The Dark Side (27 page)

He spears up, he spears out, and for just a moment he thinks he isn't going to make it—that he's going to arc through the air and plummet to the parkland below. But then his palms slap into a bar, his fingers clamp around it like claws, and his lower body swings up, up, so high up that his shoes almost touch the girder in front of him. On Earth this momentum alone might wrench him free and send him plunging—but on the Moon he weighs about as much as a whippet, so the fallback is gentle, the strain on his arms mild. And within seconds he's stopped swinging and
gained enough equilibrium to reach forward again, seize another bar with his right hand, then a different one with his left, and begin his orangutan-like pursuit of the tousle-haired killer—who still has about thirty meters on him.

It isn't easy at first. Sometimes he has to stretch perilously. Sometimes he has to kick away dropping vines. His hands slip on moisture and bird shit. Birds themselves flap around him. He passes sometimes through swirls of vapor. Water drips across him. But he gains confidence—and distance—with each movement forward.

Sinners far below have noticed now—they're shouting encouragement, or abuse; Justus isn't sure which—and the killer turns again, registers another moment's surprise, and starts changing course—heading for one of the great arrays of incandescent sunlamps.

Justus changes course too. He's moving high over the thoroughfares, the temples and tabernacles, the gables and pinnacles, the flourishing gardens—he's really mastered it now, feeling no significant fatigue or strain, and the only danger is moving too fast or mishandling a bar. But even when that happens—when one hand snags on something or he fails to gain a good hold—he's able to hang on with his other hand, find a separate purchase, and keep swinging forward.

But the glare from the sunlamps is so hot and blinding that he can no longer see the killer: He has to squint and turn his head. He sees his own shadow blooming over half a block of Sin. And not just that—there's another shadow moving rapidly
away
from him, in the other direction. And suddenly he realizes he's been lured into the lights purposely, so the killer can take advantage of the brightness to change course and escape.

Justus experiences a renewed sense of anger and determination.
He cuts across the front of the lamp, eyelids squeezed together, grappling blindly in some cases, but moving relentlessly, faster even than the killer, and now
he's
the one who's coming out of the sun—it's the killer who can't see him.

And there he is, thirty meters away, directly ahead. Justus closes in like a spider. Twenty meters. Fifteen. When he's just ten meters away the killer finally notices him, his whole face contracts, and he struggles to pick up speed. But in so doing he very nearly loses balance and falls. And Justus gains more ground.

In desperation the killer heads for one of the huge pillars—ornate brass surrounded by scaffolding—and dodges around it like a kid hiding behind a tree. Caught off guard, Justus has to check his own momentum and haul himself back, swinging his whole body, changing direction. Meanwhile the killer drops onto the scaffolding, dislodging a couple of shrieking birds.

Justus tries to follow him, but the killer is swinging at him with his bowie knife. The blade strikes Justus's shoe. Justus shifts sideways and takes a firmer grip. He kicks out again. The killer slashes wildly and the tip of his blade cuts through the hem of Justus's pants. Justus shifts away, slightly out of range, and waits. The kid, with his teeth clenched and knife poised, also waits. The two of them are tensed, motionless—the kid on the scaffolding, Justus hanging in front of him—in a bizarre Mexican standoff a hundred meters above Sin. Then something sails past them—a dime-store rocket, shot from far below—and the kid is momentarily distracted. Justus seizes the opportunity and tries a flurry of kicks but succeeds only in driving the kid back against the pillar. Another rocket whizzes past: This one almost strikes Justus. And now the kid's got a gleam in his eye. He's holding the knife by the tip. He's going to hurl it at Justus like a dagger. And Justus can't just duck. So he swings in closer, before it's too late, and kicks out
violently, frantically, striking the kid on the forearm. The bowie knife goes sailing into Sin, and the kid is weaponless.

Justus readies himself to drop onto the scaffolding, but the kid is way ahead of him. He moves to the other side of the pillar and launches himself back onto the bars. The chase, it seems, is on again. Except that the kid has enjoyed a break now, and Justus is starting to feel the strain.

