Mary Rosenblum (20 page)

Interesting. The birth rate was significantly lower than normal for the overall downside population.

Radiation? Less family orientation? She wondered how many pregnancies ended before term. Hacking medical information wasn’t easy, cheap, or safe. She emerged from Pause as Noah and Donya arrowed back to her, Donya radiating disappointment.

“Come down another time,” Noah was saying. “And I’ll giive you another lesson. You do really well for a downsider.” He gave Ahni a lopsided smile. “Your relative?”

“Not mine.” Ahni fished a cash card from her singlesuit, handed it to Donya. ”You want to get yourself a squeeze of juice?”

“Thank you.” Donya took the card and made her way speedily if not quite accurately, to the refreshment kiosk. “I hope she doesn’t get beer.” Ahni sighed, and examined Noah from the corner of her eye.

Something was bothering him.

“Noah, I have a question for you.”

“Sure.” He drifted closer, his eyes warming as he looked after Donya who had landed safely at the kiosk. “Nice kid. What’s up?”

“In all honesty … how difficult would it be for someone to jack their way into the Con in a big way?

Maybe replicate a large number of ghosts? If money was no object?”

The hot slash of his response nearly made her flinch. Outwardly he didn’t move, merely stared at his hand, closed white-knuckled around the nearest cable. ”What difference would it make it someone did?”

His tone was flat, even. His emotions were not. “Sure they could plant some misinformation, but you start talking to peoople, you find out the truth. It isn’t really going to do any harm.”

He was asking her.

Donya was on her way back, sucking on her juice squeeze, experimenting with motion and the cables.

“If there were enough ghosts,” Ahni said softly. “And they were … say … spreading anger … “

”You couldn’t do that. You can’t just make people … feel diffferently.” Noah kicked off and zoomed back into the rough game.

Thoughtfully, Ahni watched him collide hard with Jose, heard the security guard’s exclamation as he went tumbling off course. Too late to ask him if he’d told Dane she wanted to see him. Shook her head. “Okay kid.” She turned her attention back to Donya. “I’ve aided and abetted you enough here. Time to go back and face the parents before they call Security out to scour the whole can.”

”You know they’re never going to let me out of our hotel room after this.” The girl regarded her morosely.

“Probably not.”

“They think there are weird people up here. There are weird people everywhere. Well, at least I got to fly.” Donya shrugged, stoically. “And he said I was good.”

Ahni laughed in spite of herself and caught hold of Donya’s wrist. “Okay, kid, let’s go. If I get arrested for kidnapping, I hope you’ll set them straight before they throw me in jail.”

“I will,” Donya said cheerfully. “Don’t worry.”

“Now that the game is over, you might want to link and leave them a message that you’re alive,” Ahni suggested as they reached the elevator.

“I did that while I was waiting for the juice.” She rolled her eyes. “They didn’t even know I was gone yet.

Nanny’s probably still out looking, poor thing. I told Father that he should let her know it was okay to quit and that it wasn’t really her fault. I’m very clever. They know that.” She gave Ahni a sideways look.

“Father didn’t blame her too much. He says sometimes that if he believed in demons he would worry about me.” She smiled, warm with smug certainty. “He doesn’t really mean that, but he wasn’t too mad.”

“Your father is a wise man,” Ahni said dryly. She shrugged into the padded straps in the elevator. Only natives got on at the first few levels as the elevator dropped. Ahni pretended indifference and sorted through the emotional tone. How would it go? You hear a hot bit of gossip about a nasty little encounter, another heavyweight putting down a shopkeeper, harassing a cleaner, spitting on a clumsy aide, maybe even rape. And you get angry. And you talk about it with your neighbor, your coworker, your lover. Did you hear about …

Stones tossed into a pond, she thought. Toss enough stones and you have a choppy, stormy sea. You could buy stones. You could buy someone to toss ‘em. Noah had run from her.

They exited on the skinside level, the harsh reek of hostility muted here. The scent of sizzling olive oil wafted from a little sitdown restaurant. Donya dragged her feet, sniffing like one of Tai Pei’s protected feral dogs, down on the docks. “I told Father that I wanted to stop and eat lunch.” She looked hopefully at Ahni. “He’s got my chip under surveillance, so he said it was okay. I’m really not making that up,” she said, without a whole lot of hope.

Ahni smiled at her. “I know you’re not.”

