Altered Carbon

  She had a point. I thought about it for a moment, staring out to sea.

  “All right,” I said slowly. “All I need is a couple of minutes’ conversation. How about you tell him I’m Elias Ryker, your partner from Organic Damage. I practically am, after all.”

  Ortega took off her lenses and stared at me.

  “Are you trying to be funny?”

  “No. I’m trying to be practical. Rutherford’s sleeving in from Ulan Bator, right?”

  “New York,” she said tightly.

  “New York. Right. So he probably doesn’t know anything about you or Ryker.”

  “Probably not.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “The problem is, Kovacs, that I don’t like it.”

  There was more silence. I dropped my gaze into my lap and let out a sigh that was only partially manufactured. Then I took off my own sunglasses and looked up at her. It was all there on plain display. The naked fear of sleeving and all that it entailed; paranoid essentialism with its back to the wall.

  “Ortega,” I said gently. “I’m not him. I’m not trying to be hi—”

  “You couldn’t even come close,” she snapped.

  “All we’re talking about is a couple of hours’ make-believe.”

  “Is that all?”

  She said it in a voice like iron, and she put her sunglasses back on with such brusque efficiency that I didn’t need to see the tears welling up in the eyes behind the mirror lenses.

  “All right,” she said finally, clearing her throat. “I’ll get you in. I don’t see the point, but I’ll do it. Then what?”

  “That’s a little difficult to say. I’ll have to improvise.”

  “Like you did at the Wei Clinic?”

  I shrugged noncommittally. “Envoy techniques are largely reactive. I can’t react to something until it happens.”

  “I don’t want another bloodbath, Kovacs. It looks bad on the city stats.”

  “If there’s violence, it won’t be me that starts it.”

  “That’s not much of a guarantee. Haven’t you got any idea what you’re going to do?”

  “I’m going to talk.”

  “Just talk?” She looked at me disbelievingly. “That’s all?”

  I fitted my ill-fitting sunglasses back over my face.

  “Sometimes that’s all it takes,” I said.

  CHAPTEr EIGHTEEN

  I met my first lawyer when I was fifteen. He was a harried-looking juvenile-affray expert who defended me, not unhandily, in a minor organic damage suit involving a Newpest police officer. He bargained them down with a kind of myopic patience to Conditional Release and eleven minutes of virtual psychiatric counseling. In the hall outside the juvenile court, he looked into my probably infuriatingly smug face and nodded as if his worst fears about the meaning of his life were being confirmed. Then he turned on his heel and walked away. I forget his name.

  My entry into the Newpest gang scene shortly afterwards precluded any more such legal encounters. The gangs were web smart, wired up, and already writing their own intrusion programs or buying them from kids half their age in return for low-grade virtual porn ripped off the networks. They didn’t get caught easily, and in return for this favor the Newpest heat tended to leave them alone. Intergang violence was largely ritualized and excluded other players most of the time. On the odd occasion that it spilled over and affected civilians, there would be a rapid and brutal series of punitive raids that left a couple of lead gang heroes in the store and the rest of us with extensive bruising. Fortunately I never worked my way up the chain of command far enough to get put away, so the next time I saw the inside of a courtroom was the Innenin inquiry.

  The lawyers I saw there had about as much in common with the man who had defended me at fifteen as automated machine rifle fire has with farting. They were cold, professionally polished, and well on their way up a career ladder that would ensure that despite the uniforms they wore, they would never have to come within a thousand kilometers of a genuine firefight. The only problem they had, as they cruised sharkishly back and forth across the cool marble floor of the court, was in drawing the fine differences between war—mass murder of people wearing a uniform not your own; justifiable loss—mass murder of your own troops, but with substantial gains; and criminal negligence—mass murder of your own troops, without appreciable benefit. I sat in that courtroom for three weeks listening to them dress it like a variety of salads, and with every passing hour the distinctions, which at one point I’d been pretty clear on, grew increasingly vague. I suppose that proves how good they were.

  After that, straightforward criminality came as something of a relief.

