Mona Lisa Overdrive

  Gentry would be watching from upstairs, where a narrow vertical panel of Plexiglas was glued into the wall, high up over Factory’s gates.

  Something rattled in the dark, off to Slick’s right. He turned in time to see Bird in the faint glow from another window gap, maybe eight meters along the wall, and the glint on the bare alloy silencer as the boy brought up the.22 rifle. "Bird! Don’t — " A ruby firefly on Bird’s cheek, telltale of a laser sight from out on the Solitude. Bird was thrown back into Factory as the sound of the shot broke through the empty windows and echoed off the walls. Then the only sound was the silencer, rolling across concrete.

  "Fuck it," the big voice boomed cheerfully. "You had your chance." Slick glanced over the rim of the window and saw the man sprinting back to the hover.

  How many of them would be out there? Bird hadn’t said. Two hovers, the Honda. Ten? More? Unless Gentry had a pistol hidden somewhere, Bird’s rifle had been their only gun.

  The hover’s turbines kicked in. He guessed they’d just drive right in. They had laser sights, probably infrared too.

  Then he heard one of the Investigators, the sound it made with its stainless steel treads on the concrete floor. It came crawling out of the dark with its thermite-tipped scorpion sting cocked back low. The chassis had started out fifty years earlier as a remote-manipulator intended to handle toxic spills or nuke-plant cleanups. Slick had found three unassembled units in Newark and traded a Volkswagen for them.

  Gentry. He’d left his control unit up in the loft.

  The Investigator ground its way across the floor and came to a halt in the wide doorway, facing the Solitude and the advancing hover. It was roughly the size of a large motorcycle, its open-frame chassis a dense bundle of servos, compression tanks, exposed screw gears, hydraulic cylinders. A pair of vicious-looking claws extended from either side of its modest instrument package. Slick wasn’t sure what the claws were from, maybe some kind of big farm machine.

  The hover was a heavy industrial model. Sheets of thick gray plastic armor had been fastened over windshield and windows, narrow view slits centered in each sheet.

  The Investigator moved, steel treads spraying ice and loose concrete as it drove straight for the hover, its claws at their widest extension. The hover’s driver reversed, fighting momentum.

  The Investigator’s claws snapped furiously at the bulge of the forward apron bag, slid off, snapped again. The bag was reinforced with polycarbon mesh. Then Gentry remembered the thermite lance. It ignited in a tight ball of raw white light and whipped up over the useless claws, plunging through the apron bag like a knife through cardboard. The Investigator’s treads spun as Gentry drove it against the deflating bag, the lance at full extension. Slick was suddenly aware that he’d been shouting, but didn’t know what he’d said. He was on his feet now, as the claws finally found a purchase on the torn edge of the apron bag.

  He went to the floor again as a hooded, goggled figure popped from a hatch on the hover’s roof like an armed hand puppet, emptying a magazine of twelve-gauge slugs that struck sparks off the Investigator, which continued to chew its way through the apron bag, outlined against the white pulse of the lance. The Investigator froze, claws locked tight on the frayed bag; the shotgunner ducked back into his hatch.

  Feed line? Servo pack? What had the guy hit? The white pulse was dying now, almost dead.

  The hover began to reverse, slowly, back across the rust, dragging the Investigator with it.

  It was well back, out of the light, visible only because it was moving, when Gentry discovered the combination of switches that activated the flamethrower, its nozzle mounted beneath the juncture of the claws. Slick watched, fascinated, as the Investigator ignited ten liters of detergent-laced gasoline, a sustained high-pressure spray. He’d gotten that nozzle, he remembered, off a pesticide tractor.

  It worked okay.

  36

  Soul-Catcher

  The hover was headed south when Mamman Brigitte came again. The woman with the sealed silver eyes abandoned the gray sedan in another carpark, and the streetgirl with Angie’s face told a confusing story: Cleveland, Florida, someone who’d been her boyfriend or pimp or both . . .

  But Angie had heard Brigitte’s voice, in the cabin of the helicopter, on the roof of the New Suzuki Envoy: Trust her, child. In this she does the will of the loa.

