Xenoform (16 page)

Eventually Emily stirred and sat up straight. She had taken her harness off an hour before, when it had become clear that they were going nowhere fast. She squinted and rubbed her head, looking around in the diagnostic manner of the freshly-woken. In the back the kids were both asleep, even though it was only half past two in the afternoon. Tedium had eventually taken its toll.

‘Still stuck here?’

‘Yeah,’ said Maory. ‘Still stuck here.’ The grand canal had joined them from the left – it ran alongside the road, a sullen grey-silvered slash in the city.

‘Why? What’s causing it? Did you check the net?’

‘Couldn’t connect, hon. I can’t even see what’s up in front.’

‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’ This comment went unanswered – neither of them had. ‘What’s causing it?’

‘I don’t know.’ They inched along.

Some time later they neared the main uptown junction and Maory began to be able to discern the cause of the jam. Craning his neck, he could just see into the junction itself. Arrayed across the road surface were a veritable battalion of police – real City Police. They were trying their best to manually control and merge the multiple streams of traffic, using irate hand signals, small coloured lights and muttered curses as their tools. One by one the gravpods coasted slowly into the junction under their direction and away. The road beyond the junction, where Maory wished to go, looked little better.

‘What?’ asked Emily. ‘What is it?’

‘Damn traffic lights are out.’ Maory’s tone implied the absurdity of this situation.

‘What? Why? What would cause that?’

He shook his head as the pod shuffled itself forward again. ‘Damned if I know, hon. They’re all controlled by computer.’

‘
Yeah,’ said Emily grumpily. ‘Like everything else.’

Roland led them through the dark and twisting Undercity maze, his wispy white hair a contrasting nimbus round his head. He kept up a relentless monologue about his favourite weapons and the pros and cons of each. Whistler noticed, however, that he was careful not to disclose any real information about the criminal network in which he was clearly involved. If he had the authority to refer them to this Haspan then he must have some influence to wield. His wiry, scruffy form belied any such power, but Whistler had learned not to put too much faith in appearances. He had consented to Sofi’s accompanying them graciously enough, despite his objections the previous night, and had left his insectile robot to keep shop alone. Perhaps it had helped that Whistler had convinced Sofi to remain as silent as possible. She was along for backup only, a role in which she had proven herself useful many times in the past. The three harvesters trailed in the old man’s wake like leaves sucked along in a vortex, making occasional sounds of acknowledgement to indicate that they were listening.

Whistler had reluctantly brought the newly-acquired U55 with her. It was really too exotic a piece of equipment to give away, but she was sure that it would make a fine tribute for any respectable underworld boss. Anyway, she didn’t really want to replace her own faithful smartgun, which had spent months getting to know her. She had grown as attached to it as any meathead could to an artificially-intelligent machine. A new weapon would have to learn again from scratch, and without DNI it would take some time to teach one. Right now she couldn’t imagine when next she would have the opportunity for such a venture. The new U55 was clipped to her belt, dim and dormant, waiting for an owner who would allow its seed of savage intelligence to germinate.

Roland reached an alley across which stretched a barbed-wire fence with a simple but strong-looking gate that completely barred the way. The party stopped. Clearly this was it. Smells of dope smoke and machine oil were in the air, amorphous as ghosts. A small camera was watching them from a high-up alcove in the wall, minutely adjusting its focus to take them in. Beyond the gate the alley was dark and cramped, its shaded alcoves and corners suggestive of unseen dangers. Bright, illegible graffiti slogans adorned the slimy walls. Thick chain link roofed the alley, blocking the way of anyone who would jump or climb down into it. Walkways criss-crossed between the buildings haphazardly, some of them decidedly unsafe-looking. One was hanging from one end into the street, tattered steel pins protruding from its rusting stump. It looked like the skeletal remains of a monster that had died and fallen here. On another platform was a huge and muscular white man with crimson tattooes like wounds along his arms, leaning against the wall with a two-metre mag-rifle held at ease, its slim barrel jutting into the air. He wore a patchwork waistcoat, brightly coloured and stitched with sinister pictographs. He watched the four newcomers motionlessly.

