Page 14

W hen I let her go, she turns and walks ashore to wild applause.

Slip walks along the edge of the crowd, plying his hat.

I follow Kez to where she’s left her backpack.

Help her pack up the smoking poi. She draws her leggings back on but stuffs her boots into her bag.

I pull on my pants and boots. After a moment’s thought, I tuck the shirt into the backpack.

It’s too nice to ruin with the oil and soot on my skin.

Slip returns to us once the crowd begins to disperse and divides the contents of his hat with Kez. I scoop up a handful of blues, press them into Kez’s palm and say, “You and Slip mind getting us some drinks?”

She looks up at me, hurt writ large in those big eyes. She doesn’t like me sending her away. Then she realizes what I’m doing and nods. “You want a beer?”

“Sure.”

She tosses the credits on her palm, then grabs Slip’s arm. “C’mon, water-boy. ”

I drag Kez’s backpack over to where Alb is sitting. Join him on the cold sand. He watches me warily.

“Let’s cut right to it,” I say. “Tell me everything you heard about the price on Kez’s head.”

Alb spreads his hands, resting them on the edges of his drums. “I’m no one, man.”

“Didn’t say you were. Tell me what you heard and that’s the end of it.”

“Swear?” he asks.

“Swear.”

Alb blows out a long breath. “Did Kez tell you I used to be with the NoBos?”

“No.”

“It was only for a couple of years, when I was a kid.” More of a kid than he is now, presumably.

He must have been barely out of v-school.

“But I was in pretty tight. I still keep in touch with Sutton and a couple of the others. They were just out here yesterday. Sutton and the big man. Sutton asked me if I wanted in on something. He said it would pay real well.”

“Yeah? What was it?”

“I said no, okay?”

“Okay. Tell me what it was.”

“Tracking Kez. Sutton said there was a huge tag on her head. She’d slipped the noose in Nock, but she might come to the Clouds.

They were spreading the word. He said she was going down no matter what, so there was no point in trying to help her.

Might as well make a few cred.” Alb hunches over on himself. “I swear, I didn’t tell them anything.”

If I had any hair on the back of my neck, it would be standing up. We’ve walked right into a trap. I reach into my boot and pull out one of my new kukris. “Alb, are they still here?”

“No! No, man. The big man was all squirrelly about something. They headed back to the mainland on the last ferry. But Hummer is still here. If he sees her ... you have to believe me, I didn’t think she’d come?—”

I stand. Scan the beach and see the dark shapes of Kez and Slip returning, drinks balanced in their outstretched hands. Good thing the drinks kiosk wasn’t too far up the berm. “Where is Hummer?”

“I don’t know. I swear, I don’t know.” Alb puts his hands over his dark head.

“You didn’t tell anyone she’d be here tonight?” I say it harshly, holding the knife at my side. Not threatening, because Kez counts this kid as her friend, but there’s no mistaking my meaning.

“I didn’t. Look, everyone loves Kez. I don’t know what the big man’s thing is with her. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt her!”

“Okay. Settle down.” Kez is near enough that I could defend her easily if someone came at her now. I hold my hand out to her and reel her in when she draws close.

“You stay right with me from now on,” I say, breathing into her hair. “Even if I send you away.”

She looks up at me. Smiles tentatively. She’d probably rather we stuck together anyway. Kez is the only person in the universe I don’t mind spending twenty-three/six with; I know she feels the same way.

“Here.” She gives me a tall bulb that smells of seaweed and hops.

I draw her down to sit next to Alb again. Set the bulb on the sand. Better to keep a clear head.

Kez leans warmly against me. “What’s going on?” she asks.

I’m tempted to say that I’m trying to find out whether her buddy has sold her out, but that would be needlessly cruel. “Alb’s just telling me about a guy named Hummer.”

“NoBo,” Kez says. It sounds like a curse-word when she says it. “What’s he doing on the Clouds?”

“He came out with Sutton,” Alb offers. “They were looking for you.”

“Good thing I wasn’t here,” Kez says. She sounds calm, but I can feel tension tighten the shoulder she’s pressing against my side .

“You said the ‘big man’ was here, too. Who’s the big man?”

“Jaxon,” Kez, Slip and Alb chorus. Slip spits on the sand after saying the name. Alb elbows him.

“You said they went back to the mainland?” At Alb’s nod, I continue, “Where, Alb?”

“I dunnow, man.”

“Fuck, Alb,” Slip says.

“Shut the fuck up, man. You weren’t part of it. You got no idea.”

“Alb.” I draw his name out so I have his full attention.

“Three days ago I was hangin’ in an air vent, listening to a bunch of motherfuckers talk about what they were gonna do to Kez.

They had it all planned out. While she was in a dead zone they were gonna catch her.

Then they were gonna rape her. Then they were gonna kill her.

Tell me again about how everyone loves Kez.

” The boy hangs his hand. “Jaxon’s put such a big price on Kez’s head that every credit-hungry fuck on Kuseros is going to be gunning for her. I need to know where he is.”

Alb looks up at Kez. “I’m so sorry, g.”

Kez huddles against me. “It’s okay,” she says.

“No, it’s not!” Slip punches Alb in the shoulder.

“Fuck, man!” Alb protests.

“Tell him where Jaxon is, you brown stain!” Slip snaps. “All this time, I can’t fucking believe you’re still loyal to him!”

“I’m not! You don’t know what they’re like?—”

“I do,” Kez says quietly. She shifts up onto her knees.

Turns so her back is to Alb, and pulls up her dress to expose the scar on her back.

It starts above the line of the underwear she is, I’m pleased to see, wearing, and hollows out her lower back to her T7 vertebrae.

