The Pure Cold Light (20 page)

“Yeah, he’s a troubleshooter for the company. Efficiency expert.”

“Uh-huh.”

“He says, since Angel was hurt through no fault of his own while working for the company, we owe him special consideration. It’s our duty to see that he has work, no matter how menial. That’s why I went down to the checkpoint. A week ago, I wouldn’t have bothered—I was closed off, sealed up; everything happened to everybody else and none of it affected me.”

“That’s easy to slip into. Most people—”

“Sure is. There are damn few people as concerned as Mingo. The thing is, he has the freedom to act. Why, the other day, he delivered food to some of those box-dwellers down in SC Plaza. The CEOs let him do it. I mean, this is a whole side of ScumberCorp I’d never seen before.”

“No, I shouldn’t think so,” Lyell said. She glanced past him thoughtfully. The pedicab driver, seated in a nearly reclining posture, pedaled steadily, as if hauling their combined weight took no effort. He had a TV screen on his left handlebar, bringing in perfect images of some idiot sitcom that he somehow managed to keep track of while weaving in and out of the taxi lanes. He squawked with laughter at some joke. He must have sensed her watching, and turned to share his grin with her. She smiled in reply, then leaned closer to Peat. She whispered, “Keep him occupied a few minutes.”

“I’d rather switch him off,” muttered Chikako Peat.

Lyell turned to the side. She took her personal phone out of her belt bag and placed a call to Nebergall.

The phone—an earpiece and throat mike, linked with a satellite feed into the
phonet
. She could speak into it and be heard almost without moving her lips. Nebergall had custom-fitted the phone with an illegal microcircuit that automatically tumbled the net’s ESN, allowing her call to pass through, effectively, without a location-tag: the call that never was. The compact-sized case it fit into contained the call-buttons.

She let his number buzz a dozen times before giving up.

She’d seen him ignore the phone for days at a time when he was editing; but he behaved like a phobic paranoid when she suggested he get a call-retrieval package, arguing: “Those goddam things pose a clear and present danger, since anybody with a gnat’s brain can loop themselves in, take your calls off the circuit before you do, and run off with half your business while you squat in your jammies, waitin’ for doo-dah. Yeah, put me down for
three
of them things.” Even though he had a small handset built into the arm of his chair, she couldn’t make him understand that, if he didn’t flip his phone on when it rang, he wasn’t going to nab any business, either.

She folded the set back into its case.

Gansevoort was still talking about corporate charity. Peat nudged her and nodded at the unit. “I should make a few arrangements for our arrival,” she said loudly, and took the phone.

Gansevoort said, “This situation is an example of how we at SC need to work more with the Undercity populace.”

“That’s only fair,” Lyell answered, “considering the enormous part Box City plays in your company’s test programs.” He hesitated. She said, “You didn’t know that? You didn’t know SC routinely drafts them as white rats for drug and additive testing? Sure—that way, nobody complains if something goes wrong. In fact, there’s an unfounded Boxer-myth that if they don’t come back they’ve won a place in the Overcity.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Some other time, remind me, and I’ll show you evidence.”

Troubled by her ready offer, he glanced sidelong at Angel and fell silent. Peat winked congratulations at her. A few minutes later, nodding, she handed back the phone.

Angel appeared to have ignored the conversation. With the borrowed LifeMask staring flatly out at the multitude of passersby, at the clipped trees and shrubs adorning the edge of the skyway, the shops and cafes clustered where the skyway entered a tower, it was impossible to tell to what extent he was paying attention.

When the pedicab drew up, he glanced around as if waking from a dream.

“Hey, your clinic’s in
this
tower?” Gansevoort asked. “So’s my apartment.”

“Quite a coincidence,” Peat observed. She helped Angel down from his seat, and instructed him quietly as to what they needed him to do.

They grabbed an elevator and managed to keep it to themselves. Lyell pressed the button for the thirty-second floor.

Before the doors could close, Angel gasped, clutched his head, and dropped to his knees. All the while, his projected face grinned.

“My God! He’s not going to make it to the clinic,” Lyell exclaimed. “Quick. Where’s your apartment?”

“Ten, tenth floor,” Gansevoort said, and hit the button. They shot up.

