Altered Carbon

  I gave him a few meters start and then swung silently to my feet and went after him, slipping the Philips gun out of its holster under my coat. I caught up just as he reached the exit. As the doors parted for him, I shoved him rudely in the small of the back and stepped quickly outside in his wake. He was swinging back to face me, features contorted with anger, as the doors started to close.

  “What do you think you’re—” The rest of it died on his lips as he saw who I was.

  “Warden Sullivan,” I said affably, and showed him the Philips gun under my jacket. “This is a silent weapon, and I’m not in a good mood. Please do exactly as I tell you.”

  He swallowed. “What do you want?”

  “I want to talk about Trepp, among others. And I don’t want to do it in the rain. Let’s go.”

  “My car is—”

  “A really bad idea.” I nodded. “So let’s walk. And, Warden Sullivan, if you so much as blink at the wrong person, I’ll shoot you in half. You won’t see the gun; no one will. But it’ll be there just the same.”

  “You’re making a mistake, Kovacs.”

  “I don’t think so.” I tipped my head toward the diminished ranks of parked vehicles in the lot. “Straight through, and left into the street. Keep going till I tell you to stop.”

  Sullivan started to say something else, but I jerked the barrel of the Philips gun at him and he shut up. Sideways at first, he made his way down the steps to the parking lot and then, with occasional backward glances, across the uneven ground toward the sagging double gate that had rusted open on its runners what looked like centuries ago.

  “Eyes front,” I called across the widening gap between us. “I’m still back here; you don’t need to worry about that.”

  Out on the street, I let the gap grow to about a dozen meters and pretended complete dissociation from the figure ahead of me. It wasn’t a great neighborhood, and there weren’t many people out walking in the rain. Sullivan was an easy target for the Philips gun at double the distance.

  Five blocks on, I spotted the steamed-up windows of the noodlehouse I was looking for. I quickened my pace and came up on Sullivan’s streetside shoulder.

  “In here. Go to the booths at the back and sit down.”

  I made a single sweep of the street, saw no one obvious, and followed Sullivan inside.

  The place was almost empty, the daytime diners long departed and the evening not yet cranked up. Two ancient Chinese women sat in a corner with the withered elegance of dried bouquets, heads nodding together. On the other side of the restaurant four young men in pale silk suits lounged dangerously and toyed with expensive-looking chunks of hardware. At a table near one of the windows, a fat Caucasian was working his way through an enormous bowl of chow mein and simultaneously flicking over the pages of a holoporn comic. A video screen set high on one wall gave out coverage of some incomprehensible local sport.

  “Tea,” I said to the young waiter who came to meet us, and seated myself opposite Sullivan in the booth.

  “You aren’t going to get away with this,” he said unconvincingly. “Even if you kill me, really kill me, they’ll check the most recent resleevings and backtrack to you sooner or later.”

  “Yeah, maybe they’ll even find out about the unofficial surgery this sleeve had before I arrived.”

  “That bitch. She’s going to—”

  “You’re in no position to be making threats,” I said mildly. “In fact, you’re in no position to do anything except answer my questions and hope I believe you. Who told you to tag me?”

  Silence, apart from the game coverage from the set on the wall. Sullivan stared sullenly at me.

  “All right, I’ll make it easy for you. Simple yes or no. An artificial called Trepp came to see you. Was this the first time you’d had dealings with her?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  With measured anger, I backhanded him hard across the mouth. He collapsed sideways against the wall of the booth, losing his hat. The conversation of the young men in silk stopped abruptly, then resumed with great animation as I cut them a sideways glance. The two old women got stiffly to their feet and filed out through a back entrance. The Caucasian didn’t even look up from his holoporn. I leaned across the table.

  “Warden Sullivan, you’re not taking this in the spirit it’s intended. I am very concerned to know who you sold me to. I’m not going to go away, just because you have some residual scruples about client confidentiality. Believe me, they didn’t pay you enough to hold out on me.”

  Sullivan sat back up, wiping at the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. To his credit, he managed a bitter smile with the undamaged portion of his lips.