‘We are here,’ said Roland, turning to Whistler. His round black eyes were like pools of crude oil. They made Whistler feel like she might fall in.

‘So I see,’ she answered. ‘How do we get in?’

‘Like so,’ he said, and cleared his throat. ‘Hey! Is Roland!’ he bellowed in his rough, accented voice. Roberts actually jumped at the volume of the sound that issued from the old man’s thin body.

There was a sound from the shadows of the alley – a sound like an old door opened furtively on rusty hinges and then a sort of crunching that came towards them like footsteps in snow. From the darkness emerged an ancient military robot, probably twenty years old or more, and well-battered. Its paintwork was scarred and scratched. Several marks on its surface had clearly been made by ricocheting bullets. It moved on metal tracks, from which the creaking noise evidently came, and consisted of a spindly but robust-looking trunk topped with a dull silver sphere from which sprouted three arms. One arm sported a flame-thrower with a guttering pilot light, another a small-bore machine gun and the third a simple claw. Upon the sphere had been painted the grotesquely grinning face of a clown that would give any child nightmares. One of the bullet scars had blinded the clown in one eye. The machine spoke from a tinny speaker, its voice filtering through the mash of static as if transmitted from some distant star.

‘Roland, you are greeted. Mister Haspan expects your arrival and welcomes your guests to this his humble abode.’

‘Thanks, Gutsy,’ answered Roland. ‘I leave them here, yes?’

‘That would serve,’ answered the robot.

‘No killing them, okay, Gutsy?’ said Roland, wagging a warning finger at the machine. His vandalised graveyard of teeth showed, matt brown, as he grinned.

‘It is not my decision,’ answered the robot with the lack of humour typically found among its kind. The harvesters also failed to see the funny side of this. They exchanged warning looks.

Roland turned to Whistler, and for a moment she thought he was about to take her hand, possibly kiss it like a chivalric knight, but he didn’t. Perhaps he thought better of it at the last moment. He shrugged awkwardly instead, grinning lopsidedly.

Surprisingly, it was Roberts who broke the silence. He said, ‘Thanks, Roland. What do we owe you for this referral?’

‘Nothing, no, no,’ Roland said. ‘Whistler bought the gun from me. I gave good price, but don’t think I made no profit. I’m no charity. The knowledge that I have been of use will do.’ He turned to Whistler. ‘Come see me again, okay? Any time you need some tools, I get them for you. Just come to my office, no problem, okay?’

‘Okay, thanks,’ said Whistler, smiling. She liked a person with a gun-filled hovel for an office. Her glacier-blue eyes twinkled. ‘I will.’

‘Maybe I get another of those.’ He indicated the U55 on her belt. ‘Best check in regular, like, in case. If I get one, perhaps I hold it for you.’

‘Yeah, you do that, Roland,’ said Whistler, and Roland turned and walked away into the night, thin and vulnerable-looking, fading into the darkness.

‘I think he’s in love,’ cooed Sofi, leaning in close to Whistler, who shoved her hard on one shoulder in response. Sofi staggered, laughing. ‘It’s mutual, then,’ she remarked.

Then it occurred to Whistler that they were not making a very professional account of themselves with this display. She turned to the robot that waited beyond the gate. Its spherical body was rotating atop its tracks impatiently. ‘Are you ready?’ it asked.

‘Sure. Let’s meet the boss man,’ answered Whistler. ‘I have a present for him.’ She held up the U55, showing its dead display panel, making it clear that it was not yet operable.

‘That is well,’ said Gutsy. ‘Mister Haspan likes guns.’

‘I sensed that he might.’

The robot held out an electronic key that was welded to its claw. The lock of the gate beeped once and the barrier swung open. The robot backed away to allow them admittance, keeping its flame thrower trained on the three humans. Its hideously grinning face was held half away from them, for which they were at least half glad. They trailed after it into the lair of Haspan, conscious of the brute on the raised walkway watching them. He didn’t move an inch, but Whistler could see his eyes following them.

