Crashing Heaven (19 page)

Chapter 27

‘I don’t know what I’m going to do with you, Jack.’

He was alone with Lestak. She’d flown her flyer up to hover between two spinelights. Nobody could disturb them. There was a black silk mask over his head. Its gauze eye patches gave him sight.

[ Not sure if your charm will work through this, old son. Heavy cageware.]

[ I won’t be using it on her.]

[ Wimp.]

‘I’m not impressed by what you did to my men back at the hotel.’

‘They’ll recover.’

‘Perhaps. I’ve petitioned East for her help. One of them keeps on asking for pictures of you. The other two don’t say much, but they smile a lot. We had to handcuff them to stop them playing with themselves.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise what she’d done to me.’

‘You’re touched by Pantheon and it doesn’t occur to you to see what you’ve been given?’ A tired exasperation filled her voice. ‘But then, that’s always been your excuse. Nothing’s your fault.’

‘What’s not his fault, Mummy?’

Jack jumped. The young girl’s voice came from the front passenger seat. It must be Issie, Lestak’s dead daughter. He was surprised that Lestak had let him hear her speak.

‘Grown-up talk, darling. Hush – here, play with your doll.’

‘But Mummy …’

‘Shush.’

‘You’ve brought her here?’ said Jack. ‘And you’re accusing me of irresponsibility?’

‘Issie’s often in the flyer. She likes it.’

‘I can see everywhere!’ chirped Issie.

[ I could infiltrate that fetch,] Fist whispered in Jack’s mind. [ It might help us.]

[ No,] replied Jack. [ I don’t want to risk damaging her.]

[ I can hear you!] interrupted Issie. [And I’m not “that fetch”, I’m Issie.]

[Shit!] said Fist. [She’s tapped into us.]

Issie giggled.

[ That’s really why she’s here,] replied Jack. [ Block her.]

‘They were talking about me, but I can’t hear them anymore,’ complained Issie.

‘It’s good that you told me about that. It’s very rude to talk about people behind their backs, isn’t it?’

‘Oh yes! And it’s even ruder to shut people out when they realise!’

‘I’m sure Jack won’t let Fist do that again – will you?’

[Let’s go with it,] said Jack. [ I want to find out what Lestak’s got to say.]

Fist shimmered into life on the seat next to him. ‘I’ll be good,’ he promised.

‘I’d forgotten how real you look,’ replied Lestak.

‘As real as Issie,’ said Jack, expecting a sharp response from Lestak. But she said nothing. There was a moment’s silence, then Issie stuck her head round the seat. But for her white skull face, she was a perfect simulacrum of a small child.

‘It
is
the funny puppet again! Can I play with him?’

Mist hung in her eye sockets with the soft density of cotton wool. When she spoke, wisps escaped from her hollow mouth. Jack worked hard not to shudder. ‘Fist won’t hurt her,’ he told Lestak. ‘That’s not how we work.’

[ Boring,] sang out Fist.

Lestak nodded. Issie squealed.

‘Off you go then,’ said Jack. ‘Play nice.’

‘I’m not a toy,’ muttered Fist, but he stood up quickly enough, and with a little jump was next to Issie. She shifted in her seat, letting him sit down next to her – one face carved from wood, one from bone. Indulgence and concern mingled on Lestak’s face. Stifled giggles and little whispered words rose up.

‘Are you sharing secrets, Issie?’ asked Lestak.

‘Oh yes!’

‘That’s what we’re going to be doing, too. You and Fist should make sure nobody can hear.’

‘You said that was rude!’

‘Not when you’re sharing secrets.’

A moment of silence, then the puppet and fetch voices combined to say ‘We’re firewalled.’ The giggling and whispering continued. Lestak relaxed.

‘Her eyes are full of weaveware,’ said Jack. ‘You use her for security?’

‘It’s about keeping her safe, as much as me. You make powerful enemies doing what I do.’

‘Yes, must be very handy having a little friend like that.’

‘Now listen, Jack. Corazon was starting to take you seriously, and she had good judgement. That’s why you’re here, now. And that’s why nobody can hear us talk. But don’t push it.’