  “You think I haven’t been threatened before, Kovacs?”

  I examined the hand I’d hit him with. “I think you’ve had very little experience of personal violence, and that’s going to be a disadvantage. I’m going to give you the chance to tell me what I want to know here and now. After that we go somewhere with soundproofing. Now, who sent Trepp?”

  “You’re a thug, Kovacs. Nothing but—”

  I snapped folded knuckles across the table and into his left eye. It made less noise than the slap. Sullivan grunted in shock and reeled away from the blow, cowering into the seat. I watched impassively until he recovered. Something cold was rising in me, something born on the benches of the Newpest Justice Facility and tempered with the years of pointless unpleasantness I had been witness to. I hoped Sullivan wasn’t as tough as he was trying to appear, for both our sakes. I leaned close again.

  “You said it, Sullivan. I’m a thug. Not a respectable criminal like you. I’m not a Meth, not a businessman. I have no vested interests, no social connections, no purchased respectability. It’s just me, and you’re in my way. So let’s start again. Who sent Trepp?”

  “He doesn’t know, Kovacs. You’re wasting your time.”

  The woman’s voice was light and cheerful, pitched a little loud to carry from the door where she stood, hands in the pockets of a long black coat. She was slim and pale with close-cropped dark hair and a poise to the way she stood that bespoke combat skills. Beneath the coat she wore a gray quilted tunic that looked impact resistant and matching work trousers tucked into ankle boots. A single silver earring in the shape of a discarded ’trode cable dangled from her left ear. She appeared to be alone.

  I lowered the Philips gun slowly, and without acknowledging that it had ever been trained on her she took the cue to advance casually into the restaurant. The young men in silk watched her every step of the way, but if she was aware of their gazes, she gave no sign. When she was about five paces from our booth, she gave me a look of inquiry and began to lift her hands slowly out of her pockets. I nodded, and she completed the movement, revealing open palms and fingers set with rings of black glass.

  “Trepp?”

  “Good guess. You going to let me sit down?”

  I waved the Philips gun at the seat opposite, where Sullivan was cupping both hands to his eye. “If you can persuade your associate here to move over. Just keep your hands above the table.”

  The woman smiled and inclined her head. She glanced at Sullivan, who was already squeezing up to the wall to make space for her, and then, keeping her hands poised at her sides, she swung herself elegantly in beside him. The economy of motion was so tight that her pendant earring barely shifted. Once seated, she pressed both hands palm down on the table in front of her.

  “That make you feel safer?”

  “It’ll do,” I said, noticing that the black glass rings, like the earring, were a body joke. Each ring showed, X-ray like, a ghostly blue section of the bones in the fingers beneath. Trepp’s style, at least, I could get to like.

  “I didn’t tell him anything,” Sullivan blurted.

  “You didn’t know anything worth a jack,” Trepp said disinterestedly. She hadn’t even turned to look at him. “Lucky for you I turned up, I’d say. Mr. Kovacs doesn’t look
like someone ready to take don’t know for an answer. Am I right?”

  “What do you want, Trepp?”

  “Come to help out.” Trepp glanced up as something rattled in the restaurant. The waiter had arrived bearing a tray with a large teapot and two handleless cups. “You order this?”

  “Yeah. Help yourself.”

  “Thanks, I love this stuff.” Trepp waited while the waiter deposited everything, then busied herself with the teapot. “Sullivan, you want a cup, too? Hey, bring him another cup, would you. Thanks. Now, where was I?”

  “You’d come to help out,” I said pointedly.

  “Yeah.” Trepp sipped at the green tea and looked at me over the rim of the cup. “That’s right. I’m here to clarify things. See, you’re trying to hammer the information out of Sullivan here. And he doesn’t know fuck-all. His contact was me, so here I am. Talk to me.”

  I looked at her levelly. “I killed you last week, Trepp.”

