‘I don’t mind.’
‘Yeah.’ She rubbed a hand on the stubble of his cheek, mock roughly. ‘I imagine you’re used to tough, aren’t you.’
‘Will RimSec come after us?’
‘I don’t know.’ Her tone was thoughtful. ‘There are people I’ve called to tidy up back at the dock. They’ll cover our traces, that’ll be a start. We have friends, Scott. More friends than you’d imagine.’
‘And enemies,’ he said.
‘Yeah. Enemies too.’
He twisted his head to look into her face.
‘Tell me the truth, Carmen. Is this the End Times? When the world goes down in flames, and the beast rises from the ocean with the names of blasphemy written upon him? Is that who we’re up against? The beast?’
She hesitated. ‘I don’t think so. He hasn’t talked about that. But I do know this much: somewhere out there, there’s a dark man looking for him, and for us. This man is a servant of the darkness, and that’s who we have to guard against, Scott. Both of us, whatever happens, we’re servants of the light and we have to keep watch. The black man is coming. And when he comes, we have to be ready to fight, if necessary to the death. Are you ready for that?’
‘Of course I am. I’ll do anything. But…’
She shifted, pushing herself up against the wall so she could look him in the eye. ‘But what?’
Scott looked up at the ceiling. ‘Can’t He do anything about this black man?’
‘Not yet,’ she said gently. ‘At least, that’s what he tells me. It isn’t time. He has other concerns, Scott, other work to do. It’s complicated, I know, I don’t pretend to understand it all myself, but I know what’s been revealed to me, and all I can do is tell you the same. We have to have faith, Scott, that’s what he told me. That’s a Christian strength, isn’t it? Having faith, not questioning what’s revealed?’
‘Uh, yeah…’
‘And, yes, maybe this doesn’t make a lot of sense right now, but if we have faith, I think it will. We have a part to play in this, Scott. You have a part. There’s a reckoning in the wind, and uh, a harrowing to come. Those who stand in its way will fall, those who follow in faith will be raised up.’
‘Then, that means…’ He squeezed her hand tightly. Blood thudded in him, he felt his groin stir faintly. ‘He has come in judgement. It is the time.’
And then, abruptly, he remembered the gaunt, hollow-eyed stare of the stranger, remembered how it felt to be fixed by those eyes at close range, and looking up at the ceiling again, he no longer felt the warm pulse of longed-for vindication, the affirmation of all he’d struggled to believe and hold true. Instead, out of nowhere, he remembered those eyes, that stripped-to-the-bone face, and all he felt was cold, and afraid.
A reckoning in the wind.
CHAPTER TEN
Fifty kilometres outside Van Horn, Interstate Highway 10 laid down a luminescent pale strip of grey in the desert night, stretching away towards low, horizon-hugging mountain ranges whose names the man calling himself Eddie Tanaka had never bothered to learn. Stars punctured the velvet blue black above like knife points, sharp white contrast to the dull red glowing orbs of the autohaul rigs below as they hammered along through the darkness in both directions, following the highway with insectile machine focus. Rising drone, blastpast rush of dark noise and wind, drone collapsing back into the distance. Passing the garish LCLS lights of Tabitha’s with a detachment no human driver could have mustered.
Well, maybe a gleech, he allowed sourly. They don’t got much use for this kind of merchandise.
He glanced up at the brothel’s skyline billboard – the name in vampiric spidery red lettering the original Tabitha would never have agreed to if she hadn’t sold up and moved to the Rim as soon as she had the capital. Behind the spiky-thin lettering, as if caged in by it, female figures switched back and forth in full flesh-toned colour, pixelled almost – but, legal requirements and all, not quite – up to human footage perfect.
Gleech wouldn’t be out here on the highway anyway. They don’t drive.
That you know of.
That Kenan knew of, and he fucking was one, smart guy.
Smart guy? Yeah, you’re some fucking smart guy, Max, out in the parking lot of Tabitha’s with whore’s snot on your jacket and not even a blowjob to show for it. All your plans and schemes, your carve-out-a-new-life bullshit, look where you’re standing still. Snot on your clothes and no blowjob. That’s how fucking smart you are, smart guy.
‘Smart guy…’
He heard his own mutter, final echo off the abrupt, tinny dispute he’d just mounted in his head, knew he was subvocalising again, knew why. Knew too why he hadn’t bothered, couldn’t be bothered to push Chrissie into blowing him.
Never can fucking leave it at just one shot, can you.
He’d dumped the synadrive into his eyes a couple of hours earlier, and the thing was, this was quality product, right out of his own stash, not the stepped-on shit he shifted to the kids in Van Horn and Kent on a Saturday night. So he fucking well knew he’d only need that single squirt – and initially that was what he settled for, just the one dropper load dribbled down onto the quivering surface of his left eye, what the kids called pirate dosage. But pirate shots always, fucking always, left him feeling weirdly unbalanced, and that was on a good night which tonight wasn’t and so as the synadrive came on, that feeling of fucked-up symmetry built and fucking built until it seemed like the whole right side of his body was just too slow and sleepy to bear, and so he gave in and tipped his head back one more time before he hit the road, and the fluid rolled down his right eyeball like tears.
Was a time, he recalled, you had the discipine. Discipline or self respect, either way something that wouldn’t let you do this to yourself.
He was remembering that time a lot these days, staring into mirrors at rooms he abruptly couldn’t believe he belonged in, wondering how he’d wound up here and where it had all leaked away to. That time when syn was a tool like any other, useful and used with a wired confidence that would have been arrogance if it hadn’t all felt so fucking clean and right. Back before it all turned to shit and a black pall of smoke across a Wyoming sundown sky.
Was a time…
Sure. And there was another fucking time the summers never seemed to end and you’d never paid for it in your life. Remember that? Time passes, Max – get over it. Skip the fucking nostalgia, let’s get where we’re at.
And here he was. Snot and no blowjob, out in the night.
He wiped a hand down his jacket, not bothering to look. The synadrive hooked in visual memory and sparked a link to neuro-motor precision, put the gesture right on target, and his fingers came away gummy with the snot. He rubbed them back and forth, grimacing. He didn’t need this shit right now, not the way things were. Not like he didn’t have enough stress. He told her, he fucking told her he had other stuff cooking, stuff that needed managing, not like this pimping shit was his main gig–
Yeah, right the syn told him crisply. How many years we been saying that, exactly? Smart guy?
Different this time. This pays off like it has been, this time next year we’re out. Out for good.