“It’s on the feed already,” he said. “Sam, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. They shot him—”
“Shut up!”
My throat knotted, and I felt like I was going to bawl, but it never came. It just stayed there, stuck in my throat like a bitter chunk of scalefly I couldn’t swallow. I couldn’t speak. Even the sounds of the city, the vehicles and the blanket of anonymous conversation, started to sound far away.
“Sam, are you okay?” He went to take my arm again, but I pulled away. The ground felt like it had begun to move. It was true that he had resisted. The last thing I saw as I went out the window was him fighting the soldiers. By the time I got back up there, he was gone.
“Sam?”
“There was no blood,” I said.
“Huh?”
“When I went back, there was no blood.”
Vamp just pressed his lips together while looking so sorry it made me sick. He knew it didn’t prove anything, and I knew it too.
“He messaged me,” I said. “Late last night, he messaged me on the 3i. He’s alive.”
Or he was.
Vamp didn’t say it. He was thinking it, but he didn’t say it.
“Do you have any idea what he was up to?” Vamp asked carefully. “His e-mails made it sound like he’d gotten mixed up in something.”
I shook my head.
Passage clear to Duongroi. Meet me at my place in the Pink Bull, Hăiyáng-Gāodù, to pick up passports. Bring payment, and come alone.
“Eng,” I said softly.
The name started to pulse in my brain like a fire alarm klaxon. Whoever he was, he was one of the last people to see Dragan before…
I couldn’t finish the thought.
He’s not dead. He messaged me. They have him, somewhere.
“Sam?”
“Did you get the eyebot logs?” I asked, my voice rough.
“Yeah, but—”
“Send them to me.”
“Sam—”
“Just do it. Please.”
He nodded.
“I have to go.”
“Go where?”
“There’s someone I have to go see.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Vamp, no, I’m sorry.”
“Sam, I’m coming with you.”
Before he could push any further, I broke away and sprinted to the mouth of the alley.
“Sam, wait!”
I stopped and turned back, just for a minute. “Don’t follow me! Look… I’ll call you in an hour.”
“You’re going to get pinched. They’re not coming out with it officially, but the buzz is the weapon they’re looking for is still here in the city. Security is through the roof, Sam.”
“I know. Wait for me?”
He didn’t answer, but he’d wait. Once I was around the corner, I lost myself in the crowd and kept one eye on the main drag. When I saw a taxi approach, I darted out into the street from between two parked cars and tires chirped as the cabbie laid on his horn. Before he could squeeze by, I opened the back door and jumped in, slamming it behind me. A pair of tired-looking eyes in a wrinkled brown face glared back at me from the rearview mirror. I peeked out the window and saw a couple of cops waiting outside the apartment go back to talking.
“Hey,” the cabbie said while someone leaned on his horn behind us. “What’s the—” He stopped when I held up the cash card where he could see.
“The gate hub to Hăiyáng-Gāodù,” I said. “Hurry.”
He shrugged, rolling the car forward just as the line behind us started trying to sneak around on his left. He picked up speed, closing the gap ahead and then breaking with about an inch to spare between his grille and the guy in front’s back bumper.
“What’s in Hăiyáng-Gāodù?” the cabbie asked over his shoulder as I thumbed in the hotel name and pulled up the exact address.
“The Pink Bull.”
He raised his heavy eyebrows. “You a hooker?”
“Just drive the car.”
He shrugged again as we passed a couple more security guys standing on the corner. I rode low in the seat, watching the people and buildings cruise past, and risked a glance out the back window once we were past them. Neither of them bothered to look up. When we hit the tunnel I sat up again and put my forehead to the window next to me, feeling more alone than I’d ever felt in my life.
I couldn’t believe it was true. I wouldn’t believe it was true until I saw it for myself, but I couldn’t bring myself to check the news feeds. I didn’t want to know for sure, not yet. I wanted to hold on to uncertainty, or even denial if that’s all it was, just a little longer.
My stomach felt hollow again, clenching and unclenching like an anxious fist. I slid one hand into my side pocket to make sure I still had the ration sheet, and felt its rough edge under my fingertips. It had a full five punches left. I leaned back to nurse my throbbing head, turning my face into the cool current dribbling out of the cab’s vent. The streets were already thick with people, and they got thicker the farther on we went. By the time I could see the Heights off in the distance, the sidewalks were swarmed, bodies brushing the side of the cab as we passed. Through the front windshield, all I saw were chains of cars and an uneven blanket of bobbing black-haired heads sprinkled with the occasional shiny smoke-gray dome as the road sloped down and away. Arms waved in the air as people crowded around the rows of street kiosks, buying and selling. They were like a huge, surging organism with a steady, babbling voice that rose over the distant sound of the surf beyond. Even through the vent a wet, salty musk had started to simmer under the street smells.
“Don’t bother pulling up,” I said. “Here is fine.” The cabbie rolled to a stop and shut off the meter. I handed my cash card through the partition and grimaced a little when I saw how much it was.
He swiped it and took a tip without asking. The machine spat out a receipt and he tore it off before handing both back.
“Thanks.”
I stepped out into the sweltering heat, feeling the breath of hot methanol exhaust against my leg as the engine rumbled and he pulled away from the blue-gray cloud.
I joined the throng of people queued up in front of the hub, and even through the gate I could see the Pink Bull sign: a half pinwheel of turquoise arched over a blazing pink bull with a phallus the size of an airbike’s sidecar.
I pushed my way into the current, following a chiseled guy with a zebra-pattered bandana that held down a nest of home-perm frizz. When it was my turn to go through, I sensed something behind me, something moving toward me, and a shot of adrenaline made my skin prickle. Before I could turn and see who or what it was, though, my momentum carried me through the gate and I stepped into the bustle of downtown Hăiyáng-Gāodù. The exit gate had brought me right up to the corner of the hotel where that obnoxious plastic dong pointed down at me from above like Gonzo’s pink fist.
The funky surf smell was a lot stronger there, and the humid sea breeze carried with it the chemical stink from the offshore feedlots. Down at the far end of the street, I could see through to the muck gray expanse of the tidal flats and mountains of waste salt. Way off in the distance an irregular, speckled dark cloud hung low to the ocean surface—scaleflies, swarming their way down the coast where most would get harvested, and the rest sprayed.
A little pink heart blinked on in the corner of my eye as a friend request came in on the 3i.
NIX.
My face got hot at the sight of his name.
Denied.
I approached the hotel, weaving between the tricked-out cars and rowdy pedestrians that filled the street. A lot of festival masks and costumes were already on display, and splashes of red dye were fanned out across the blacktop. The party was already starting, and the odd firecracker popped here and there over the din.