Nightside CIty (14 page)

So they weren’t talking, either. Nakada and
Orchid had bounced me, and now the Ipsy, too.

And from their reaction, I didn’t think that
my best-case scenario was going to come true.

I didn’t like this at all. Nakada and the
people at the Ipsy might just figure that since Nightside City was
doomed anyway, it didn’t matter if they risked wrecking it in
trying to save it.

They might even have had a point, really. So
what if it was a gamble? What did they have to lose?

I didn’t know what they had to lose, but I
didn’t like the idea that they were gambling with my home. I didn’t
like it, and I intended to find out just what the wager actually
was.

I had to get somebody to talk to me, but I
didn’t know who to approach at the Ipsy, and I figured Orchid was
probably just a flunky or a go-between, and besides, he was
repulsive. I knew I could get him to talk to me if I had to, but I
didn’t want to, not yet.

That left Sayuri Nakada herself, and I
decided it was time we had a little chat—in person, without a lot
of intrusive software, or any worries about other people tapping
into the com.

I got my gun and called a cab.

When I stepped out my door into the wind I
remembered something that had slipped my mind—something that had
hovered outside my window all night. I looked up and there it was,
hanging there just the way I’d seen it last.

“You’re still here?” I asked.

“Yeah, Hsing, I’m still here,” the spy-eye
said.

I stood there looking at it for a minute,
thinking this over.

Sayuri Nakada, I was sure, would not take
kindly to having a spy-eye hanging around anywhere near her. What’s
more, I wasn’t any too thrilled about letting Big Jim Mishima know
I was visiting Nakada. I wasn’t any too thrilled about letting
anyone
know that. I wasn’t too sure just what I was getting
into, after all, and that made me that much less eager to let
anyone else know what I was getting into.

Besides, could I really be sure that that eye
was Mishima’s? That was what I’d figured all along, but I didn’t
really know. Maybe Orchid had found out about me right from the
start, when Zar Pickens showed up on my doorstep, and had sicced an
eye on me and let me think Big Jim was carrying a grudge.

It wasn’t likely, but I couldn’t say it was
impossible.

Now that I thought I was getting somewhere,
and it was somewhere that might be dangerous, that eye wasn’t
comforting at all. It was a serious nuisance. It was bad enough
worrying about what might turn up if someone broke into my com
system without having to deal with this sort of petty
harassment—and that’s what it was, I realized, harassment. After
all, if anybody really seriously wanted to keep an eye on me, me
specifically and not a particular location or whoever just happened
by, the way to do it would be with a microintelligence or three,
planted on me and breeding messages to be picked up later, not with
a damn floater following me around.

And yeah, I’ve heard all the jokes about how
microintelligences are dumber than dirt, and their messages all
sound like sneezes, and all the rest of it, and some of it’s true,
but they’d do the job better than this flying chunk of chrome and
silicates. A spy-eye is great for watching whatever comes along,
and it’s reusable, but it’s easy to shake, the way I’d done it at
the Manhattan, and it’s easy to keep outside, and to shield
against, and even to shut down if you have to. A microintelligence
is invisible, just about impossible to spot, and rides along
anywhere, can’t be shaken or shielded without some pretty fancy
preparation.

But maybe Mishima—if it really was
Mishima—was just working with what he had on hand, and wasn’t
really trying to harass me. If he’d really just had the eye
cruising the Trap, with my stats somewhere on file, and it had
picked me up by accident, then he might not have bothered to switch
to micros. It might just be sloppiness, not harassment.

I decided I’d give whoever had sent the eye
the benefit of the doubt, and assume it wasn’t malicious. I’d give
it a chance to play it sweet.

“Hey,” I said, “Get lost. I’m going out on
business now, and it’s my business, but it’s not yours. It’s not in
the Trap, and I don’t want you along.”

“Sorry, Hsing,” it said, “I just do what I’m
told, and I was told to follow you.” The main lens was locked right
on my eyes.

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “But you might want
to check in and see if your boss might reconsider. Warn him I’m
getting pissed off.”

“Okay, I’ll ask,” it said, “but don’t get
your hopes up.”

I didn’t. I stood and waited for my cab.