Donya got it instantly. ”You’re E-rated. That’s so
cool
.” Her eyes widened. “Are you really high? A ten?

So what am I thinking right now?”

”You don’t know what people
think
.” Ahni steered her firmly into the little restaurant. ”You’ve seen too many vids. But I know when people tell the truth. Or when they lie.” She hid a smile as she watched Donya cast back over their conversations. The place served a nice vegetarian menu. Grilled vegetables.

Tofu in various forms as well as a classic gardenburger with realmilk, upported cheese, acccording to the menu.

She ordered a salad with smoked tofu while Donya ordered the gardenburger and grumbled about the lack of meat. Father wouldn’t let her order it. Too expensive. Five little round tables crowded elbow to elbow in the tiny space, each with a vase of opalescent vacuum glass holding a single pink rose. Ahni hadn’t seen roses in Dane’s kingdom, but she bet they were there somewhere. They took their cycleware platters to an empty table, collecting utensils and drinks on the way. Donya had loaded her burger up with sauces and greens until it resembled a small urban tower and threatened to succumb to gravity in a soggy mound. Ahni forked up her salad noticing that the greens lacked any sort of onion and no garlic flavored the vinaigrette dressing. Odor?

At the next table a young couple held hands, natural Mediterraneans both of them, newlyweds or new lovers to be sure. She smiled at the drift of pheromones slowly filling the small space. He leaned forward to caress her hand, his skin the color of honey, his dark eyes sparkling as he lifted her hand, turned it palm up and lowered his head to kiss her wrist. Her long fingers with their lacquered and inlaid nails curved to caress his cheekbone, the dark fringe of her lashes brushing her tawny cheek. Every person in the restaurant shifted and sighed and Ahni smiled into her salad. Only Donya seemed oblivious.

He pulled her to her feet. She wore her hair long, parted in the middle and swept back to an intricate knot at the base of her skull. A tiny pale lizard perched on it, ruby eyes blinking slowly, throat pulsating, its scales like slices of pearl.

“Oh, look, she has one of those jewel lizards.” Donya bounced in her seat, the sloppy ruins of her burger abandoned. “They’re illegal in North America. I wonder if she got it up here.”

At that moment, a narrow-faced native in a grimy singlet pushed past the couple, bumping into the woman hard enough to press himself briefly and quite explicitly against her. She recoiled with a gasp of shock. The native quite openly grabbed her breast through the gauzy fabric of her shift. She squeaked.

Her husbar::thrust himself forward, trembling between action and inaction.

The native said something to him in a low voice.

The Mediterranean threw an awkward, looping punch. It was a joke, Donya could have ducked it …

but the native went down, knocking over the nearest table. Dishes flew, splashing two native women at a nearby table who shrieked and scrambled out of the way. On the floor, splattered with food, he groaned.

Crimson blood blossomed on his face and this time, the Mediterranean woman screamed, a shrill nail-rake of sound in the tight space. Diners were on their feet now, mostly natives, Ahni noticed suddenly. Only she, and Donya, and the honeymoon couple were tourists.

“Wow.” Donya pushed forward. “He didn’t hit him that hard.”

“Keep your damn fists to yourself, heavyweight.” A broad native with a lot of lanky muscle shoved forward. “Who the hell do you think you are, coming up here, pushing us around, eh?”

“He … he assaulted my wife.” The man had gone pale, took a half step back from the native’s out thrust face and hunched, threatening shoulders. “I didn’t hit him that hard.”

“Someone call Emergency,” a petite woman at a nearby table shrieked. “He’s bleeding to death!”

Faces gathered at the door, the news got yelled back, out into the corridor. Ahni peered through tlle small window, her gut cold. Where the hell had the crowd come from, and so quickly? Ahni grabbed Donya’s arm as the girl pushed toward the fallen man and the tourist who was now the center of a shouting knot of diners.

“He’s dead,” someone screamed. “Oh my God, he killed him.”

Which was patently false. Ahni could see the heave of his chest from here. She quick-blinked into Pause, scanned the local schematics, blinked out. ”We’re out of here,” she hissed in Donya’s ear. “Right now.”

“But-” Donya tried to pull away, but Ahni twisted her arm just enough to wring a gasp and compliance from her, aimed her at the narrow door to the kitchen. Back door, service alley, fast way out before this blew up. Behind her the woman screamed again, long and loud this time, fear piercing the air. “That way.

