Ortega scowled at me. ‘You asking me to equate the two of you?’
‘Not asking you to do anything, Kristin.’ I shrugged. ‘But for what it’s worth, I don’t see a lot of ground between her and me.’
‘Go on thinking like that, nothing’ll ever change for you.’
‘Kristin, nothing ever does change.’ I jerked a thumb back at the crowd outside. ‘You’ll always have morons like that, swallowing belief patterns whole so they don’t have to think for themselves. You’ll always have people like Kawahara and the Bancrofts to push their buttons and cash in on the program. People like you to make sure the game runs smoothly and the rules don’t get broken too often. And when the Meths want to break the rules themselves, they’ll send people like Trepp and me to do it. That’s the truth, Kristin. It’s been the truth since I was born a hundred and fifty years ago and from what I read in the history books, it’s never been any different. Better get used to it.’
She looked at me levelly for a moment, then nodded as if coming to an internal decision. ‘You always meant to kill Kawahara, didn’t you? This confession bullshit was just to get me along for the ride.’
It was a question I’d asked myself a lot, and I still didn’t have a clear answer. I shrugged again.
‘She deserved to die, Kristin. To really die. That’s all I know for certain.’
Over my head, a faint pattering sounded from the roof panels. I tipped my head back and saw transparent explosions on the glass. It was starting to rain.
‘Got to go,’ I said quietly. ‘Next time you see this face, it won’t be me wearing it, so if there’s anything you want to say…’
Ortega’s face flinched almost imperceptibly as I said it. I cursed myself for the awkwardness and tried to take her hand.
‘Look, if it makes it any easier, no one knows. Bautista probably suspects we got it together, but no one really knows.’
‘I know,’ she said sharply, not giving me her hand. ‘I remember.’
I sighed. ‘Yeah, so do I. It’s worth remembering, Kristin. But don’t let it fuck up the rest of your life. Go get Ryker back, and get on to the next screen. That’s what counts. Oh yeah.’ I reached into my coat and extracted a crumpled cigarette packet. ‘And you can have these back. I don’t need them any more, and nor does he, so don’t start him off again. You owe me that much, at least. Just make sure he stays quit.’
She blinked and kissed me abruptly, somewhere between mouth and cheek. It was an inaccuracy I didn’t try to correct either way. I turned away before I could see if there were going to be any tears and started for the doors at the far end of the hall. I looked back once, as I was mounting the steps. Ortega was still standing there, arms wrapped around herself, watching me leave. In the stormlight, it was too far away to see her face clearly.
For a moment something ached in me, something so deep-rooted that I knew to tear it out would be to undo the essence of what held me together. The feeling rose and splashed like the rain behind my eyes, swelling as the drumming on the roof panels grew and the glass ran with water.
Then I had it locked down.
I turned back to the next step, found a chuckle somewhere in my chest and coughed it out. The chuckle fired up and became a laugh of sorts.
Get to the next screen.
The doors were waiting at the top, the needlecast beyond.
Still trying to laugh, I went through.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There is a vast distance between deciding to write a first novel and actually seeing it published, and the journey across this distance can be emotionally brutal. It comes with loneliness attached, but at the same time requires a massive faith in what you’re doing that is hard to sustain alone. I was only able to complete this journey thanks to a number of people along the way, who lent me their faith when my own was running very low. Since the technology imagined in Altered Carbon doesn’t exist yet, I’d better get on and thank these travelling companions while I can, because without their support, I’m pretty certain Altered Carbon itself would not exist either.
In order of appearance, then: Thanks to Margaret and John Morgan for putting together the original organic material, to Caroline (Dit-Dah) Morgan for enthusiasm from before she could speak, to Gavin Burgess for friendship when often neither of us were in any condition to speak, to Alan Young for depths of unconditional commitment there isn’t any way to speak, and to Virginia Cottinelli for giving me her twenties when I’d almost used mine up. Then, the light at the end of a very long tunnel, thanks to my agent Carolyn Whitaker for considering drafts of Altered Carbon not once, but twice, and to Simon Spanton at Gollancz for being the man to finally make it happen.
BROKEN ANGELS
This one’s for Virginia Cottinelli –
compañera
afileres, camas, sacapuntas
PART ONE
Injured Parties
War is like any other bad relationship. Of course you want out, but at what price? And perhaps more importantly, once you get out, will you be any better off?
CHAPTER ONE
I first met Jan Schneider in a Protectorate orbital hospital, three hundred kilometres above the ragged clouds of Sanction IV and in a lot of pain. Technically there wasn’t supposed to be a Protectorate presence anywhere in the Sanction system – what was left of planetary government was insisting loudly from its bunkers that this was an internal matter, and local corporate interests had tacitly agreed to sign along that particular dotted line for the time being.
Accordingly, the Protectorate vessels that had been hanging around the system since Joshua Kemp raised his revolutionary standard in Indigo City had had their recognition codes altered, in effect being bought out on long-term lease by various of the corporations involved, and then reloaned to the embattled government as part of the – tax deductible – local development fund. Those that were not pulled out of the sky by Kemp’s unexpectedly efficient second-hand marauder bombs would be sold back to the Protectorate, lease unexpired, and any net losses once again written off to tax. Clean hands all round. In the meantime, any senior personnel injured fighting against Kemp’s forces got shuttled out of harm’s way, and this had been my major consideration when choosing sides. It had the look of a messy war.
The shuttle offloaded us directly onto the hospital’s hangar deck, using a device not unlike a massive ammunition feed belt to dump the dozens of capsule stretchers with what felt like unceremonious haste. I could hear the shrill whine of the ship’s engines still dying away as we rattled and clanked our way out over the wing and down onto the deck, and when they cracked open my capsule the air in the hangar burnt my lungs with the chill of recently evacuated hard space. An instant layer of ice crystals formed on everything, including my face.
‘You!’ It was a woman’s voice, harsh with stress. ‘Are you in pain?’
I blinked some of the ice out of my eyes and looked down at my blood-caked battledress.
‘Take a wild guess,’ I croaked.