was still slowing. “Okay, steady, steady…” Jolicci said as their car and the one above approached each other.
“Should I hold your hand?” she asked.
“Do not hold my hand,” he said. “Okay, okay, steady…”
Their car had come almost to a stop; the one coming towards them from above whooshed past.
“Jump!” Jolicci shouted as the car’s roofs were almost level.
He jumped. She jumped too a moment later, but found that she’d jumped as though to land where the other car’s roof had been when she’d leapt, not where it was going to be as she dropped after it. She landed awkwardly and would have fallen against the car’s cables if Jolicci hadn’t caught her. Lededje heard herself gasp.
She held on to the little fat avatar for a moment as they steadied on the roof of the car. The one they’d jumped from was stopped several storeys above and getting further away all the time as their car descended. It too was starting to slow now.
“Wow!” she said, letting go of Jolicci. Her fingers had left dark, greasy marks on his dressing gown lapels. “That was… exciting!” She frowned at him. “Do you do this a lot?”
“Never before,” he told her. “Heard of it.”
That shook her a little. She had rather assumed she was in safe or at least experienced hands. The car drew to a stop. Beneath, she could feel and hear its doors open; a bar of light shone from that edge of the roof, showing Jolicci’s face. He was looking at her oddly, she thought. She felt a strange little frisson of fear.
“This Special Circumstances thing,” he said.
“Yes?” she said as he took a step closer to her. She stepped backward, tripped on a piece of the roof’s cross-bracing and staggered. He grabbed her again, pulling her to the rear edge of the roof.
Deep below, she could see the car whose rear faced their car’s rear rising quickly towards them. The two sets of five cars per side were separated by nearly two metres; three or four times the separation of the cars on each side of the shaft.
Jolicci nodded down, indicating the approaching car. “Think we can make that jump when it comes?” he said into her ear. She could feel his warm breath on her skin. “No safety nets, remember. Not even any surveillance inside here.” He pulled her a little closer to the edge, brought his mouth closer to her ear. “What do you think? Think we can do it?”
“No,” she told him. “And I think you should let go of me.”
Before she could do anything to stop him he gripped her hard by one elbow and pushed her out over the drop, only her feet still in contact with the car’s roof. “Still want me to let go?”
“No!” she shouted, grabbing his arm with her free hand. “Don’t be stupid! Of course not!”
He pulled her in towards him, though still not out of danger. “If you had a terminal it would hear you scream if you happened to fall,” he told her. He made a show of looking down. He shrugged. “Might be just enough time for the ship to realise what was happening and get a drone to you before you hit the bottom.”
“Stop doing this, please,” she said. “You’re frightening me.”
He pulled her close to him, his breath in her face now. “Everybody thinks SC is so glamorous, so… sexy!” He shook her, rubbed his groin against her leg. “Thrilling fun, all danger and excitement, but not too much danger. Is that what you think? Heard the rumours, absorbed the propaganda? Read the right assessments, listened to the relevant experts, self-proclaimed, have we?”
“I’m just trying to find out—”
“You feel frightened?” he asked her.
“I just said—”
He shook his head. “This isn’t dangerous.” he shook her again. “I’m not dangerous. I’m a nice roly-poly GCU avatar; I wouldn’t drop somebody down an antique lift shaft to let them splatter on the concrete. I’m one of the good guys. But you still feel frightened, don’t you? You do feel frightened, don’t you? I hope you feel frightened.”
“I already told you,” she said coldly, trying to keep any expression from her face or voice as she stared into his eyes.
He smiled, pulled her inwards as he stepped back. He let go of her and held on to the cables as the car started downwards again. “As I say, I’m one of the good guys, Ms. Y’breq.”
She gripped another of the cables, hard. “I never told you my full name.”
“Well spotted. Seriously though, I really am one of the good guys. I’m the sort of ship who’d always do everything to save somebody, not kill them, not let them die. SC — its ships, its people — might be on the side of the angels, but that doesn’t mean they always behave like the good guys. In fact, as you’re falling down the metaphorical lift shaft, I can virtually guarantee it will feel like they’re the bad guys, no matter how ethically sound the carefully worked out moral algebra was that led to them chucking you into it in the first place.”
“You have made your point, sir,” she told him frostily. “Perhaps we might abandon this pastime now.”
He looked at her for a few moments longer. Then he shook his head, looked away.
“Well, so you’re tough,” he said. “But you’re still a fool.” He let out a deep breath. The elevator car was pulling to a stop. “I’ll take you to an SC ship.” He smiled without any humour. “If and when it all goes horribly wrong, feel free to blame me, if you still can. It’ll make no difference.”