The doors opened. The three of them dragged Angel upright. They might have been hauling a drunk between them. His head lolled, and he made hissing noises as if each jounce pained him. Feverishly, Gansevoort fumbled out his biocard and inserted it into the door of his apartment.

Like most single personnel at management-level, he had a tiny one-bedroom affair. The word “couch” would not have fit in the outer room, and the bedroom was no more long nor wide than the bed itself. The single large window offered a view of the blue, shining tower across the plaza.

They placed Angel in the only stuffed chair in the place. He hunched up with his head down, groaning every few moments. Lyell stepped back and scanned the room, recording everything she saw—DATs of Frank Sinatra and other crooners of that period scattered atop the built-in stereo system; one recessed bookshelf half-filled with out-of-date college business texts, their bindings already rotting from age; two tiny Turkish rugs hung as tapestries that must have set their host back a fortune unless he’d actually bought them before the viral-bombing of Istanbul; and three clumps of cast-off clothing on the tile floor or draped over a folding chair which made it appear that previous guests of Gansevoort had dissolved.

He tossed aside the clothes. “I haven’t had time to get them cleaned,” he commented.

Peat knelt beside Angel, appearing to take his pulse.

“I think I’d better call in,” Gansevoort said. “SC’ll give you any assistance you need. Besides, they should know where he is.” He took a step toward the phone in the bookshelf, but Lyell blocked his way.

“You don’t want to do that,” she said.

“Excuse me?” He adjusted his collar.

“You can’t call.”

Peat interjected, “You know what they did to my school? If you tell Mingo where all of us are, what happened to Isis will happen to you.”

Gansevoort stared at them each in turn. Angel raised his head and looked placidly back at him. “Your school? Who are you? You’re not doctors.”

“She might be. I’m not.
He
sure as hell isn’t.”

Gansevoort cried out and dove toward the bookshelf. Lyell grabbed his wrist as he went past and spun him around. He slammed into the wall, swung about and backed against it. “You’re
Xau Dâu
!” he cried.

Peat snorted. She got up and approached him. “Where would you get a crazy idea like that? Of course we’re not
Xau Dâu
.” Passing, she glanced at Lyell. “Right?”

Lyell shrugged, snatching away the phone. “I’m beginning to wonder, myself.”

“You’re going to kill me!”

“Gansevoort,” Angel said, “Why would you think such a thing?” Mildly surprised, the women stared at him.

“You could be the ringleader—I’ve heard the rumors about the Moon, I put things together. You don’t even
know
what you are.”

“What is
Xau Dâu
, will someone please explain it?” he asked.

Peat said to Lyell, “Your turn. Why don’t you explain it to all of us.”

“Including myself.”

“What are you going to do?” Gansevoort asked.

Peat patted his shoulder sympathetically and he flinched away. “Not exactly an action figure, are you?” she said.

“I head a personnel department!”

“Yes, as you’ve overstated.”

Lyell said, “Mr. Gansevoort—Ton—I need very much for you to go sit in that other chair.”

“What?”

“Please.”

Leaving him in Peat’s supervision, she turned and strode into the bedroom. There was an armoire built into the corner opposite the bed, offsetting by design the bathroom door. A revolving shelf in the armoire produced suspenders, belts, and a few socks. She tossed Gansevoort’s small phone into the depths, then gathered up a few likely looking items. She also grabbed a fistful of ties and a pressed gray jacket. Carrying out her booty, she snagged the folding chair in passing and hauled it along beside her. “Right here, if you would.”

Peat nudged Gansevoort forward. Like a condemned man, he walked to the chair and sat down. He gave Angel a look of utter betrayal. “I don’t understand.”

Lyell looped a belt around his wrists, and then a tie that she fastened to the dowels in the chair-back. She explained, “I don’t want to tie you, but I have to prevent you from telling anyone about this for a while. Besides which, your associate, Mr. Mingo, would not be pleased to hear that you helped Angel Rueda escape the siege Mingo went to such trouble to prepare.”

“Mingo?” The enormity of the accusation struck him dumb.

“Mingo’s going to kill us if he finds us. So, if I were you, I would spend my time considering very hard what I could say to minimize my involvement in our escape. For instance, I wouldn’t mention using my clout to get us through the checkpoint. No, I would not do that.”