  “Yeah, so they tell me.” Trepp set down the teacup and looked critically at her own fingerbones. “Course, I don’t remember that. In fact, I don’t even know you, Kovacs. Last thing I remember was putting myself into the tank about a month back. Everything after that’s gone. The me you torched in that cruiser, she’s dead. That wasn’t me. So, no hard feelings, huh?”

  “No remote storage, Trepp?”

  She snorted. “Are you kidding? I make a living doing this, same as you, but not that much. Anyway, who needs that remote shit? The way I figure it, you fuck up, you’ve got to pay some kind of tab for it. I fucked up with you, right?”

  I sipped my own tea and played back the fight in the aircar, considering the angles. “You were a little slow,” I conceded. “A little careless.”

  “Yeah, careless. I got to watch that. Wearing artificials makes you that way. Very anti-Zen. I got a sensei in New York, it drives him up the fucking wall.”

  “That’s too bad,” I said patiently. “You want to tell me who sent you now?”

  “Hey, better than that. You’re invited to meet the Man.” She nodded at my expression. “Yeah, Ray wants to talk to you. Same as last time, except this is a voluntary ride. Seems coercion doesn’t work too well with you.”

  “And Kadmin? He’s in on this, as well?”

  Trepp drew breath in through her teeth. “Kadmin’s, well, Kadmin’s a bit of a side issue right now. Bit of an embarrassment really. But I think we can deal on that, as well. I really can’t tell you too much more now.” She shuttled her glance sideways at Sullivan, who was beginning to sit up and pay attention. “It’s better if we go someplace else.”

  “All right.” I nodded. “I’ll follow you out. But let’s have a couple of ground rules before we go. One, no virtuals.”

  “Way ahead of you there.” Trepp finished her tea and started to get up from the table. “My instructions are to convey you directly to Ray. In the flesh.”

  I put a hand on her arm and she stopped moving abruptly.

  “Two. No surprises. You tell me exactly what’s going to happen well before it does. Anything unexpected, and you’re likely to be disappointing your sensei all over again.”

  “Fine. No surprises.” Trepp produced a slightly forced smile that told me she wasn’t accustomed to being grabbed by the arm. “We’re going to walk out of the restaurant and catch a taxi. That all right by you?”

  “Just so long as it’s empty.” I released her arm and she resumed motion, coming fluidly upright, hands still well away from her sides. I reached into my pocket and tossed a couple of plastic notes at Sullivan. “You stay here. If I see your face come through the door before we’re gone, I’ll put a hole in it. Tea’s on me.”

  As I followed Trepp to the door, the waiter arrived with Sullivan’s teacup and a big white handkerchief, presumably for the warden’s smashed lip. Nice kid. He practically tripped over himself trying to stay out of my way, and the look he gave me was mingled disgust and awe. In the wake of the icy fury that had possessed me earlier, I sympathized more than he could have known.

  The young men in silk watched us go with the dead-eyed concentration of snakes.

  Outside, it was still raining. I turned up my collar and watched as Trepp produced a transport pager and waved it casually back and forth above her head. “Be a minute,” she said, and gave me a curious sidelong glance. “You know who that place belongs to?”

  “I guessed.”

  She shook her head. “Triad noodlehouse. Hell of a place for an interrogation. Or do you just like living dangerously?”

  I shrugged. “Where I come from, criminals stay out of other people’s fights. They’re a gutless lot, generally. Much more likely to get interference from a solid citizen.”

  “Not around here. Most solid citizens around here are a little too solid to get involved in a brawl on some stranger’s behalf. The way they figure it, that’s what the police are for. You’re from Harlan’s World, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Maybe it’s that Quellist thing, then. You reckon?”

  “Maybe.”

  An autocab came spiraling down through the rain in response to the pager. Trepp stood aside at the open hatch and made an irony of demonstrating the empty compartment within. I smiled thinly.

  “After you.”

  “Suit yourself.” She climbed aboard and moved over to let me in. I settled back on the seat opposite her and watched her hands. When she saw where I was looking, she grinned and spread her arms cruciform along the back of the seat. The hatch hinged down, shedding rain in sliding sheets.

  “Welcome to Urbline Services,” the cab said smoothly. “Please state your destination.”