Go!” She shoved the uncooperative Donya summarily toward the kitchen.

And felt Xai.

He was out there. Behind her. In the corridor. She hesitated, allmost turned back. But to get out there meant going straight through the knot of seething violence in the center of the restaurant. The woman was screaming wildly now and red violence fogged the air. Where the hell was Security? “Go!” She shoved the girl so hard she stumbled, burst with her through into a flash-image of crowded space, heat, steam, food smells, blank, stunned faces and wide eyes, shock, surprise, and fear. Pushed on through, leading with her shoulder, dragging Donya now, who kept trying to turn and look back.

Back door, service alley. Ahni erupted into it, looked both ways. Delivery pods, sealed recycle bins coded for processing.

“Did you see that? Did you see what was going on? People were bleeding!” Donya trotted with her down the corridor, breathless with excitement. “How did you know that this was back here. Are you a spy? This is so
cool
.”

“You want to go back and join the fun?” Anhi snapped as they approached the intersecting corridor that would take them to an unmarked door into the man promenade not far from the riot. ”You can bleed, too.”

“I’m a kid.” Donya sniffed. ”Nobody hurts kids. Wow, cool.” She peered into the distance as they exited into the promenade beetween a massage station and a small luxurious food store. “We can go back and see what’s going on.”

”No way.”

“Look, there’s Security.” She pointed at a narrow wedge of uniformed people penetrating the mob around the restaurant.

Good. Ahni paused, one hand clamped around Donya’s arm, stretching her senses for Xai. Yeah, that way. Right through the middle of the riot and out the other side. And he was moving away from them.

She cursed softly, voicelessly. “Hey!” She spotted annother trio of Security headed in the direction of the riot. Waved. ”We need help!”

The threesome, intent on the violence ahead, nearly didn’t stop.

She was dressed like a native, not like an Elite. ”This tourist girl nearly got hurt in the riot. She’s lost.”

“I am–”

“Shut up,” Ahni hissed. “This is bigger than you. Help me.”

One of the threesome peeled off, reluctantly, giving her distracted attention. He was young, like Jose, the scrum player. “She got separated from her nanny,” Ahni said breathlessly, helplessly “Her folks are up here doing consulting work for NYUp. She’s scared!” Pinched Donya’s arm. Hard.

“I don’t know where Nanny went!” The girl, bless her, did wonderful sniffle and scared-little-girl voice. “I don’t know where she’s staying.”

The Security guy had whipped out a scanner. Blinked at ”You’re not chipped?”

“Huang, Taiwan Families,” Ahni said impatiently. Only up here would someone even ask. “Will you take charge of her? It would be ugly if something happened to her, I’m sure.”

He cast an anxious glance toward the riot. The crowd was already thinning, the action clearly over.

”Yeah, I’d better.” He reach for Donya’s hand. “Come on, little girl, let’s go see if we can get you safely back to Mom and Dad, okay?”

“Thank you,” Donya murmured demurely, giving Ahni a “you owe me” look.

Ahni winked. “Thanks so much, I was so worried.” Then she turned and hurried off, ignoring the Security’s call for her to wait.

Focusing, she reached for her brother, found a trace of him faint, fading rapidly. Damn. The crowd was dispersing, most people hurrying away, others standing around in small, huddled groups, talking or speaking into personal links. Con will be buzzing, she thought. The emotional fog in the corridor was bad enough. She spied a media cam, his forehead camera eye fixed on the door of the restaurant. Oh great.

She pushed past two women in business suits who barely glanced at her, their conversation intense and threaded with worry. The corridor was clearer here, and she broke into a trot, ignoring the startled and disapproving looks she got. Straining, she groped for her brother, touched the merest whisper of his presence, halted as she reached an intersecting corridor. Which way? Stretching her senses to the limit, trying to pinpoint the origin of that faint tickle, she took a few hesitant steps down the corridor.

Gone. He had moved out of her range of perception.

She turned to go back to the main corridor when a shadow moved at the edge of her vision, someone hiding in a shallow serrice bay. Ahni spun, ready to strike.

“Dane!” She halted, trembling. Twice in one day. If she wanted a barometer of the mood in this place, this was it. “Oh, I am
so
glad to see you. I’ve been looking for you. Did Noah tell you?”