‘Yeah, but why?’
‘Natsume.’ I shrugged. ‘They’d probably been tagging him since—’
The attendant was gaping at us as if we’d started gibbering in machine code. Her colleague appeared behind her at the door to the transfer chamber and pushed his way past. There was a small beige datachip in his left hand and the cheap silicoflesh was stretched taut on his fingers where he gripped it. He brandished the chip at us and leaned in close to beat the noise of the sirens.
‘You must leave now,’ he said forcefully. ‘I am requested by Norikae-san to give you this, but you must get out immediately. You are no longer either welcome or safe here.’
‘Yeah, no shit.’ I took the offered chip. ‘If I were you, I’d come with us. Weld shut every dataport you’ve got into the monastery before you leave and then call a good viral clean-up crew. From what I saw back there, your doorkeepers are outclassed.’
The sirens whooped about us like methed-up partygoers. He shook his head, as if to clear it of noise. ‘No. If this is a test, we will meet it on Uploaded terms. We will not abandon our brothers.’
‘Or sisters. Well, suit yourself, that’s very noble. But personally I think anyone you send in there at the moment is going to come out with their subconscious flayed to the bone. You badly need some real-world support.’
He stared at me.
‘You do not understand,’ he yelled. ‘This is our domain, not the flesh. This is the destiny of the human race, to Upload. We are at our strongest there, we will triumph there.’
I gave up. I shouted back at him.
‘Fine. Great. You let me know how that turns out. Jack, Sierra. Let’s leave these idiots to kill themselves and get the fuck out of here.’
We abandoned the two of them in the transfer room. The last I saw of either was the male attendant laying himself on one of the couches, staring straight up while the woman attached the trodes. His face was shiny with sweat, but it was rapt too, locked in a paroxysm of will and emotion.
Out on Whaleback and Ninth, soft afternoon light was painting the blank-eyed walls of the monastery warm and orange, and the sounds of traffic hooting in the Reach drifted up with the smell of the sea. A light westerly breeze stirred dust and dried-out spindrizzle spores in the gutters. Up ahead, a couple of children ran across the street, making shooting noises and chasing a miniature robot toy made to resemble a karakuri. There was no one else about, and nothing in the scene to suggest the battle now raging back in the machine heart of the Renouncers’ construct. You could have been forgiven for thinking the whole thing was a dream.
But down at the lower limits of my neurachem hearing as we walked away, I could just make out the cry of ancient sirens, like a warning, feeble and faint, of the stirring forces and the chaos to come.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Harlan’s Day.
More correctly, Harlan’s Eve – technically, the festivities wouldn’t commence until midnight rolled around, and that was a solid four hours away. But even this early in the evening, with the last of the day’s light still high in the western sky, the proceedings had kicked off long since. Over in New Kanagawa and Danchi the downtown areas would already be a lurid parade of holodisplay and masked dance, and the bars would all be serving at state-subsidised birthday prices. Part of running a successful tyranny is knowing when and how to let your subjects off the leash, and at this the First Families were accomplished masters. Even those who hated them most would have had to admit that you couldn’t fault Harlan and his kind when it came to throwing a street party.
Down by the water in Tadaimako, the mood was more genteel but festive still. Work had ceased in the commercial harbour around lunchtime, and now small groups of dock workers sat on the high sides of real-keel freighters, sharing pipes and bottles and looking expectantly at the sky. In the marina, small parties were in progress on most of the yachts, one or two larger ones spilling out from vessels onto the jetties. A confused mish-mash of music splashed out everywhere, and as the evening light thickened you could see where decks and masts had been sprayed with illuminum powder in green and pink. Excess powder glimmered scummily in the water between hulls.
A couple of yachts across from the trimaran we were stealing, a minimally-clad blonde woman waved giddily at me. I lifted the Erkezes cigar, also stolen, in cautious salute, hoping she wouldn’t take it as an invitation to jump ship and come over. Isa had music she swore was fashionable thumping up from below decks, but it was a cover. The only thing going on to that beat was an intrusion run into the guts of the trimaran Boubin Islander’s onboard security systems. Uninvited guests trying to crash this particular party were going to meet Sierra Tres or Jack Soul Brasil and the business end of a Kalashnikov shard gun at the base of the companionway.
I knocked some ash off the cigar and wandered about in the yacht’s stern seating area, trying to look as if I belonged there. Vague tension eeled through my guts, more insistent than I’d usually expect before a gig. It didn’t take much imagination to work out why. An ache that I knew was psychosomatic twinged down the length of my left arm.
I very badly didn’t want to climb Rila Crags.
Fucking typical. The whole city’s partying, and I get to spend the night clinging to a two-hundred-metre sheer cliff face.
‘Hello there.’
I glanced up and saw the minimally-clad blonde woman standing at the gangplank and smiling brilliantly. She wobbled a little on exaggerated stiletto heels.
‘Hello,’ I said cautiously.
‘Don’t know your face,’ she said with inebriated directness. ‘I’d remember a hull this gorgeous. You don’t usually moor here, do you?’
‘No, that’s right.’ I slapped the rail. ‘First time she’s been to Millsport. Only got in a couple of days ago.’
For the Boubin Islander and her real owners at least, it was the truth. They were a pair of moneyed couples from the Ohrid Isles, rich by way of some state sell-off in local navigational systems, visiting Millsport for the first time in decades. An ideal choice, plucked out of the harbourmaster datastack by Isa along with everything else we needed to get aboard the thirty-metre trimaran. Both couples were unconscious in a Tadaimako hotel right now, and a couple of Brasil’s younger revolutionary enthusiasts would make sure they stayed that way for the next two days. Amidst the confusion of the Harlan’s Day celebrations, it was unlikely anyone was going to miss them.
‘Mind if I come aboard and take a look?’
‘Uh, well, that’d be fine except, thing is, we’re about to cast off. Couple more minutes, and we’re taking her out into the Reach for the fireworks.’
‘Oh, that’s fantastic. You know, I’d really love to do that.’ She flexed her body at me. ‘I go absolutely crazy for fireworks. They make me all, I don’t know—’
‘Hey, baby.’ An arm slipped around my waist and violent crimson hair tickled me under the jaw. Isa snuggling against me, stripped down to cutaway swimwear and some eye-opening embedded body jewellery. She glared balefully at the blonde woman. ‘Who’s your new friend?’
‘Oh, we haven’t, ah…’ I opened an inviting hand.
The blonde woman’s mouth tightened. Maybe it was a competitive thing, maybe it was Isa’s glittery, red-veined stare. Or maybe just healthy disgust at seeing a fifteen-year-old girl hanging off a man over twice her age. Re-sleeving can and does lead to some weird body options, but anyone with the money to run a boat like Boubin Islander doesn’t have to go through them if they don’t want to. If I was fucking someone who looked fifteen, either she was fifteen, or I wanted her to look like she was, which in the end comes to pretty much the same thing.