Peat tied his ankles. Angel looked on, his false face ever-passive.

“Otherwise,” said Lyell, “Mr. Mingo will probably feel the need to kill you, too. He hasn’t exhibited much restraint in that pursuit.”

Gansevoort’s mouth hung open.

“You seem like a nice man. Be very careful around him.” She turned to Angel and offered him the clean jacket. “Here, it’s probably too big for you, but put this on. You can give it back later.”

Peat got up and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I didn’t believe her at first, either,” she said.
 

They went out, leaving him in the center of the room, from which vantage, looking over his left shoulder, he could just see the tinted windows of his office.

***

He had been told to wait and to protect Chikako Peat and Thomasina Lyell, and that was what he did. He sat at the triangular desk, shifting the screens overhead from one working camera to the next throughout the school, observing the silent slaughter.

To the extent that he could hold any thought for long, the bullgod found the task dissatisfying. Violence robbed of its sound and fury wasn’t much fun to watch, worse than a video. Back in his arena days … now, that had been excitement.

Taken from an orphanage as a child, genetically engineered to be the bone-crushingly biggest of middle-heavyweight wrestlers, by the age of fifteen he’d stood like a mountain on top of the world. His two English managers had once told him that his image adorned flags in Japan and posters on the Moon. Kids watched his exploits on satellite broadcasts and dreamed of him; “The Mick” was the arena name he went by.

He’d defeated opponents from every country in fair combats. He’d never thrown a fight because neither of his managers had ever asked him to. They both knew he was too witless to be relied upon. Even if they’d been able to explain the financial benefits of purse manipulation, once he got in the ring and got smacked a couple of times, he set about relentlessly crushing his opponents’ vertebrae. A tremendous combatant, yes, but too single-minded. In a word, a cretin.

The drugs had done that—constrained his mental capacity. He had muscles as big as most men’s fists, but not much else on the ball.

Above all else, he was terribly, blushingly shy; speechless in the presence of the opposite sex. His managers saw a way to divest themselves of The Mick and make a killing in the bargain.

The Belgian combine, Aubépine, owned a female fighter named Mouche who was tearing up Europe. A deal was struck to pit her against him. Both sides, knowing of his Achilles heel, bet weightily against him, the odds-on favorite.

He went before the cameras in the Circus Supremus of Rome, into the ring, and found himself confronting what appeared to be a beefy transvestite. Her face had a vague feminine aspect if he ignored the prognathous jaw; but her breasts and other traits that The Mick identified as female were buried within numerous swollen chemical enhancements, muscles like tectonic plates.
His
breasts were more prodigious than hers. She might have been a woman but he couldn’t see it.

In the first round, during which time he liked to warm up, grapple a few times, get the heft of his opponent, Mouche split his lip and broke two of his fingers. She tried to rip his balls off, as well, but there he was grossly underdeveloped—again, because of one very fucked up chemistry—and, though she hurt his shriveled up scrotum, it was not the thing she’d intended.

Between rounds, his managers reminded him of how unforgivable it was to strike a woman. The Mick licked salty blood off his swollen lip.

The second round bell sounded. The Mick got up, walked out into the center of the ring and hit Mouche as hard as he could in the throat, crushing her larynx. The crowd loved it. His managers and numerous executives of Aubépine promptly filed for bankruptcy.

The combine sued, forcing a reluctant investigation into combat rigging. The two managers fired The Mick. Subpoenaed for the hearings, he inadvertently learned from a solicitor that he had virtually no finances left him—his managers had squandered it, stolen it, spent every credit dollar on pleasures that should have been his. He dully considered them across the judicial arena while various barristers droned on. Perhaps because he stayed still long enough, an idea crawled into his brain. It was to be the most creative idea of his life.

He turned to the solicitor and explained that he had to go to the lavatory, then got up and started out, around the rear of the courtroom, but instead of exiting, he came down the center aisle. He crossed the row in back of his ex-managers and, when he was right behind them, slapped a meaty fist on each of their skulls. With surprisingly little apparent exertion, he shoved their heads straight down through their collarbones.