Sinners below are following them through the streets now, a moving audience, cheering, whistling, shouting—“Justice! Justice! Justice!”—as the killer heads energetically for the industrial district of Nimrod, where a pall of eye-stinging smoke is clouding the air.

And now there's something else to contend with. In the catwalks above him police have appeared with metal rods. The rods have clamps on the end and resemble glorified reach extenders. The cops are thrusting them through the bars, trying to catch hold of the killer that way, and one of them actually manages to snag ahold of his forearm. But in response the kid just tears the pole free, swings it around, tries to shake it off—it's hanging from his arm like a spear.

He's struggling for momentum when Justus catches up again. But just at that moment the cloud of smoke, caught in artificial currents, changes direction and envelops both of them. Momentarily blinded, Justus tries to lock his legs around the killer but the kid swings the pole and it smacks him in the side of the head. Dazed, Justus takes a firmer grip on the bars, coughs smoke from his lungs, squeezes his eyes shut again, and kicks out blindly. But he's not making any contact. And when the smoke clears he sees the killer is no longer in front of him. He looks around frantically, but the kid is nowhere in sight. People below are shouting and pointing. And when Justus follows their directions he sees that
the killer has dropped onto the top of a building far below. He's unclamping the pole from his arm. He's scrambling for the fire escape.

For a moment Justus just hangs above, fighting his instincts. On Earth a fall of that distance—more than twenty meters—would break his legs, possibly his spine. On the Moon it will be much less dangerous, but how much so? Justus's mind fills with images of goats springing thirty feet into the air at the Agri-Plex. Lunar basketballers he's seen on TV, dropping from huge heights. An athlete at Doppelmayer Base landing gracefully after falling from a diving-board distance.

So he releases the bars. He plummets. It seems endless, but he has plenty of time to prepare his body. And then he hits the top of the building. He performs a commando roll. He gets to his feet. The impact isn't painless—he's shaken and jolted, and the air has been punched from his lungs—but he's not seriously hurt. And he doesn't have time for relief.

He tries descending via the fire escape but the killer has such a head start that he decides to jump again—all the way to street level. He braces himself in midair but when he hits the ground this time his ankle twists before he can effect a roll—he winces, gasps, and is struggling to his feet when he sees the kid dash past him, back into the streets of Sin.

Justus heads off in pursuit again but can no longer achieve top speed. The killer is racing through the streets toward Kasbah. He's heading straight into a noisy crowd, so Justus can only hope that he gets tangled up there, perhaps even apprehended.

But then a couple of cops whisk past him, zappers in hand, and suddenly he conceives of a worse outcome.

He runs harder, overriding the pain, and enters a retail area. There's a great deal of commotion at the far end. People are
peeling aside, pressing back against store windows. And the killer himself is spinning around, looking for a way out, fending off people with a plastic bollard.

But the cops, with zappers pointed and strobe lights flashing, are closing in.

“
Hey!
” Justus can see what's about to happen. “
No! Hey!”
He pounds forward, wincing, waving people out of the way—
“Hey! Hey!”
—but too late.

A jagged, lightning-like bolt sizzles out from one of the zappers and blows the kid from his feet. He lands on his back, twitching, dropping the bollard. But the cops are still closing in, giving him all they've got.

Justus sees, hears, and
smells
it all as he limps in. Jagged electron beams flashing through plasma channels. The sizzle of high-voltage electricity. The stink of burning ozone. The killer jolting and spasming. A sickening
whap
as the skin bursts from his face. A
glug
as his skin starts dripping from his body. The killer is exploding, melting, dying. And five or six cops are standing around with their triggers squeezed and expressions that are positively
orgasmic
.

By the time Justus finally arrives, gasping for breath, it's effectively over. The cops have spent their load. The kid, his limbs opening like the petals of a flower, is a scorched and bony mass—an over-roasted chicken. There are bodily fluids running over the pavement, and foul-smelling smoke.

Justus looks around at the Sinners—they're watching it all with disgust and anger. He looks at the cops—they're joking among themselves. He sees some of his own investigation team—Cosmo Battaglia and Hugo Pfeffer—holstering their zappers. And Prince Oda Universe, unfurling from a squad car. And others he only knows by sight.