  “Something bothering you?” Ortega glanced sideways at me as she brought the unmarked cruiser down on a shelving pebble beach below the split-level, glass-fronted offices of Prendergast Sanchez, attorneys-at-law.

  “Just thinking.”

  “Try cold showers and alcohol. Works for me.”

  I nodded and held up the minuscule bead of metal I had been rolling between my finger and thumb. “Is this legal?”

  Ortega reached up and killed the primaries. “More or less. No one’s going to complain.”

  “Good. Now, I’m going to need verbal cover to start with. You do the talking; I’ll just shut up and listen. Take it from there.”

  “Fine. Ryker was like that, anyway. Never used two words if one would do it. Most of the time with the scumbags, he’d just look at them.”

  “Sort of a Micky Nozawa type, huh?”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind.” The rattle of upthrown pebbles on the hull died away as Ortega cut the engines to idle. I stretched in my seat and threw open my side of the hatch. Climbing out, I saw an overburly figure coming down the meandering set of wooden steps from the split level. Looked like grafting. A blunt-looking gun was slung over his shoulder, and he wore gloves. Probably not a lawyer.

  “Go easy,” Ortega said, suddenly at my shoulder. “We have jurisdiction here. He isn’t going to start anything.”

  She flashed her badge as the muscle jumped the last step to the beach and landed on flexed legs. You could see the disappointment on his face as he saw it.

  “Bay City police. We’re here to see Rutherford.”

  “You can’t park that here.”

  “I already have,” Ortega told him evenly. “Are we going to keep Mr. Rutherford waiting?”

  There was a prickly silence, but she’d gauged him correctly. Contenting himself with a grunt, the muscle gestured us up the staircase and followed at prudent shepherding distance. It took a while to get to the top, and I was pleased to see when we arrived that Ortega was considerably more out of breath than I was. We went across a modest sundeck made from the same wood as the stairs and through two sets of automatic plate-glass doors into a reception area styled to look like someone’s lounge. There were rugs on the floor, knitted in the same patterns as my jacket, and empathist prints on the walls. Five single armchairs provided parking.

  “Can I help you?”

  This was a lawyer, no question about it. A smoothly groomed blonde woman in a loose skirt and jacket tailored to fit the room, hands resting comfortably in her pockets.

  “Bay City police. Where’s Rutherford?”

  The woman flickered a glance sideways at our escort and, having received the nod, did not bother to demand identification.

  “I’m afraid Keith is occupied at the moment. He’s in virtual with New York.”

  “Well, get him out of virtual, then,” Ortega said with dangerous mildness. “And tell him the officer who arrested his client is here to see him. I’m sure he’ll be interested.”

  “That may take some time, Officer.”

  “No, it won’t.”

  The two women locked gazes for a moment, and then the lawyer looked away. She nodded to the muscle, who went back outside still looking disappointed.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” she said glacially. “
Please wait here.”

  We waited, Ortega at the floor-to-ceiling window, staring down at the beach with her back to the room, and myself prowling the artwork. Some of it was quite good. With the separately ingrained habits of working in monitored environments, neither of us said anything for the ten minutes it took to produce Rutherford from the inner sanctum.

  “Lieutenant Ortega.” The modulated voice reminded me of Miller’s at the clinic, and when I looked up from a print over the fireplace, I saw much the same kind of sleeve. Maybe a little older, with slightly craggier patriarchal features designed to inspire instant respect in jurors and judges alike, but the same athletic frame and off-the-rack good looks. “To what do I owe this unexpected . . . visit? Not more harassment, I hope.”

  Ortega ignored the allegation. “Detective Sergeant Elias Ryker,” she said, nodding at me. “Your client just admitted to one count of abduction and made a first-degree organic-damage threat under monitor. Care to see the footage?”

  “Not particularly. Care to tell me why you’re here?”

  Rutherford was good. He’d barely reacted; barely, but enough to catch it out of the corner of my eye. My mind went into overdrive.

  Ortega leaned on the back of an armchair. “For a man defending a mandatory-erasure case, you’re showing a real lack of imagination.”

