Altered Carbon (42 page)

I turned
back to her. “And the stuff we’ve been trained to do is so close to
crime, there’s almost no difference. Except that crime is easier. Most
criminals are stupid, you probably know that. Even the organised syndicates are
like kid gangs compared to the Corps. It’s easy to get respect. And when
you’ve spent the last decade of your life jacking in and out of sleeves,
cooling out on stack and living virtual, the threats that law enforcement has
to offer are pretty bland.”

We stood
together in silence for a while.

“I’m
sorry,” she said finally.

“Don’t
be. Anyone reading those files on me would have—”

“That
isn’t what I meant.”

“Oh.”
I looked down at the disc in my hands. “Well, if you were looking to
atone for something, I’d say you just have. And take it from me, no one
stays totally clean. The only place you get to do that is on stack.”

“Yes.
I know.”

“Yeah,
well. There is just one more thing I’d like to know.”

“Yes?”

“Is
Sullivan at Bay City Central right now?”

“He
was when I went out.”

“And
what time is he likely to leave this evening?”

“It’s
usually around seven.” She compressed her lips. “What are you going
to do?”

“I’m
going to ask him some questions,” I said truthfully.

“And
if he won’t answer them?”

“Like
you said, he’s not stupid.” I put the disc into my jacket pocket.
“Thank you for your help, doctor. I’d suggest you try not to be
around the facility at seven tonight. And thank you.”

“As I
said Mr.Kovacs, I am doing this for myself.”

“That’s
not what I meant, doctor.”

“Oh.”

I placed one hand lightly on
her arm, then stepped away from her and so back out into the rain.

The wood of the bench had been worn by
decades of occupants into a series of comfortable, buttock-shaped depressions,
and the arms were similarly sculpted. I moulded myself lengthwise into the
curves, cocked my boots on the bench end nearest the doors I was watching, and
settled down to read the graffiti etched into the wood. I was soaked from the
long walk back across town, but the hall was pleasantly heated and the rain
rattled impotently on the long transparent panels of the tilted roof high above
my head. After a while, one of the dog-sized cleaning robots came to wipe away
my muddy footprints from the fused glass paving. I watched it idly until the
job was done and the record of my arrival on the bench was totally erased.

It would
have been nice to think my electronic traces could be wiped in the same way,
but that kind of escape belonged to the legendary heroes of another age.

The
cleaning robot trundled off and I went back to the graffiti. Most of it was
Amanglic or Spanish, old jokes that I’d seen before in a hundred similar
places;
Cabron Modificado
! and
Absent without Sleeve
!, the
old crack
The Altered Native Was Here
!, but high on the bench’s
backrest and chiselled upside down, like a tiny pool of inverted calm in all
the rage and desperate pride, I found a curious haiku in Kanji:

Pull on
the new flesh like borrowed gloves

And
burn your fingers once again
.

The author
must have been leaning over the back of the bench when he cut it into the wood,
but still each character was executed with elegant care. I gazed at the
calligraphy for what was probably a long time, while memories of Harlan’s
World sang in my head like high-tension cables.

A sudden
burst of crying over to my right jolted me out of the reverie. A young black
woman and her two children, also black, were staring at the stooped,
middle-aged white man standing before them in tattered UN surplus fatigues. Family
reunion. The young woman’s face was a mask of shock, it hadn’t hit
her properly yet, and the smaller child, probably no more than four, just
didn’t get it at all. She was looking right through the white man, mouth
forming the repeated question
Where’s Daddy
?
Where’s
Daddy
? The man’s features were glistening in the rainy light from
the roof—he looked like he’d been crying since they dragged him out
of the tank.

I rolled my
head to an empty quadrant of the hall. My own father had walked right past his
waiting family and out of our lives when he was re-sleeved. We never even knew
which one he was, although I sometimes wonder if my mother didn’t catch
some splinter of recognition in an averted gaze, some echo of stance or gait as
he passed. I don’t know if he was too ashamed to confront us, or more
likely too set up with the luck of drawing a sleeve sounder than his own
alcohol-wrecked body had been, and already plotting a new course for other
cities and younger women. I was ten at the time. The first I knew about it was
when the attendants ushered us out of the facility just short of locking up for
the night. We’d been there since noon.

The chief
attendant was an old man, conciliatory and very good with kids. He put his hand
on my shoulder and spoke kindly to me before leading us out. To my mother, he
made a short bow and murmured something formal that allowed her to keep the dam
of her self-control intact.

He probably
saw a few like us every week.

I memorised
Ortega’s discreet destination code, for something to do with my mind,
then shredded that panel of the cigarette packet and ate it.

My clothes
were almost dried through by the time Sullivan came through the doors leading
out of the facility and started down the steps. His thin frame was cloaked in a
long grey raincoat, and he wore a brimmed hat, something I hadn’t seen so
far in Bay City. Framed in the V between my propped feet and reeled into
close-up with the neurachem, his face looked pale and tired. I shifted a little
on the bench and brushed the bolstered Philips gun with the tips of my fingers.
Sullivan was coming straight towards me, but when he saw my form sprawled on
the bench he pursed his mouth with disapproval and altered course to avoid what
he presumably took for a derelict cluttering up the facility. He passed without
giving me another glance.

I gave him
a few metres start and then swung silently to my feet and went after him,
slipping the Philips gun out of its holster under my coat. I caught up just as
he reached the exit. As the doors parted for him, I shoved him rudely in the
small of the back and stepped quickly outside in his wake. He was swinging back
to face me, features contorted with anger, as the doors started to close.

“What
do you think you’re—” The rest of it died on his lips as he
saw who I was.

