‘Not everyone else had to abandon immortality, though.’
‘No, of course not…’ She paused, as if to collect her thoughts. ‘The hermetics, you’ll have seen them — well, they still have all the machines inside them, constantly correcting cell damage. But the price they pay for it is they can’t move freely in the city. Once they leave their palanquins they have to restrict themselves to a few environments guaranteed to be free of residual plague spore, and even then there’s a small risk.’
I looked at Zebra, trying to judge her. ‘But you’re not a hermetic. Are you no longer immortal?’
‘No, Tanner… it’s nowhere near as simple as that.’
‘Then what?’
‘After the plague, some of us found a new technique. It enabled us to keep the machines inside ourselves — most of them, anyway — and still walk unprotected in the city. It’s a kind of medication; a drug. It does many things, and no one know how it works, but it seems to barrier our machines against the plague, or weaken the efficacy of any plague spore which enter our bodies.’
‘This medication… what is it like?’
‘You don’t want to know, Tanner.’
‘Suppose I were interested in immortality as well?’
‘Are you?’
‘It’s a hypothetical viewpoint, that’s all.’
‘I thought so.’ Zebra nodded sagely. ‘Where you come from, immortality’s something of a pointless luxury, isn’t it?’
‘For those not descended from the momios, yes.’
‘Momios?’
‘That was what we called the sleepers on the Santiago — they were immortal. The crew weren’t.’
‘We? You talk as if you were actually there.’
‘Slip of the tongue. The point is, there’s not much point being immortal if you’re not going to survive more than ten years without getting shot or blown up in a skirmish. Besides, the price the Ultras are charging, nobody could afford it even if they wanted it.’
‘And would you have wanted it, Tanner Mirabel?’ Then she kissed me, and pulled back to lock eyes with me, much as Gitta had in my dream. ‘I intend to make love to you, Tanner. Do you find that shocking? You shouldn’t. You’re an attractive man. You’re different. You don’t play our games — don’t even understand them — though I imagine you’d play them reasonably well if you wished. I don’t know what to make of you.’
‘I have the same problem,’ I said. ‘My past is a foreign country.’
‘Nice line, except it isn’t remotely original.’
‘Sorry.’
‘But in a way, it’s true, isn’t it? Waverly told me that when he ran a trawl on you he didn’t come up with anything clear-cut. He said it was like trying to put together a broken vase. No; that’s not quite what he said, either. He said it was almost like trying to put together two, or even three, broken vases, and not knowing which piece belonged where.’
‘Revival amnesia,’ I said.
‘Well, perhaps. The confusion looked a little more profound than that, Waverly said… but let’s not talk about him.’
‘Fine. But you still haven’t told me about this medication.’
‘Why are you so interested?’
‘Because I think I might have already encountered it. It’s Dream Fuel, isn’t it? It’s what your sister was investigating when she was killed for her troubles.’
She took her time answering. ‘That coat… it’s not yours, is it?’
‘No, I obtained it from a benefactor. What has that got to do with anything?’
‘It made me think you might be trying to trick me. But you really don’t know much about Dream Fuel, do you?’
‘Until a couple of days ago I’d never heard of it.’
‘Then there’s something you should probably know,’ Zebra said. ‘I injected you with a small quantity of Fuel last night.’
‘What?’
‘It wasn’t much, I assure you. I probably should have asked you, but you were injured and tired and I knew there was very little risk.’ Then she showed me the small bronze wedding-gun she had used, one full vial of Fuel in her cache. ‘Fuel protects those of us who still have machines inside our bodies, but it also has general healing properties. That’s why I gave it to you. I’ll need to get some more.’
‘Will that be easy?’
She gave me a half-smile and then shook her head. ‘Not as easy as it used to be. Unless you happen to have a hotline to Gideon.’
I was about to ask her what she had meant by the remark about the coat, but now she had distracted me. I didn’t think I had heard that name before.
‘Gideon?’
‘He’s a crime lord. No one knows much about him, what he looks like, where he lives. Except he’s got absolute control of Dream Fuel distribution across the city and the people who work for him are very serious about their work.’
‘And now they’re limiting the supply? Just when everyone’s become addicted to it? Maybe I should have a word with Gideon.’
‘Don’t get any more involved than you have to, Tanner. Gideon is extremely bad news.’
‘You sound as if you’re speaking from experience.’
‘I am.’ Zebra walked to the window and ran a hand over the glass. ‘I told you about Mavra already, Tanner. My sister, the one who used to love this view?’ I nodded, remembering the conversation we’d had shortly after arriving here. ‘I also told you she was dead. Well, Gideon’s people were the people my sister got involved with.’
‘They killed her?’
‘I’ll never know for sure, but that’s what I think. Mavra believed they were strangling us, withholding the one substance the city needs. Dream Fuel’s dangerous stuff, Tanner — there isn’t enough of it to go around, and yet for most of us it’s the most precious substance imaginable. It’s not just the kind of thing people kill for; it’s the kind of thing people fight wars for.’
‘So she wanted to persuade Gideon to open up the supply?’
‘Nothing so naïve; Mavra was nothing if not a pragmatist. She knew Gideon wasn’t going to let it go that easily. But if she could find out how the stuff was being manufactured — even what the stuff was — she could pass on that knowledge to other people so that they could synthesise it for themselves. At the very least she’d have broken the monopoly.’
‘I admire her for trying. She must have known it might get her killed.’
‘Yes. She was like that. She wouldn’t give up a hunt.’ Zebra paused. ‘I always promised her that if anything happened, I’d…’
‘Pick up where she left off?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Maybe it isn’t too late. When all this blows over…’ I touched my head. ‘Maybe I’ll help you find Gideon.’
‘Why would you do that?’
‘You helped me, Zebra. It would be the least I could do.’ And, I thought, because Mavra sounded a lot like me. Perhaps she had come close to finding what she was looking for. If so, those who remembered her — and I counted myself as one now — owed it to her to carry on her work. There was something else, too.
Something about Gideon, and who he reminded me of — sitting, spiderlike, at the dark centre of a web of absolute control, imagining himself invulnerable. I thought again of Cahuella, and what had passed through my mind in sleep. ‘The Dream Fuel you gave me. Is that why I had such strange dreams?’
‘It does that, sometimes. Especially if it’s your first dose. It’s working its way through your brain, tinkering with neural connections. That’s why they call it Dream Fuel. But that’s only half of it.’
‘Does that make me immortal now?’
Zebra let the smoke-coloured gown fall away from her and I pulled her to me, looking into her face.
‘For today, yes.’