Gutsy led them under a huge loading door, gnarled with age and long-ago forklift truck collisions. Whistler looked up as they passed through and was unsurprised to see twin sentry guns lurking in the shadows up there like gargoyles. They ranged to left and right with mechanical patience, killing time until killing time.

The robot led them wordlessly into a large, red brick building, an ancient maze of pillars and tiny side rooms. Dry mortar was crumbling out from between layers of pockmarked brick and the air was grey with dust, suspended in pallid moonbeams that lanced from the glassless windows. But although the infrastructure of the building was clearly old there was none of the usual Undercity junk and detritus in here. It was bare and tidy, unused-looking. More sentry guns were posted here and there in shady corners, noticeable at all only because of the total lack of other furniture – Whistler counted three and wondered how many more she had missed. She suspected that the answer was most of them. This part of the complex was a killing-floor, a defence layer through which an uninvited intruder would have to pass, somehow surviving a blizzard of crossfire. The pillars would slow their charge and force them, presumably, into areas of concentrated coverage.

Gutsy led them through this uninviting space and out the other side through a thick security door. They passed into an antechamber of incredible and surprising plushness. Actual living trees stood to either side of the entrance in massive golden pots, spotted by halogens, their trunks too delicate and straight to be entirely natural, their fronds dangling down to the floor of polished green marble. The harvesters stood stunned – not because they had never seen such richness, but because of the unexpected contrast to the room without. A biomodded parrot as large as a vulture swooped around the high ceiling of the room, squawking. Its feathers were a colourful blaze, eerily reminiscent of Leo Travant’s stolen wings. Vulgar platinum statues of jewel-speckled humans were spaced around the walls, hideous in their gratuitous magnificence. There was a huge pair of ornate double doors in one wall, cameras and sentry guns tumescent among the carvings. Black-clad guards stood at attention, one in each corner, permanently bodymodded into sleek armoured fighting machines. They wore close-combat weapons at their belts, not firearms. Perhaps nobody was allowed to shoot within the inner layers of Haspan’s lair, lest they irreparably damage some priceless objet d’art.

And yet there was an air of seediness within the chamber, as if this display of opulence was just the appealing crust of a pie whose insides consisted of all the worst kinds of offal. People had stolen these luxurious decorations, or bought them with drug-money, and hidden them here in this blighted corner of the Undercity, like a woman with a jewelled broach she dare not wear in public for its value. This was the hoard of a miser, who lived here in a secret shrine to his own wealth. It made Whistler feel slightly sad, although she felt entirely indifferent towards the items themselves.

Gutsy stopped just inside the room with a squeal of worn brakes. ‘Remove your weapons,’ it said simply. ‘You will pass the U55 to me. I will check it before it enters the throne room. Other weapons will be left in the locker over there.’ Its claw waved in the direction of a delicate wrought-iron cupboard that stood against one wall, almost lost in the complexity of the décor.

Throne room? This Haspan must fancy himself king of the shit heap for sure
, thought Whistler. The three visitors began to strip an impressive collection of equipment from their persons and stow it into the cupboard. Roberts drew items that Whistler had never even seen before from what seemed like an endless sequence of pockets and pouches. Sofi tried to pile a handful of micro grenades onto a shelf of the cupboard and several escaped from her fingers and bounced across the floor. One of the guards sniggered behind his featureless facemask and Sofi shot him a murderous look as she went to retrieve the merrily rolling spheres. Whistler knew that the robot must have seen that some of her weapons – her teeth and claws – could not be removed without the aid of a surgeon. She liked that about them. If the robot wanted to take them it could fucking try. She mentally dared it to broach the subject.

Feeling naked without her own smartgun, Whistler handed the U55 to Gutsy. Its clicking metal talon took the weapon and held it up before the spherical body. A row of lights flashed across Gutsy’s body as it scanned the gun. The painted face grinned, the lights flashed, the harvesters waited. The guards stood stock-still like pieces of furniture.