“Warden
Sullivan,” I said affably, and showed him the Philips gun under my
jacket. “This is a silent weapon, and I’m not in a good mood.
Please do exactly as I tell you.”

He
swallowed. “What do you want?”

“I
want to talk about Trepp, among others. And I don’t want to do it in the
rain. Let’s go.”

“My
car is—”

“A
really bad idea.” I nodded. “So let’s walk. And Warden
Sullivan, if you so much as blink at the wrong person, I’ll shoot you in
half. You won’t see the gun, no one will. But it’ll be there just
the same.”

“You’re
making a mistake, Kovacs.”

“I
don’t think so.” I tipped my head towards the diminished ranks of
parked vehicles in the lot. “Straight through, and left into the street.
Keep going till I tell you to stop.”

Sullivan
started to say something else, but I jerked the barrel of the Philips gun at
him and he shut up. Sideways at first, he made his way down the steps to the
parking lot and then, with occasional backward glances, across the uneven
ground towards the sagging double gate that had rusted open on its runners what
looked like centuries ago.

“Eyes
front,” I called across the widening gap between us. “I’m
still back here, you don’t need to worry about that.”

Out on the
street, I let the gap grow to about a dozen metres and pretended complete
dissociation from the figure ahead of me. It wasn’t a great neighbourhood
and there weren’t many people out walking in the rain. Sullivan was an
easy target for the Philips gun at double the distance.

Five blocks
on, I spotted the steamed-up windows of the noodle house I was looking for. I
quickened my pace and came up on Sullivan’s streetside shoulder.

“In
here. Go to the booths at the back and sit down.”

I made a
single sweep of the street, saw no one obvious, and followed Sullivan inside.

The place
was almost empty, the daytime diners long departed and the evening not yet
cranked up. Two ancient Chinese women sat in a corner with the withered
elegance of dried bouquets, heads nodding together. On the other side of the
restaurant four young men in pale silk suits lounged dangerously and toyed with
expensive-looking chunks of hardware. At a table near one of the windows, a fat
Caucasian was working his way through an enormous bowl of chow mein and
simultaneously flicking over the pages of a holoporn comic. A video screen set
high on one wall gave out coverage of some incomprehensible local sport.

“Tea,”
I said to the young waiter who came to meet us, and seated myself opposite
Sullivan in the booth.

“You
aren’t going to get away with this,” he said unconvincingly.
“Even if you kill me, really kill me, they’ll check the most recent
re-sleevings and backtrack to you sooner or later.”

“Yeah,
maybe they’ll even find out about the unofficial surgery this sleeve had
before I arrived.”

“That
bitch. She’s going to—”

“You’re
in no position to be making threats,” I said mildly. “In fact
you’re in no position to do anything except answer my questions and hope
I believe you. Who told you to tag me?”

Silence,
apart from the game coverage from the set on the wall. Sullivan stared sullenly
at me.

“All
right, I’ll make it easy for you. Simple yes or no. An artificial called
Trepp came to see you. Was this the first time you’d had dealings with
her?”

“I
don’t know what you’re talking about.”

With measured
anger, I backhanded him hard across the mouth. He collapsed sideways against
the wall of the booth, losing his hat. The conversation of the young men in
silk stopped abruptly, then resumed with great animation as I cut them a
sideways glance. The two old women got stiffly to their feet and filed out
through a back entrance. The Caucasian didn’t even look up from his
holoporn. I leaned across the table.

“Warden
Sullivan, you’re not taking this in the spirit it’s intended. I am
very concerned to know who you sold me to. I’m not going to go away, just
because you have some residual scruples about client confidentiality. Believe
me, they didn’t pay you enough to hold out on me.”

Sullivan
sat back up, wiping at the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. To his
credit, he managed a bitter smile with the undamaged portion of his lips.

“You
think I haven’t been threatened before, Kovacs?”

I examined
the hand I’d hit him with. “I think you’ve had very little
experience of personal violence, and that’s going to be a disadvantage.
I’m going to give you the chance to tell me what I want to know here and
now. After that we go somewhere with soundproofing. Now, who sent Trepp?”

“You’re
a thug, Kovacs. Nothing but—”

I snapped
folded knuckles across the table and into his left eye. It made less noise than
the slap. Sullivan grunted in shock and reeled away from the blow, cowering
into the seat. I watched impassively until he recovered. Something cold was
rising in me, something born on the benches of the Newpest justice facility and
tempered with the years of pointless unpleasantness I had been witness to. I
hoped Sullivan wasn’t as tough as he was trying to appear, for both our
sakes. I leaned close again.

“You
said it, Sullivan. I’m a thug. Not a respectable criminal like you.
I’m not a Meth, not a businessman. I have no vested interests, no social
connections, no purchased respectability. It’s just me, and you’re
in my way. So let’s start again. Who sent Trepp?”

“He
doesn’t know, Kovacs. You’re wasting your time.”

The
woman’s voice was light and cheerful, pitched a little loud to carry from
the door where she stood, hands in the pockets of a long black coat. She was
slim and pale with close-cropped dark hair and a poise to the way she stood
that bespoke combat skills. Beneath the coat she wore a grey quilted tunic that
looked impact resistant and matching work trousers tucked into ankle boots. A
single silver earring in the shape of a discarded trode cable dangled from her
left ear. She appeared to be alone.

I lowered
the Philips gun slowly, and without acknowledging that it had ever been trained
on her she took the cue to advance casually into the restaurant. The young men
in silk watched her every step of the way, but if she was aware of their gazes,
she gave no sign. When she was about five paces from our booth, she gave me a
look of enquiry and began to lift her hands slowly out of her pockets. I
nodded, and she completed the movement, revealing open palms and fingers set
with rings of black glass.