It settled to the curb in front of me, a
battered old independent with an old Casino Cruiser logo still
showing faintly on the side, and I got in. I gave an address on the
East Side—not Nakada’s, just one I pulled at random.

The cab took off, and the spy-eye followed,
and a swarm of pocket-sized advertisers swooped in from somewhere.
I settled back for the ride and watched the lights flash by.

The advertisers peeled off when we came out
the eastern edge of Trap Over, and a flitterbug that had slipped
into the cab without my noticing beeped and self-destructed when it
realized it was outside its legal range. I don’t know what it
thought it was doing there in the first place, since I’d never had
any business with flitters and it could have extended its range if
it were hired. Maybe it had been a friend of the cab’s, but if so
it was pretty damn careless. It left a spot of hot orange plastic
on the seatcover beside me, and I felt like spitting on it to cover
the smell, but I figured the cab wouldn’t like that.

Instead I turned and looked out the back.

The spy-eye was still there, cruising along a
meter behind us, its main lens fixed on me.

A couple of minutes later the cab landed at
the address I’d given, and I paid up, told it to wait a minute, and
got out. Then I stepped back and looked up at the eye.

“So what’s the program?” I asked. “Are you
going to log off, or are you asking for trouble?”

It beeped, and said, “I’ve got my orders,
Hsing. No change. Sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too,” I said. I waved to the cab,
and the door opened again and I got back in.

“Privacy,” I said. “Full privacy all around,
up and down.”

“Yes, Mis’,” it said, and the windows went
black. The glow from the screens gave me all the light I really
needed, but it put in a glowfield anyway. “Where to?”

I gave it an address on East Deng, and
unsealed my coat.

Then I hesitated for a moment. Was I sure
about this?

There were alternatives, after all. I could
shield. I could use a jammer. I could just lose the eye for a
while, though of course it would find me again eventually.

But yes, I decided, I was sure. Whether or
not it turned out to be vital on this case, I had to let Big Jim,
or whoever it was, see that I couldn’t be pushed around. I had a
point to make, an important one. Dodging or shielding or jamming
wouldn’t do it—not emphatic enough. If I planned to stay in
business on Epimetheus—which I did, at least until dawn—then I had
to make a clear and definite stand. The eye had to go. I pulled out
the HG-2 and turned it on.

I could feel the electric vibration in my
hand as it came alive.

“One target,” I told it. “A floater. I need
to take it out completely with one shot. Don’t know if it’s armed;
it says it isn’t.”

I wasn’t sure if it knew all those words, but
I figured it would get the gist of it. It knew its job, and that
was all that mattered.

I had to let the gun do most of it, because I
knew that the eye would have reactions much faster than mine. I’ll
go up on even terms against a human just about any time, but
against a machine I need a machine of my own.

“Put me down here,” I told the cab. “I’ll
walk.”

“Mis’, is that a weapon you’re carrying?” it
asked. The voice was smooth, but I suppose the cab was pretty
worried; as a free machine, its costs all paid off, it didn’t have
any owner to protect it if it was caught violating city law. And a
machine convicted of a felony in Nightside City wasn’t just sent
for reconstruction; it was scrapped.

“Don’t worry about it,” I lied. “It’s
licensed. And I’m not trying to bugger you for the fare.” I held
the gun in one hand while I pulled my transfer card with the other
and slid it in the slot. “There, see?” I said.

“Yes, Mis’,” it said, like a good little
machine. I took my card back, and then took a deep breath and held
it as the cab set down sweetly on East Deng and slid the door
back.

The instant the door opened I spotted the
eye, pointed the gun, and squeezed the trigger.

I felt a jerk as the Sony-Remington targeted
the eye, and then it went “whump,” a deep sort of sound that I felt
in my hands and the base of my skull, as well as my ears. A fine
spray of gunk hissed around me from the recoil damping, and I was
thrown back onto the seat by the recoil anyway—the HG-2’s just a
handgun, after all, it hasn’t got room to be truly recoilless with
a heavy-gravity charge. My right arm felt like I’d rammed it
against a wall, felt like the shock bruised all the muscles right
up to my shoulder. By the time I hit the upholstery I heard the
bang as the spy-eye was blown to splinters, a good loud bang, like
a two-meter balloon popping. Fragments whickered and whistled away
in every direction, and I heard them rattle across pavement and on
the cab’s outer shell.