There was a snorting laugh from the passenger seat.

‘I’m sorry about Corazon. She was a good policewoman.’

‘East said she gave you the news.’

Memories of Corazon’s last minutes jostled at the edge of Jack’s mind. They had started to lose their sharp, unintegrated edge. They were almost bearable. ‘Yes,’ he said.

‘We found out about your meeting with Corazon. We thought you’d killed her.’

‘I had nothing to do with it.’

‘East confirmed that. I wish she’d come to us before we tried to arrest you.’

‘She’s a playful one,’ sighed Jack. ‘Does she know who did shoot Corazon?’

‘No. She’s more upset by that than by the death.’ Jack remembered how outraged East had been not to have known instantly that Corazon was dead. ‘Sandal came to me too,’ continued Lestak. ‘The guards you broke were his. He was furious. Two Pantheon manifestations in one day, and both about you. If Grey hadn’t been sequestered, I’m sure he’d have popped up as well. What have you done to get this much attention, Jack?’

‘I’m trying to find out the truth about the Penderville murder. About Aud Yamata, and her patron. And now about Corazon.’

‘Those are truths that kill, and that makes you dangerous.’

‘I can’t help that.’

‘Sandal wanted me to arrest you and hold you until Fist – well, you know. East wanted me to give you full Wart and Homelands access.’

‘There’s a war in Heaven.’

‘So it seems. And someone needs to try and referee it.’

‘That’s won’t be easy.’

‘No. And that’s why we need to talk. With Corazon dead, I think you are on to something after all. But I’m not going to let you chase around after it, putting more people at risk. And I’ve got to please East and Sandal.’

‘So what are you going to do?’

‘When it comes to you, nothing. I’m not going to change your Station access rights. I’m not going to let you go onweave, or visit Homelands, or the Wart. But I’m not going to restrict you anymore or imprison you, either.’

‘That’ll piss both of them off. And it doesn’t help me.’

‘It’ll piss them both off equally, so they’ll take it up with each other, not me. And I’m not in the business of helping you. I’m in the business of protecting Station. Like you, once.’

‘I still am. There’s something rotten here. Seven years ago, a man was murdered with full Pantheon knowledge. The person that did it has been hidden, with full Pantheon involvement. Others have been silenced at fetch level. Corazon’s been killed.’

‘So why haven’t they shut you down too?’

‘Friends in high places,’ said Jack bitterly.

Sudden shrieks of joy exploded from the front seat.

‘Hush, you two,’ scolded Lestak. There was muffled giggling, then Fist and Issie muted themselves again.

‘I’m not going to beg,’ said Jack. ‘But I do need access to Homelands. I have to try and find Aud Yamata.’

‘You know where she might be?’ Lestak’s attention was suddenly entirely focused on Jack, the professional investigator in her cutting through to the front of her mind. ‘You’re going to share whatever you know with me, aren’t you?’

Jack paused for a moment, wondering how much to tell Lestak, how much she would record, how secure InSec was. It was clear that East didn’t trust her – or at least, didn’t trust the organisation that surrounded her. Corazon’s death had made him wary, too.

A low whine filled the car – a tug passing by, trailing chainship containers, moving towards the Wart. Jack imagined the wonders it would be carrying to the twin malls of Homelands. He thought of containers, perhaps entire chainships, loaded with sweat, made invisible by adapted sweathead avoidance code. He reached a decision.

‘I don’t know anything more than I did back then, Lestak.’

‘If you do run into anything new, you will let us know. You won’t go looking into it yourself.’

‘You’ve got Corazon’s records, that’s more data than I’ll ever have. She was tracking Yamata. I think Yamata realised that and killed her. If you go to the files, you’ll find all you need.’

Lestak wearily massaged her forehead, hiding her eyes. ‘There’s a problem with that.’

‘You have looked at them?’ Lestak said nothing. ‘That’s why they killed her, for gods’ sake! For whatever she’d found out!’

‘There was a chromacode virus. We traced it back to a weave sigil sprayed on the sidewalk outside her apartment. It penetrated her InSec weavespace and shredded all her data.’

‘You think that’s coincidence? You think some script bunny could have planted something like that?’