And then he hears one of the cops:

“
Forensics!
”

It's a mocking call, made in response to his own arrival. And when the other cops notice him, they join in:

“Forensics!”

“Forensics!”

“Forensics!”

Justus doesn't meet their eyes, but he can hear them all chuckling under their breath. So he just nods stoically, accepting that enforced deference in just a day or two has given way to open disdain.

U
NLESS YOU'VE BEEN LIVING
in deep-space hibernation for the past twenty years, you'll have heard the rumor that many of the remaining masterpieces in the Louvre—including
The Wedding Feast at Cana
,
The Raft of the Medusa,
and
Liberty Leading the People
—are actually meticulous copies, forged using the most sophisticated modern techniques and virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. When the
Mona Lisa
/
La Gioconda
was stolen for the third time, the story goes, the Ministère de la Culture resolved to remove the rest of the priceless masterworks and store them in a secret and impregnable location. The Louvre was accordingly closed for three months, using as cover the installation of a new security system, and the original paintings were spirited away with great stealth to their new refuge. Which, the story suggests, is some temperature-controlled, vacuum-sealed chamber deep under the surface of the far side of the Moon.

You'll also have heard the rumor—which in this instance is far more accurate—that the theft of the
Mona Lisa
was carried out by an ultra-daring band of high-society thieves popularly known as the Vesuvius Six. In their first and most celebrated job, the Six raided a billionaire's mansion near Naples as the famous volcano was venting dangerous amounts of ash and poisonous gases. While everyone else was fleeing, the Six moved in. Risking suffocation or even incineration, they blew open the billionaire's vaults, loaded up their van with gold and jewels, and escaped unchecked through deserted, smoke-choked streets. In the years afterward they executed similarly daring heists during severe floods in Paris (the
Mona Lisa
job), a cyclone in the Philippines, a wildfire in California, and an earthquake in Turkey. It eventually became clear that they'd simply compiled a huge list of target properties across the world—houses, banks, galleries—and waited for the harbingers of an evacuation-level catastrophe before swinging into action. But it remains unclear whether the Six are motivated most by the lure of riches, by the proximity to death, or just by the challenge of the game. There is even a rumor, suitably implausible, that they plan to return all their prizes one day to their legal owners, like sporting fishermen who release their catches back into the sea.

The gang is led by an independently wealthy Irishman called Darragh Greenan. Greenan is not quite as charismatic as the actors who've portrayed him on-screen. Nor are the members of his gang quite as disparate, witty, and colorfully dressed. But they are certainly shrewd. They're exceptionally skilled. They're cool under pressure. They're admirably fatalistic. And they have enough pride in their achievements to resent being dismissed as glorified looters.

In time, they agree, they will tell their stories. They will set the
record straight. They will allow people to admire them or revile them as they see fit. But for the time being, they're remarkably secretive and tight-knit. They know they cannot carry out their heists forever, and are just waiting for the right moment to cash in their chips. They have no real idea when the moment might come—they keep finding stimulating new challenges—but the general consensus is that they will know immediately when it does, without having to say a word. It will be the moment when they've seen it all.

Presently five of the original gang and a new member—one of the founding members is in prison for an unrelated theft—are on Farside. They're spread out across a radar array, two each behind three ten-meter-high dishes. The dishes ostensibly belong to the Ministerio de Ciencia (the Spanish Ministry of Science), and indeed are fully operational and capable of legitimate astronomical readings. But in truth, they're a cover. Just as the building in the middle of the array—what seems to be a standard observatory—is also a cover. Darragh Greenan parted with a considerable amount of money to learn this. And an even larger amount to obtain the blueprints for the so-called observatory, which extends deep beneath the lunar surface and contains six separate vacuum-sealed vaults. Within these vaults are the masterpieces—the
genuine
masterpieces—of the Prado in Madrid, including
The Garden of Earthly Delights
,
Las Meninas
,
Death of the Virgin
, and
Half-submerged Dog
. Because it is the Prado, not the Louvre, that exhibits counterfeit masterpieces, and the Spanish Ministry of Culture, not the French one, that elected to hide its treasures in response to the
Mona Lisa
theft.