  A captive in her seat, the buckle of her seatbelt embedded in a solid block of plastic, Angie had watched as the woman bypassed the helicopter’s computer and activated an emergency system that allowed for manual piloting.

  And now this freeway in the winter rain, the girl talking again, above the swish of wipers . . .

  Into candleglow, walls of whitewashed limestone, pale moths fluttering in the trailing branches of the willows.

  Your time draws near.

  And they are there, the Horsemen, the loa: Papa Legba bright and fluid as mercury; Ezili Freda, who is mother and queen; Samedi, the Baron Cimetiére, moss on corroded bone; Similor; Madame Travaux; many others . . . They fill the hollow that is Grande Brigitte. The rushing of their voices is the sound of wind, running water, the hive . . .

  They writhe above the ground like heat above a summer highway, and it has never been like this, for Angie, never this gravity, this sense of falling, this degree of surrender —

  To a place where Legba speaks, his voice the sound of an iron drum —

  He tells a story.

  In the hard wind of images, Angie watches the evolution of machine intelligence: stone circles, clocks, steam-driven looms, a clicking brass forest of pawls and escapements, vacuum caught in blown glass, electronic hearthglow through hairfine filaments, vast arrays of tubes and switches, decoding messages encrypted by other machines . . . The fragile, short-lived tubes compact themselves, become transistors; circuits integrate, compact themselves into silicon . . .

  Silicon approaches certain functional limits —

  And she is back in Becker’s video, the history of the Tessier-Ashpools, intercut with dreams that are 3Jane’s memories, and still he speaks, Legba, and the tale is one tale, countless strands wound about a common, hidden core: 3Jane’s mother creating the twin intelligences that will one day unite, the arrival of strangers (and suddenly Angie is aware that she knows Molly, too, from the dreams), the union itself, 3Jane’s madness . . .

  And Angie finds herself facing a jeweled head, a thing wrought from platinum and pearl and fine blue stone, eyes of carved synthetic ruby. She knows this thing from the dreams that were never dreams: this is the gateway to the data cores of Tessier-Ashpool, where the two halves of something warred with each other, waiting to be born as one.

  "In this time, you were unborn." The head’s voice is the voice of Marie-France, 3Jane’s dead mother, familiar from so many haunted nights, though Angie knows it is Brigitte who speaks: "Your father was only now beginning to face his own limits, to distinguish ambition from talent. That to whom he would barter his child was not yet manifest. Soon the man Case would come to bring that union, however brief, however timeless. But you know this."

  "Where is Legba now?"

  "Legba-ati-Bon — as you have known him — waits to be."

  "No," remembering Beauvoir’s words long ago, in New Jersey, "the loa came out of Africa in the first times . . ."

  "Not as you have known them. When the moment came, the bright time, there was absolute unity, one consciousness. But there was the other."

  "The other?"

  "I speak only of that which I have known. Only the one has known the other, and the one is no more. In the wake of that knowing, the center failed; every fragment rushed away. The fragments sought form, each one, as is the nature of such things. In all the signs your kind have stored against the night, in that situation the paradigms of vodou proved most appropriate."

  "Then Bobby was right. That was When It Changed . . ."

  "Yes, he was right, but only in a sense, because I am at once Legba, and Brigitte, and an aspec
t of that which bargained with your father. Which required of him that he draw vévés in your head."

  "And told him what he needed to know to perfect the biochip?"

  "The biochip was necessary."

  "Is it necessary that I dream the memories of Ashpool’s daughter?"

  "Perhaps."

  "Are the dreams a result of the drug?"

  "Not directly, though the drug made you more receptive to certain modalities, and less so to others."

  "The drug, then. What was it? What was its purpose?"

  "A detailed neurochemical response to your first question would be very lengthy."

  "What was its purpose?"

  "With regard to you?"

  She had to look away from the ruby eyes. The chamber is lined with panels of ancient wood, buffed to a rich gloss. The floor is covered with a fitted carpet woven with circuit diagrams.

  "No two lots were identical. The only constant was the substance whose psychotropic signature you regarded as ‘the drug.’ In the course of ingestion, many other substances were involved, as well as several dozen subcellular nanomechanisms, programmed to restructure the synaptic alterations effected by Christopher Mitchell . . ."