I felt the seat I’d landed on ripple
desperately under me as it tried to accommodate my sudden
arrival.

I’d blinked when the gun went off—I always
do—so I’d missed most of the flash. By the time my eyes were open
and focused again the spy-eye was just powder and scrap, scattered
across the surrounding landscape. Some of the pieces were glowing
red-hot, and a few of the more aerodynamically-inclined fragments
were still drifting down; none of them were bigger than my
thumbnail.

I love the Sony-Remington HG-2. It’s a hell
of a weapon. I’m told that on the heavy gravity planets it was
meant for it doesn’t do much more damage than a regular gun does on
Epimetheus, but there in Nightside City, in just nine-tenths of a
gee, I could count on it to do a pretty good job on just about
anything. If I have to shoot, I don’t want what I’m shooting at to
have a chance to shoot back; with the HG-2, nothing ever did.

“Sorry about the mess,” I told the cab as I
looked at the spots the damping spray left. It was supposed to be
clean, odorless, and volatile enough to evaporate in ninety
seconds, but it never really was; I don’t know if it was because I
didn’t clean the gun often enough, or I didn’t do it right, or
there was too much crud in the city air, but it always left a ring
of little grey spots. This time about half of them had landed on
the cab’s interior. The rest were mostly on me. A few fragments of
the spy-eye had wound up in the cab, too, and a couple might have
hit the shell hard enough to scuff the finish. “Put the cleaning
charge on my bill,” I said, using my free hand to stick my card
back in the slot, “If there’s enough to cover it. And if there’s
anything left, take a little for your trouble.” I figured even a
cab would recognize that as a bribe not to call the cops.

I guess that cab did, anyway, because I never
heard from any cops about shooting the eye.

“Yes, Mis’,” it said. “Will that be all?”

“No.” I settled back onto the seat more
comfortably and turned off the gun. “Close the door and take me to
334 Sekizawa,” I said. That was about two blocks from Nakada’s; I
figured I could walk the rest of the way from there.

I flexed the arm the recoil had banged
around, to keep the muscles from stiffening up. My symbiote had
already suppressed the soreness.

I felt a little sorry about blanking the eye
like that, but what the hell, it was just a dumb machine. It hadn’t
had any sense of self-preservation, and might not have really been
sentient at all.

I wondered what Mishima would do about losing
his gadget. It was a safe bet he wasn’t going to be happy with
me.

I also wondered if Mishima’s reaction would
really matter to me after my visit to Nakada.

The cab dropped me on Sekizawa, and I took
back my card and climbed out and stood there while it took off. I
waited until it was out of sight before I began walking.

The Nakada place was easy enough to find,
certainly; counting the grounds it covered an entire block. It was
big and elegant and the exterior was done all in white and silver,
but it looked dull red in the light of Eta Cass B. The red was
spangled with polychrome highlights where it caught glimmers from
the Trap, but it was still dim and shadowed. The dawn drew a bright
haze of pink across the sky above that made the house look dead and
dark by comparison, and pretty ominous. If there were any windows,
they didn’t show, but of course they could have been
inbound-transmissive only. No lights showed at all, anywhere.

I didn’t see anything I could identify
positively as a gate or door; I knew an entrance had to be there
somewhere, but it was blended into the wall. I’d expected that. It
was the fashion among those who could afford it, and Sayuri Nakada
could sure as hell afford it. If I’d had legitimate business there,
the theory went, someone would have told me where the door was. And
there would have been lights on to welcome me, too.

I wasn’t welcome, but I had business there,
all right. The lack of lights might have meant that Nakada wasn’t
home, but I wasn’t going to let a detail like that stop me.
Somebody would be in there, even if it was just some basic
software.

As I stood there on the front terrace I
realized that I’d never put the HG-2 away after shooting the
spy-eye, that the gun was still in my hand; I’d turned it off but
never holstered it. Even though I knew that my absent-mindedness
was a sign that I wasn’t really at my best, I decided that my hand
was the right place for it. I didn’t have the time or the patience
to be subtle any more. I didn’t know for sure that the cab hadn’t
called the cops. I didn’t know whether Mishima might be coming
after me already. I couldn’t afford to waste time figuring out a
better approach.