‘No, I don’t.’ Lestak’s voice became an urgent whisper, as if quieter words were somehow more secret. ‘No, I don’t think that. I agree with you – there’s something wrong here, and it goes all the way to the top. But I can’t let you investigate it. You were taken out of play seven years ago and you’re still out of play now.’

‘Listen to yourself, Lestak. You’re running scared.’

‘Of course I am. This is terrifying. Criminals – I lock them up, or throw them off the weave. Corrupt InSec ops – we find them, we break them. But this – if one of the Pantheon is broken, what am I meant to do? How am I meant to stop that? I have to be so fucking careful even thinking about it. And I am going to investigate it, Jack, but I am going to tread so lightly. And you – there’s nothing light about you, nothing subtle about that creature. You were never
even a proper policeman, and now you’re just damaged
goods, not realising who you’re hurting until it’s
too late. You’re not safe to be around. Corazon
proved that.’

‘And whatever you find out? Will that disappear
too?’

‘I’ve been around a lot longer than Corazon,
and my patron is a lot tougher than hers was.
East, bless her, gives good weathergirl, and her flash mobs
are second to none when it comes to stalking weave
stars. But she’s not a fighter. Not like the
Rose.’

‘So you won’t help me?’

‘No. And I’
ll be watching you. If you do anything at all
that makes me think you’re investigating all this on
your own, I will land on you so fucking hard
you won’t even know what year it is. And
don’t think you’ll be dealing with lightweights like
the boys this morning. I know what East’s done
to you. We’ll send the castrati after you, and
you won’t be able to stop them.’

‘The castrati?
I thought—’

‘They’re not just a rumour, Jack. We’
ve had to deal with people East’s touched before.
The Rose has developed solutions to her charms. Take a
step back. You were never really a professional to start
with, and you’re certainly not one now. If you
keep digging you’ll be dangerous to yourself and to
everyone you touch.’

The flyer started to descend.

‘Make your
peace with your parents, Jack.’ Her voice was softer, now. ‘
Not all of us get the chance to say goodbye,
before the end comes. And being out of the game –
well, sometimes it’s a privilege. It means the terms
of loss are fixed. No one can force them to
change.’

The flyer touched down with a gentle bump. Lestak
turned to the passenger seat and smiled. ‘Issie, honey, playtime’
s over.’ It took a couple of minutes to persuade
her to hand Fist back to Jack. Jack imagined security
systems unmeshing and ports undocking while the skull-faced girl
refused to give up her new friend. In private she
would be a near perfect representation of a living child.
Out here, the skull revealed the truth of her post-
mortal status.

Andrea had refused to show Jack what that
looked like, but Issie was too young to worry about
such things. Jack wasn’t sure whether he felt happy
or sad for her. He wondered how Lestak remembered
her daughter – whether white, empty bone had overwritten the soft liveliness of her living face.

Issie waved from the window as the flyer lifted off, her hand a little pink flutter behind the glass. Lestak’s last words, spoken as she’d lifted Jack’s hood off and unlocked the handcuffs, were simple and direct. ‘Walk away, Jack. Don’t look back.’

[Of course, you’ll ignore her,] said Fist.

[Of course,] replied Jack.

[Cute kid. Lestak’s kept her locked at four years old, but she’s still pretty sharp. She worked out that I was uncaged.]

[ Hell. She’ll tell Lestak.]

[ I swore her to silence. She told me some of her secrets too. Fetch secrets.]

Fist sounded very pleased with himself.

[ What were they?]

Fist pretended outrage.

[ I can’t tell you! I promised!]

[ If I didn’t know you better, I’d swear you were softening.]

[ Not really. Now I can kill fetches too.]

Chapter 28

Harry was sprawled across the sofa, smoking a cigarette. Andrea wasn’t around. Jack hadn’t asked where she was.