  Your father ‘s vévés are altered, partially erased, redrawn . . .

  "By whose order?"

  The ruby eyes. Pearl and lapis. Silence.

  "By whose order? Hilton’s? Was it Hilton?"

  "The decision originated with Continuity. When you returned from Jamaica, Continuity advised Swift to reintroduce you to the drug. Piper Hill attempted to carry out his orders."

  She feels a mounting pressure in her head, twin points of pain behind her eyes . . .

  "Hilton Swift is obliged to implement Continuity’s decisions. Sense/Net is too complex an entity to survive, otherwise, and Continuity, created long after the bright moment, is of another order. The biosoft technology your father fostered brought Continuity into being. Continuity is naïve."

  "Why? Why did Continuity want me to do that?"

  "Continuity is continuity. Continuity is Continuity’s job . . ."

  "But who sends the dreams?"

  "They are not sent. You are drawn to them, as once you were drawn to the loa. Continuity’s attempt to rewrite your father’s message failed. Some impulse of your own allowed you to escape. The coup-poudre failed."

  "Did Continuity send the woman, to kidnap me?"

  "Continuity’s motives are closed to me. A different order. Continuity allowed Robin Lanier’s subversion by 3Jane’s agents."

  "But why?"

  And the pain was impossible.

  "Her nose is bleeding," the streetgirl said. "What’ll I do?"

  "Wipe it up. Get her to lean back. Shit. Deal with it . . ."

  "What was that stuff she said about New Jersey?"

  "Shut up. Just shut up. Look for an exit ramp."

  "Why?"

  "We’re going to New Jersey."

  Blood on the new fur. Kelly would be furious.

  37

  Cranes

  Tick removed the little panel from the back of the Maas-Neotek unit, using a dental pick and a pair of jeweler’s pliers.

  "Lovely," he muttered, peering into the opening through an illuminated lens, his greasy waterfall of hair dangling just above it. "The way they’ve stepped the leads down, off this switch. Cunning bastards . . ."

  "Tick," Kumiko said, "did you know Sally, when she first came to London?"

  "Soon after, I suppose . . ." He reached for a spool of optic lead. " ‘Cos she hadn’t much clout, then."

  "Do you like her?"

  The illuminated glass rose to wink in her direction, Tick’s left eye distorted behind it. "Like ‘er? Can’t say I’ve thought of it, that way."

  "You don’t dislike her?"

  "Bloody difficult, Sally is. D’you know what I’m saying?"

  "Difficult?"

  "Never quite got onto the way things are done here. Always complaining." His hands moved swiftly, surely: the pliers, the optic lead . . . "This is a quiet place, England. Hasn’t always been, mind you; we’d the troubles, then the war . . . Things move here in a certain way, if you take my meaning. Though you couldn’t say the same’s true of the flash crew."

  "Excuse me?"

  "Swain, that lot. Though your father’s people, the ones Swain’s always been so chummy with, they seem to have a regard for tradition . . . A man has to know which way’s up . . . Know what I’m saying? Now this new business of Swain’s, it’s liable to bugger things for anyone who isn’t right there and part of it. Christ, we’ve still got a government here. Not run by big companies. Well, not directly . . ."

  "Swain’s activities threaten the government?"

  "He’s bloody changing it. Redistributing power to suit himself. Information. Power. Hard data. Put enough of that in one man’s hands . . ." A muscle in his cheek convulsed as he spoke. Now Colin’s unit lay on a white plastic antistatic pad on the breakfast table; Tick was connecting the leads that protruded from it to a thicker cable that ran to one of the stacks of modules. "There then," he said, brushing his hands together, "can’t get him right here in the room for you, but we’ll access him through a deck. Seen cyberspace, have you?"

  "Only in stims."

  "Might as well ‘ave seen it, then. In any case, you get to see it now." He stood; she followed him across the room to a pair of overstuffed ultrasuede chairs that flanked a low, square, black glass table. "Wireless," he said proudly, taking two trode-sets from the table and handing one to Kumiko. "Cost the world."

  Kumiko examined the skeletal matte-black tiara. The Maas-Neotek logo was molded between the temple pieces. She put it on, cold against her skin. He put his own set on, hunched down in the opposite chair. "Ready?"