  “Airport,” Trepp said, lounging back in her seat and looking for my reaction. “Private carriers’ terminal.”

  The cab lifted. I looked past Trepp at the rain on the rear window. “Not a local trip, then,” I said tonelessly.

  She brought her arms in again, hands held palm upward. “Well, we figured you wouldn’t go virtual, so now we have to do it the hard way. Suborbital. Take about three hours.”

  “Suborbital?” I drew a deep breath and touched the holstered Philips gun lightly. “You know, I’m going to get really upset if someone asks me to check this hardware before we fly.”

  “Yeah, we figured that, too. Relax, Kovacs, you heard me say private terminal. This is a custom flight, just for you. Carry a fucking tactical nuke on board if you like. Okay?”

  “Where are we going, Trepp?”

  She smiled.

  “Europe,” she said.

  CHAPTEr TWENTY–FIVE

  Wherever it was in Europe that we landed, the weather was better. We left the blunt, windowless suborbital sitting on the fused glass runway, and walked to the terminal building through glinting sunlight that was a physical pressure on my body, even through my jacket. The sky above was an uncompromising blue from horizon to horizon, and the air felt hard and dry. According to the pilot’s time check, it was still only midafternoon. I shrugged my way out of the jacket.

  “Should be a limo waiting for us,” Trepp said over her shoulder.

  We passed, without formality, into the terminal and across a zone of microclimate where palms and other less recognizable tropicalia made a bid for the massive glass ceiling. A misty rain drifted down from sprinkler systems, rendering the air pleasantly damp after the aridity outside. Along the aisles set between the trees, children played and squalled, and old people sat dozily on wrought iron benches in a seemingly impossible coexistence. The middle generations were gathered in knots at coffee stands, talking with more gesticulation than I’d seen in Bay City and seemingly oblivious to the factors of time and schedule that govern most terminal buildings.

  I adjusted the jacket across my shoulder to cover my weapons as much as possible and followed Trepp into the trees. It wasn’t quick enough to beat the gaze of two security guards standing under a palm nearby, or that of a little girl scuffing her toes along the side of the aisle toward us. Trep
p made a sign to the security as they stiffened, and they fell back into the previous relaxed postures with nods. Clearly, we were expected. The little girl wasn’t so easily bought; she stared up at me with wide eyes until I made a pistol out of my fingers and shot her with noisy sound effects. Then she showed her teeth in a huge grin and hid behind the nearest bench. I heard her shooting me in the back all the way along the aisle.

  Outside again, Trepp steered me past a mob of taxis to where an anonymous black cruiser was idling in a no-waiting zone. We climbed into air-conditioned cool and pale-gray automold seating.

  “Ten minutes,” she promised, as we rose into the air. “What did you think of the microclimate?”

  “Very nice.”

  “Got them all over the airport. Weekends, people come out from the center to spend the day here. Weird, huh?”

  I grunted and watched the window as we banked over the whorled settlement patterns of a major city. Further out, a dusty-looking plain stretched to the horizon and the almost painful blue of the sky. To the left, I could make out the rise of mountains.

  Trepp seemed to pick up on my disinclination to talk, and she busied herself with a phone jack that she plugged in behind the ear with the ironic pendant. Another internal chip. Her eyes closed as she began the call, and I was left with the peculiar feeling of aloneness that you get when someone’s using one of those things.

  Alone was fine with me.

  The truth was that I’d been a poor traveling companion for Trepp for most of the journey. In the cabin of the subship I’d been steadfastly withdrawn despite Trepp’s obvious interest in my background. Finally she gave up trying to extract anecdotes about Harlan’s World and the corps and tried instead to teach me a couple of card games she knew. Impelled by some ghost of cultural politeness, I reciprocated, but two isn’t an ideal number for cards and neither of our hearts were in it. We landed in Europe in silence, each flipping through our own selection from the jet’s media stack. Despite Trepp’s apparent lack of concern on the subject, I was having a hard time forgetting the circumstances of our last trip together.