‘So you saw her skullchild? Makes me glad I got to build myself. Missed all the bone code out. I’d hate going round like that. Apart from anything else, my hat would slip. And the smoke from these’ – Harry waved the cigarette at Jack – ‘would come out through my eye sockets. That’s really not dignified, is it? Not that it’s a problem you’re going to have, thanks to that little sod.’ He gestured towards Fist, who pointedly ignored him. ‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘what are we going to do about Yamata? Can’t let her get away with it, but I’ve had no luck tracking her down. Now if we could break through Fist’s cage so I can use what he’s got, I might be able to dig a bit deeper. If I can’t find her, we’ve got nothing.’

‘We got all we needed from Akhmatov. Fist?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Fist. ‘I know exactly where she’s based.’

‘Come on then,’ drawled Harry. ‘Let’s have it.’

‘But I’m only going to tell you what I know if I get … certain assurances from Jack.’

‘What?’ replied Jack. ‘For gods’ sake, Fist.’ Privately, he wasn’t too surprised. Since their encounter with East, Fist had been relatively easy to deal with. He’d been expecting the puppet’s obstinacy to reassert itself at some point.

‘What the hell’s he talking about?’ asked Harry. ‘Little shit.’ He swung a large, fat hand towards the side of Fist’s head. The blow didn’t connect – Harry’s fingers passed harmlessly through the puppet. Fist tittered as static shook his face.

‘Still just a ghost, old man!’ he chortled. ‘Can’t touch me, can’t touch me – only if Jack says so, and he won’t.’

Fist turned to Jack.

‘I don’t want you to let Harry mesh with any of my systems, under any circumstances. If you promise that, I’ll tell you how to find Yamata.’

‘You little bastard,’ said Harry.

‘With what I know,’ Fist told Harry, ‘you won’t need any part of me to track her down. So why are you so upset?’

‘Because you should do what Jack tells you. And because this isn’t over yet.’

‘Bullshit. You just want to control me like you do Andrea. You want another slave.’

‘She’s not a slave, she’s a fetch, and that’s what you do with fucking fetches. I do what venues do, I just bring out the best in her. And I’d bring out the best in you too. I’d use you to find things, break into them, then destroy them. That’s what you’re for.’

Jack struggled to hide his anger. ‘Harry’s not going to do anything like that to you,’ he told Fist.

‘What?’ said Harry.

Fist bounced up and down gleefully. ‘You promise?’ he chirped.

‘I promise.’

‘Cross your heart and hope to die?’

‘For gods’ sake. I’ve said no, that’s that. Harry will never get any access to any of your systems.’

‘Hurrah!’ shouted Fist. ‘You’re not the boss of me, Harry!’

‘If I could get my hands on you, you little shit …’

‘You never will now.’

‘Stop bickering, you two,’ snapped Jack. ‘We’re after Yamata, not each other.’ The hard command in his voice took both Harry and Fist by surprise. They fell silent. ‘Now,’ he said to Fist. ‘Tell us where she is.’

‘Akhmatov told us that Yamata works with a security firm in Sheltie. I think I’ve found it. Harry, you’ll need to check it out – here are the details.’

Harry’s eyes fluttered as he read the file.

‘Got it. I’ll scope ’em out, test their defences. Once we’ve found a way of getting you and the little fuck into their servers we can solve all our problems.’

‘You’re very confident. You won’t get caught?’ said Jack.

‘I’ve been hiding in the weave for two years. Travel in the pipes, disappear in doorways, lose myself in shadow. You don’t need to worry about me. But we’ve got to find a way of getting you into Homelands without InSec spotting you.’

‘It’s not going to matter whether or not they can see me.’

‘You’re bolder than you used to be, Jack Forster.’

‘Not bold, Harry, just well connected. The Totality can help me.’

‘Those useless bastards. Would be nice if they turned out to be good for something.’

‘They will be. How long before we move?’

‘I’m going to have to tread carefully. It’ll take a day or so.’

‘It would take me half an hour,’ said Fist.

‘Then you should fucking help me,’ said Harry. He turned back to Jack. ‘Think you can be in Homelands the day after tomorrow?’

‘I’m sure I can.’

‘Good. I’ll be in touch.’

Then Harry was gone. He left the last of his cigarette smoke behind him. It uncurled in the empty room, shaping itself around invisible air currents, then fell away to nothing. Jack felt himself relaxing.

‘What was all that about just now?’ said Jack.