The skin is softer, less mottled and twisted, than it was when we met, thanks to Doc Gray’s regen work, but it’s still the worst burn scar I’ve ever seen.

Slip reaches out like he’s going to touch her, then thinks better of it and sinks down onto his haunches.

Alb just shrinks further back into his circle of bowls and pads.

Kez drops her dress back around her hips. “Jaxon did that with a bottle of Two. He set it on fire before he threw it at me. So it would stick. You know I never did anything to him.”

“I know,” Alb moans.

“Tell me where he is, Alb,” I say.

The boy grips his head like it’s going to explode. “Ykimo. I don’t know where, I swear to Helas. HQ used to be on Square Circle, but Jaxon moved it when he came back. I don’t know where.”

“Sutton leave you some way to get in touch with him?” Kez asks.

“Yeah, Jaxon’s back on the K-net. J-nox, that’s him.”

“Thanks, Alb.” Kez rises and after glancing up at her, I climb to my feet, too. She reaches for her backpack, but I forestall her and swing it up onto my shoulder.

“G?” Slip asks tentatively. Kez hugs him and he’s the one who steps back first, with an uneasy smile.

“Alb,” Kez says softly. “Stay safe.”

“You, too, g.” He doesn’t rise or make any parting gesture. I nod to him before escorting Kez up the beach.

As we reach the softer sand of the berm, she leans her head into my shoulder. “We forgot the drinks.”

“Fuck ‘em,” I say. I want to get her somewhere I can defend. The Night Market, which felt so friendly when we arrived, now feels too open. Too full of watching eyes and hidden weapons. “Fastest way to our hotel?”

“Hang a right. Towards the cliffs.”

“How far?” I ask.

“A klick, I’d guess.”

Too far. Too easy to fall into an ambush in these unfamiliar streets.

“There a taxi service on the Clouds?” I ask.

“Sure, but I’m not wasting money on a taxi to go?—”

“Trust me, this is not a waste,” I tell her.

Kez grumbles but directs me to a stall on the Market whose sign showers chemfire on passersby.

When the sparks land on my skin, they don’t burn, but they do spell out the name of the taxi service and its K-net code before they fade to ash.

Gimmicky, but that’s the Night Market. I memorize the code in case we need it again.

There’s a little two-seater available and it zips us up to the Cloud Palace, a glittering hotel set high above the grimy port and beach.

As the floater rises up the cliffs, there’s a great view of Tiv spread out below us.

I elbow Kez, but she just nods. She sits back in her seat, sunk in her thoughts.

The entry of the hotel overhangs Tiv. Literally.

A massive semi-circular dock projects twenty meters from the cliff face.

It’s not lit up the way I’d expect. There’s a soft glow, but no halyon.

Understated. Classy. Once our floater docks, an officious bellman hands us out of the little vehicle onto a walkway.

The walkway’s some sort of gel, suspended on the surface of a shimmering stream that runs around the arc of the dock.

The effect is of a river suspended in mid-air.

Walking on water. It’s a clever conceit, I have to admit, but looking down onto the cliffs through the water gives me vertigo. Not the best trick.

Another bellman, even more officious than the first, greets us at the wide, white marble steps up into the foyer of the hotel.

This bellman is a ‘bot. It’s not styled to look human – most ‘bots on Kuseros aren’t, except for the very occasional fuckbot – it’s shaped like an egg, with a round golden bottom that hovers a meter off the marble.

A black metal tux jacket wraps around the bot’s middle. Its head is a featureless oval.

“Honored Tyng guests,” it gushes. Can a robot gush? Guess you can program the fucking things to do anything.

I wave my hand at it. “Skip to the part where you show us our room. We’ve had a long day.”

“Of course, of course.” It bows, rotating on its wide end like a gimble.

To give it credit, it doesn’t fuck around. We’re installed in the north-facing penthouse suite in less than five minutes. The suite is bigger than my house. Kez’s house. Maybe both our houses put together. Much too big for just the two of us .

Walking into the suite, across a white carpet so deep it swallows my ankles, l try to take it in.

If it wasn’t night and the lights weren’t low, I’d be blinded.

Everything’s gilded. From the huge, carved pseudowood frame for the oversized, overstuffed bed, to the luggage racks my bags are already sitting on, to the flash-can, tucked away in its own separate chamber.

The walls are draped in rich white and gold fabric, and I realize it’s as much to grind the luxury of this place into the viewer as it is to muffle noise so the suite don’t echo.

Despite all the padding, and all the amenities, of which there are more than a few, it’s still much too big for Kez and me, and I can tell Kez doesn’t like it by the way she shrinks into herself as she looks around.

The fact that she’s still barefoot and slightly soot-streaked is probably not helping.

I draw the ‘bot to one side and give it instructions while Kez wanders through the suite to the ‘fresher.

The ‘bot listens to me carefully, bowing a little when I tick off each new requirement. When I hit the end of my list, it gives me a deep bow. When I offer my thumb to tip it, it gently refuses, telling me that everything is included for ‘honored Tyng.’ I guess the Old Man threw a lot of business the Cloud Palace’s way.

After the ‘bot bows a final time and leaves, Kez walks out of the ‘fresher and drifts to the edge of the bed. She sits down and pulls her knees to her chest. Looks out the window-wall at the winking crescent of Tiv far below us. “You were right,” she says. “It’s a good view.”

“Best money can buy in Tiv, according to Myhre,” I say, while I unpack a tingler from my bag.

I want to be able to speak freely with Kez, without worrying about who might be listening in.

And I want her to say my real name while we’re fucking.

Nothing kills my hard-on faster than being called by a dead man’s name.

I start the tingler spinning. Tap the control plate to check that it’s doing its job, since the ultrasound generator is outside even my hearing.

When I’m confident it’s working, I turn to Kez.