  Rutherford sighed theatrically. “You have called me away from an important link. I assume you do have something to say.”

  “Do you know what third-party retroassociative complicity is?” I asked the question without turning from the print, and when I did look up, I had Rutherford’s complete attention.

  “I do not,” he said stiffly.

  “That’s a pity, because you and the other partners of Uzala Bennett are right in the firing line if Kadmin rolls over. But of course, if that happens—” I spread my hands and shrugged. “—it’ll be open season. In fact, it may already be.”

  “All right, that’s enough.” Rutherford’s hand rose decisively to a remote summons emitter pinned to his lapel. Our escort was on his way. “I don’t have time to play games with you. There is no statute by that name, and this is getting perilously close to harassment.”

  I raised my voice. “Just wanted to know which side you want to be on when the program crashes, Rutherford. There is a statute. U.N. indictable offense, last handed down fourth of May 2207. Look it up. I had to go back a long way to dig this one up, but it’ll take all of you down in the end. Kadmin knows it; that’s why he’s cracking.”

  Rutherford smiled. “I don’t think so, Detective.”

  I repeated my shrug. “Shame. Like I said, look it up. Then decide which side you want to play for. We’re going to need inside corroboration, and we’re prepared to pay for it. If it isn’t you, Ulan Bator’s stuffed with lawyers who’ll give blow jobs for the chance.”

  The smile wavered fractionally.

  “That’s right, think about it.” I nodded at Ortega. “You can get me at Fell Street, same as the lieutenant here. Elias Ryker, offworld liaison. I’m promising you, this is going to go down, whatever happens, and when it does, I’ll be a good person to know.”

  Ortega took the cue like she’d been doing it all her life. Like Sarah would have done. She unleaned herself from the chair back and made for the door.

  “Be seeing you, Rutherford,” she said laconically, as we stepped back out onto the deck. The muscle was there, grinning widely and flexing his hands at his sides. “And you, don’t even think about it.”

  I contented myself with the silent look that I had been told Ryker used to such great effect and followed my partner down the stairs.

  Back in the cruiser, Ortega snapped on a screen and watched identity data from the bug scroll down.

  “Where’d you put it?”

  “Print over the fireplace. Corner of the frame.”

  She grunted. “They’ll sweep it out of there in nothing flat, you know. And none of it’s admissible as evidence, anyway.”

  “I know. You’ve told me that twice already. That’s not the point. If Rutherford rattled, he’ll jump first.”

  “You think he rattled?”

  “A little.”

  “Yeah.” She glanced curiously at me. “So what the fuck is third-party retroassociative complicity?”

  “No idea. I made it up.”

  Her eyebrow went up. “No shit?”

  “Convinced you, huh? Know what, you could have given me a polygraph test while I was spinning it, and I would have convinced that, too. Basic Envoy tricks. Course, Rutherford will know that as soon as he looks it up, but it’s already served its purpose.”

  “Which is what?”

  “Provide the arena. Tell lies, you keep your opponent off balance. It’s like fighting on unfamiliar ground. Rutherford was rattled, but he smiled when I told him this stuff was why Kadmin was acting up.” I looked up through the windshield at the house above, formulating the scrapings of intuition into understanding. “He was fucking relieved when I said that. I don’t suppose normally he would have given that much away, but the bluff had him running scared, and him knowing better than me about something was that little ray of stability he needed. And that means he knows another reason why Kadmin changed behavior. He knows the real reason.”

  Ortega grunted approvingly. “Pretty good, Kovacs. You should have been a cop. You notice his reaction when I told him the good news about what Kadmin had done? He wasn’t surprised at all.”

  “No. He was expecting it. Or something like it.”

  “Yeah.” She paused. “This really what you used to do for a living?”

  “Sometimes. Diplomatic missions, or deep-cover stuff. It wasn’t—”

  I fell silent as she elbowed me in the ribs. On the screen, a series of coded sequences were unwinding like snakes of blue fire.

  “Here we go. Simultaneous calls—he must be doing this in virtual to save time. One, two, three—that one’s New York, must be to update the senior partners, and oops.”