‘I don’t want Harry using me. I don’t want him inside me. I don’t like being controlled.’

‘He just wants to mesh with some of your subsystems.’

‘He’ll do more than that. Count on it.’

‘He can’t hurt you. That’s just bluster.’

‘Fuck’s sake Jack, you really haven’t thought through what it means to be software. Remember how Grey nudged me? Once someone gets into me, they can start playing around.’

‘I wouldn’t give him permission.’

‘Do you think that’d stop him? East could have fried me if she’d wanted to. She didn’t because she won’t break the terms of the software licence that binds you to me. It’s a legal agreement, and that’s what the Pantheon’s built on. Harry doesn’t give a damn about any of that. Once you let him in, he’ll do whatever he wants.’

‘He’s a fetch. They can’t do that.’

‘No he’s not. He’s rebuilt himself. When I was close to Issie, I saw how fetches work. It was one of the secrets she shared with me. He’s structured differently and his lag times are all wrong. He’s not hosted on the Coffin Drives.’

‘He broke out of them, and he’s spent the last few years in hiding. He’s not going to work in the same way as someone like her.’

‘No. It’s more than that.’

‘Have you tried to track him back? Work out where he’s really stored?’

‘I couldn’t probe without him finding out. And we don’t want that.’

‘You’re afraid of him.’

‘Of course I fucking am. If things go his way, he’ll fillet me and fry me like a little Fisty fish. Just like our rogue Pantheon friend would, if they got their hands on me.’

Jack laughed.

‘Don’t you dare find it funny,’ said Fist. ‘I thought that bitch East was going to kill me. I want to break the bastard that’s got it in for us before he or she or it gets a chance to break me.’

‘They want to keep you safe.’

‘And you said that’s bullshit.’

Another voice cut through their conversation.

‘What’s bullshit?’ Andrea wasn’t wearing makeup. The memory of the last time Jack had seen her naked face caught at his heart. Her dress was a deep, clotted red. Her skin was pale and far too young. Jack couldn’t answer. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she continued. ‘I just found a message I left for myself. It told me to watch this with you. It’s a screenshow, I think.’

Jack said, ‘Wait.’ But she waved her hand and there was music. At first, there was only a soft, insistent beat, scratching at Jack’s hearing. It tugged at his attention but it was very quiet, so he had to concentrate carefully to hear it. It caught noises that drifted in from outside in its meshes, pulling them into song.

‘What is this?’ asked Jack.

‘Ssssh,’ whispered Andrea. ‘Listen carefully.’

There was a burst of static. A broken riff lanced out and settled on the beat, like a glitched image of a bird diving again and again into choppy water.

[ It wants to share visuals,] hissed Fist.

[Let it.]

Images started appearing on one of the room’s blank walls. Most were black and white. The few colour ones pulled Jack’s attention to them. More instruments had joined the music. Speech was woven in with it too. Jack heard Harry’s voice. One of the colour photos expanded to fill most of the wall. It was a shoulder lying on rumpled sheets. A woman’s hand caressed it. A second or two passed and then there was a window, seen from below. Soft spinelight made the raindrops on it shimmer like diamonds. Another sudden cut and there was a handwritten card. It disappeared too quickly to be read. A cat pounced on a sock. Just as quickly, a new image flashed up. The music began to feel out of sync with the film. Speech darted out between rapidly shifting rhythms, broken clauses stripped of context. Harry was still talking. There was a light joy to his voice that Jack had never heard before. Caressing fragments whispered into the room – soft endearments caught late at night, loud in the sleeping silence of Station. Then Jack’s own voice started to appear in the mix.

He sounded so much younger. New images flickered by. A kettle boiled. There was a garden, with a soft toy hanging from a tree. Hands pulled a shirt out of a dryer. He recognised his own hands, and memories came. They pulsed through him as the images continued. Meshed with the music, each vignette called up more of the past, creating a record of his time with Andrea seen from her point of view. A clock shone out from a bedside table. It used to wake him every morning. A hand knocked over a glass of whisky. It had the Vista Club logo on it. Andrea had drenched herself. There’d been a taxi ride home, and then a fumble out of her soaked clothes before they made love. Harry had been away. It was the first full night they’d spent together.