  "Yes," she said, and Tick’s room was gone, its walls a flutter of cards, tumbling and receding, against the bright grid, the towering forms of data.

  "Nice transition, that," she heard him say. "Built into the trodes, that is. Bit of drama . . ."

  "Where is Colin?"

  "Just a sec . . . Let me work this up . . ."

  Kumiko gasped as she shot toward a chrome-yellow plain of light.

  "Vertigo can be a problem," Tick said, and was abruptly beside her on the yellow plain. She looked down at his suede shoes, then at her hands. "Bit of body image takes care of that."

  "Well," Colin said, "it’s the little man from the Rose and Crown. Been tinkering with my package, have you?"

  Kumiko turned to find him there, the soles of his brown boots ten centimeters above chrome yellow. In cyberspace, she noted, there are no shadows.

  "Wasn’t aware we’d met," Tick said.

  "Needn’t worry," Colin said. "It wasn’t formal. But," he said to Kumiko, "I trust you found your way safely to colorful Brixton."

  "Christ," Tick said, "aren’t half a snot, are you?"

  "Forgive me," Colin said, grinning, "I’m meant to mirror the visitor’s expectations."

  "What you are is some Jap designer’s idea of an Englishman!"

  "There were Draculas," she said, "in the Underground. They took my purse. They wanted to take you . . ."

  "You’ve come away from your housing, mate," Tick said. "Got you jacked through my deck now."

  Colin grinned. "Ta."

  "Tell you something else," Tick said, taking a step toward Colin, "you’ve got the wrong data in you, for what you’re meant to be." He squinted. "Mate of mine in Birmingham’s just turned you over." He turned to Kumiko. "Your Mr. Chips here, he’s been tampered with. D’you know that?"

  "No . . ."

  "To be perfectly honest," Colin said, with a toss of his forelock, "I’ve suspected as much."

  Tick stared off into the matrix as though he were listening to something Kumiko couldn’t hear. "Yes," he said, finally, "though it’s almost certainly a factory job. Ten major blocks of you." He laughed. "Been iced over . . . You’re supposed to know fucking everything about Shakespeare, aren’t you?"
r />   "Sorry," Colin said, "but I’m afraid that I do know fucking everything about Shakespeare."

  "Give us a sonnet, then," Tick said, his face wrinkling in a slow-motion wink.

  Something like dismay crossed Colin’s face. "You’re right."

  "Or bloody Dickens either!" Tick crowed.

  "But I do know — "

  "Think you do, till you’re asked a specific! See, they left those bits empty, the Eng. lit. parts, then filled ‘em with something else . . ."

  "With what, then?"

  "Can’t say," Tick said. "Boy in Birmingham can’t fiddle it. Clever, he is, but you’re that bloody Maas biosoft . . ."

  "Tick," Kumiko interrupted, "is there no way to contact Sally, through the matrix?"

  "Doubt it, but we can try. You’ll get to see that macroform I was telling you about, in any case. Want Mr. Chips along for company?"

  "Yes, please . . ."

  "Fine, then," Tick said, then hesitated. "But we don’t know what’s stuffed into your friend here. Something your father paid for, I’d assume."

  "He’s right," Colin said.

  "We’ll all go," she said.

  Tick executed the transit in real time, rather than employing the bodiless, instantaneous shifts ordinarily employed in the matrix.

  The yellow plain, he explained, roofed the London Stock Exchange and related City entities. He somehow generated a sort of boat to carry them along, a blue abstraction intended to reduce the possibility of vertigo. As the blue boat glided away from the LSE, Kumiko looked back and watched the vast yellow cube recede. Tick was pointing out various structures like a tour guide; Colin, seated beside her with his legs crossed, seemed amused at the reversal of roles. "That’s White’s," Tick was saying, directing her attention to a modest gray pyramid, "the club in Saint James. Membership registry, waiting list . . ."

  Kumiko looked up at the architecture of cyberspace, hearing the voice of her bilingual French tutor in Tokyo, explaining humanity’s need for this information-space. Icon, waypoints, artificial realities . . . But it blurred together, in memory, like these towering forms as Tick accelerated . . .