‘You went toe to toe with every hard man in the Rookery; I even heard that you got in a couple of fights with some SAS guys, but I always got the feeling you were avoiding me,’ he rumbled.
Tailgunner looked up at the bigger man.
‘I was never sure I could take you. Now get your fucking hands off me.’
At first I thought it was a tectonic event, then I realised the rumbling was Soloso laughing, but he took his hands off Tailgunner and we headed through the curtains.
The other side was different. A large room hewn out of the rock, it sloped down with irregularly spaced lines of chairs, all of which faced a stage. Suspended platforms hung from the ceiling supporting a complicated lighting rig and automated weaponry that was tracking us. Thick, red and extensively patched curtains blocked our view of most of the stage.
I felt rather than saw Soloso come through the curtains behind us.
‘I don’t like this,’ Morag whispered, leaning in close to me. ‘This place is run by a network. Unless it was completely isolated then Demiurge has got to be in here.’
She left unsaid that an isolated system before the coming of Demiurge would have been of little business use. The thing is, we were committed. We had to rely on Tailgunner’s judgement. Even now gunships and flight-capable exo-armour could be on the way to get us. The Puppet Show could collect what I guessed would be a not-insubstantial bounty.
Then the curtains opened and the spots came on. There were five of them. They were on Morag, Cat, Merle, Tailgunner and me. Would have been quite effective if we hadn’t had flash compensation. We could see fine. The stage was backlit in green. Crackly, poor-sound-quality music, which I think was supposed to be sinister and atmospheric, started playing, and the puppets dropped from the rafters over the stage like three hanged women.
They had the thinnest, frailest bodies I’d yet seen on Lalande. They made Strange look bulky. I think had they not been supported by complex-looking exo-frames, their bodies would have just snapped in the high gravity. They hung completely limp in their frames, held up by what looked like thick metal tendrils. Hanging there, they reminded me of Sharcroft in his spider chair, all but a corpse.
They wore dresses that looked like they had once been expensive and fashionable but had seen better days a long time ago. They were accessorised with tatty, once-elegant, elbow-length gloves. Crying facemasks of beaten steel covered their faces.
I didn’t get this. How could this mockery rule the Rookery’s criminal classes? By criminal classes, I meant everyone in the Rookery. They were poor; it wasn’t like they had a choice.
‘You’re bringing trouble to our door, Tailgunner,’ they said. Each word seemed to come from a different one of them. There was no hesitation. The accusation flowed like a proper sentence but somehow it sounded like a ripple of words. I didn’t like it. I kept wanting to turn around, but every time I did I found Soloso there. He was always watching one of us. Most often Tailgunner, but as soon as I looked behind me he would turn his huge dreadlock-shrouded, bullet-shaped head to look at me and smile.
‘Yeah, that’s probably true,’ Tailgunner said after some thought.
‘We have money,’ I said distractedly. I was still looking behind me at Soloso. I turned around to face the Puppet Show.
‘Which we could relieve you of,’ the Puppet Show said. It was very matter of fact, almost as if it wasn’t paying attention.
‘We need supplies,’ Tailgunner told it. He glanced at me. ‘We’ll make it worth your while.’
‘What sort of supplies and for how much?’ the three of them asked as one.
‘Food and medicine mainly, maybe some tools and later some ammunition and explosives. For a lot of people. We’ll take what you can give us.’
The working-class Scottish part of me thought he was being very cavalier with someone else’s money. On the other hand we were being pretty cavalier with Sharcroft’s money. The Puppet Show took some time looking between us.
‘This looks like black ops kind of trouble to us. Why would we want that?’ they asked in unison.
‘Again, money,’ I suggested.
They all turned to look at me. They moved in a kind of angry jerking way, exactly like puppets on a string.
‘We have lots of money. We don’t need trouble from the Freedom Squads. See, a very nice young lady came and explained it to us. Perhaps you know her?’
I manage to resist the urge to look around to see if she was standing in the shadows. Like I’d see her if she was. Morag glanced over at me, worried.
‘See, we can do what we want as long as we don’t interfere with them in any way. It seems like a good deal,’ the Puppet Show continued.
‘Before we talk any more, are we safe here?’ Merle asked, his tone neutral.
‘You are what we say you are here. Nothing more,’ the Puppet Show answered.
This was starting to freak me out. I wondered if they were just three corpses in a frame used as a front to mess with people. Was Soloso the real boss?
‘Which doesn’t answer my fucking question.’
‘Look, this is a nice set-up you have here. Sure it impresses the locals, but if you’re going to fuck us, let’s get to shooting. You go first. If not then I’m going to assume that you’re stalling, which means you’ve got people on the way, which means we’ll initiate the shooting,’ Cat surprised me by saying.
The four of us that weren’t Tailgunner shifted slightly, ready to go for guns. Soloso didn’t even flinch. I know because I glanced nervously behind me.
‘Tailgunner.’ It was a whisper, one syllable each, but they still made it sound like a complete word.
‘Okay, everyone just cool down,’ Tailgunner said, making placatory gestures with his hands.
‘We’re not the people for your street-level bullshit,’ Merle said, sounding genuinely angry.
‘That’s enough. We’re in their house,’ I said to Merle. He didn’t answer. I turned to the Puppet Show. ‘You’re very scary. Seriously, I don’t like this at all. It’s creepy.’ I ignored the look of contempt from Merle and the look of confusion from Morag. ‘We’re here to deal. If you don’t want to, then we’ll go our separate ways and you do what you have to do. Even if that means grassing us up. If you want to deal then let’s get all the gun-pointing, cock-waving, I’m-harder-than-thee bollocks out of the way so we can get on with business.’
‘We didn’t come here to fight you,’ Morag added. ‘But just so you know, we could be a lot of trouble for anyone who helps us.’ Now she didn’t have to emphasise that, but it was now most definitely all our cards on the table.
The Puppet Show stared at us. They stared at us for a very long time. They were very good at intimidation psychology for three inanimate bodies dangling from a roof. I could see Merle getting impatient. I was trying to decide whether or not to target Soloso or one of the automated weapon systems in the rafters. The rafters were winning but I reckoned I’d let the shoulder laser have a crack at Soloso. Though I couldn’t shake the feeling that it’d be like trying to kill a tank with a flashlight. Then I remembered that my combat jacket didn’t have a shoulder flap for the laser anyway.
‘You are safe here,’ came the rippling answer, finally. Tailgunner, Cat and I relaxed slightly.
‘I don’t wish to appear disrespectful but how does that work?’ Morag asked. As she did the Puppet Show jerked round to face her. Not so long ago she would have flinched. Not now though. ‘You’re networked, aren’t you? This whole place.’
‘It works by having to shut down our entire system and go on to a clean life support while every single component is stripped out and replaced and then shielded at some expense. It works through isolation from the net that was our world. It works through surgery to cut our infected systems to replace them with new clean ones. It works through constant and expensive vigilance to keep out attempts to invade our system or re-link it to the net.’