The soundtrack muttered broken sighs and laughter. Sounds and images fused into a series of precise invocations. It felt like commands were being written directly to Jack’s memory, triggering a mode of exact recall that summoned the past straight into his mind’s eye. A kaleidoscope of yesterdays sparked into life, overwhelming the present and replacing it with something, richer, deeper and far more structured. For a few moments, Jack felt himself rolled all the way back to his time with Andrea. For a few moments, joy filled him and he forgot everything that had come after. Then, the film’s focus started to move on. Memory shards still pulsed hypnotically, but they no longer reached Jack so directly. He fell back into the present.

[Amazing stuff, Jack.]

[ Yes – really evocative.]

[ No. Look at Andrea.]

She was still rapt in the flickering world of the past. But her clothes and hairstyle had changed, looking more up-to-date. Her face had aged too, time’s passing recarved into it.

[ It’s bringing her back to herself. How?]

[ The music’s doing it, and the images. They’re triggering memory cascades that are rebuilding her most recent self. Quite the achievement!]

Jack thought about the other times he’d heard the same broken music. At the club, Andrea must have been restoring herself after her performance. And he’d thought she’d been rehearsing in her upstairs room. Perhaps she’d in fact been composing, weaving a few new hours of life into the music that would so effectively and precisely reverse any rolling back.

[Oh look!] said Fist. [ It’s all about the moon!]

Jack was snared again, although not in quite the same way as before. Now the experience was less personal. He watched a culture’s grief come to life before him. The lament still tore into him, though. And the music was about far more than dead children. Andrea had shot this sequence through with a flash-forward to her own murder. Corazon’s memories blazed in Jack’s mind. He turned away from the screen, letting the moment pass.

When he looked back, the flash-forward had ended. The film and music moved through the two years before the end of Andrea’s life. It touched on the slow death of her relationship with Harry, and the increasing artistic independence and confidence that paralleled that loss. Finally, it skipped back to her post-death self, filling the wall with images and the air with sounds that recapped her life as a fetch. At last it wound down and there was silence. Jack turned to Andrea, now once again fully herself. Her head was down and her eyes were closed.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked.

She opened her eyes and looked round at him, once again fully herself.

‘I hate having to do that,’ she replied. ‘Fucking clubs. Fucking Harry.’

‘Why do you let him stay here, then?’

‘Oh, Jack.’ She moved to one of the sofas. ‘He was my husband once. He’s a shit, but where else is he going to go? And he’s helped me a lot over the last couple of years, in his own way.’ She brushed her hair out of her eyes. ‘And I have so few other people to talk to. You’ve seen what the clubs are like. I hardly see my friends, they only care about the living. And my family prefer me much younger. Much younger. I was so far away from them as an adult.’

‘You’ve got me to talk to.’

‘And you don’t think I’m really Andrea, do you? I tricked you. That’s one of the first things you said to me. Do you still believe that?’

‘I didn’t trust you. You didn’t tell me the whole truth.’

‘You should have understood why that was impossible by now. Perhaps there are even people you haven’t told the whole truth to?’

Jack winced. ‘Maybe. You do seem to be so much her.’

‘Seem to be?’ she said. ‘Only that?’ Jack said nothing. ‘Which is why I wanted you to see all this,’ she continued. ‘Because I knew you’d say that. You’ve just watched my memories laid out as code, pulling me back to myself. I’m built on memory, Jack. And so are you.’

‘But I haven’t died.’

‘Think about your body. Every single cell is replaced, every seven years. You’ve been away for that long. What remains of the man who left?’

‘I’m still me, Andrea.’

‘You’re a pattern of memories running on a dynamic platform that’s constantly renewing itself. The pattern is all that persists, the self looking back on all it has been and knowing itself from that. That’s what makes you you, Jack, not the passing fact of your flesh. And that’s what makes me me. I may be running on a different platform, but the pattern of me is unchanged and I fight hard to protect it. I am Andrea, Jack, I’m the same person as that different person all those years ago, just as you’re the same person as that different Jack who loved me then.’