  The screen flared and went abruptly dark.

  “They found it,” I said.

  “They did. The New York line probably has a sweeper attached, flushes out the call vicinity on connection.”

  “Or one of the others does.”

  “Yeah.” Ortega punched up the screen’s memory and stared at the call codes. “They’re all three routed through discreet clearing. Take us a while to locate them. You want to eat?”

  Homesickness isn’t something a veteran Envoy should confess to. If the conditioning hasn’t already ironed it out of you, the years of sleeving back and forth across the Protectorate should have. Envoys are citizens of that elusive state, Here and Now, a state that jealously admits of no dual nationalities. The past is relevant only as data.

  Homesickness was what I felt as we stepped past the kitchen area of the Flying Fish, and the aroma of sauces I had last tasted in Millsport hit me like a friendly tentacle. Teriyaki, frying tempura, and the undercurrent of miso. I stood wrapped in it for a moment, remembering that time. A ramen bar Sarah and I had skulked in while the heat from the Gemini Biosys gig died down, eyes hooked to newsnet broadcasts and a corner videophone with a smashed screen that was supposed to ring, anytime now. Steam on the windows and the company of taciturn Millsport skippers.

  And back beyond that, I remembered the moth-battered paper lanterns outside Watanabe’s on a Newpest Friday night. My teenage skin slick with sweat from the jungle wind blowing out of the south and my eyes glittering with tetrameth in one of the big wind-chime mirrors. Talk, cheaper than the big bowls of ramen, about Big Scores and yakuza connections, tickets north and beyond, new sleeves and new worlds. Old Watanabe had sat out on the deck with us, listening to it all but never commenting, just smoking his pipes and glancing from time to time in the mirror at his own Caucasian features—always with mild surprise, it seemed to me.

  He never told us how he’d got that sleeve, just as he never denied or confirmed the rumors about his escapades with the
Marine Corps, the Quell Memorial Brigade, the Envoys, whatever. An older gang member once told us he’d seen Watanabe face down a roomful of Seven Percent Angels with nothing but his pipe in his hands, and some kid from the swamp towns once came up with a fuzzy slice of newsreel footage he claimed was from the Settlement wars. It was only 2-D, hurriedly shot just before an assault team went over the top, but the sergeant being interviewed was subtitled Watanabe, Y, and there was something about the way he tilted his head when questioned that had us all crowing recognition at the screen. But then, Watanabe was a common enough name, and come to that, the guy who said he’d seen the Angels face-down was also fond of telling us how he’d slept with a Harlan family heiress when she came slumming, and none of us believed that.

  Once, on a rare evening when I was both straight and alone at Watanabe’s, I swallowed enough of my adolescent pride to ask the old man for his advice. I’d been reading U.N. armed forces promotional literature for weeks, and I needed someone to push me one way or the other.

  Watanabe just grinned at me around the stem of his pipe. “I should advise you?” he asked. “Share with you the wisdom that brought me to this?”

  We both looked around the little bar and the fields beyond the deck.

  “Well, uh, yes.”

  “Well, uh, no,” he said firmly, and resumed his pipe.

  “Kovacs?”

  I blinked and found Ortega in front of me, looking curiously into my eyes.

  “Something I need to know about?”

  I smiled faintly and glanced around at the kitchen’s shining steel counters. “Not really.”

  “It’s good food,” she said, misinterpreting the look.

  “Well, let’s get some, then.”

  She led me out of the steam and onto one of the restaurant’s gantries. The Flying Fish was, according to Ortega, a decommissioned aerial minesweeper that some oceanographic institute had bought up. The institute was now either defunct or had moved on and the bayward-facing facility had been gutted, but someone had stripped the Flying Fish, rerigged her as a restaurant, and cabled her five hundred meters above the decaying facility buildings. Periodically the whole vessel was reeled gently back down to earth to disgorge its sated customers and take on fresh. There was a queue around two sides of the docking hangar when we arrived, but Ortega jumped it with her badge, and when the airship came floating down through the open roof of the hangar, we were the first aboard.