Crashing Heaven Page 15

  ‘You must have Pantheon behind you.’ They said it both together. It felt like a mantra. Jack sipped his coffee. It had cooled to lukewarm.

  ‘And we definitely can’t go straight to her now?’ he said.

  ‘No. Even back then she wasn’t easy to track. She had a bot-layer covering her basic weave functions when she wasn’t herself. It was a very good one. I only found it when I ran a custom data density check on her. All the basic public stuff went on – the bots pretended to follow set daily routines – but there was nothing happening behind it. Half the time, she was a fiction. And then she just disappeared. A few months after Devlin was killed. There’s no record of her death. She’s an invisible.’

  ‘Do InSec even have anything like that?’

  ‘We don’t need it. And frankly, even if we wanted to pull something like that off, it would be beyond our capabilities. Not to mention every kind of illegal. Data faking like that will have already severely compromised Yamata’s fetch potential. Her life’s lost to the Coffin Drives.’

  ‘Like Penderville’s and Devlin’s.’

  Corazon laughed again. ‘And all the other people they’ve silenced,’ she said. ‘You know, it’s quite liberating? Realising that at least one of the Pantheon just doesn’t care. Maybe they all don’t. They could all be lying to us. Perhaps we don’t owe any of them anything after all.’

  ‘I certainly don’t think we do,’ said Jack. ‘But that’s a dangerous thing to understand.’

  ‘I suppose it is.’

  ‘We shouldn’t have come here. It’s too public. You should have just arrested me. We could have talked in a holding cell.’

  ‘No. Our conversation would have been monitored. Lestak would have queried your arrest. Anyone could have seen that you were in the building because of me. All this has been going on for a long time. I don’t know who’s involved with it. I couldn’t risk alerting them.’

  ‘But they’ll have picked up your searches …’

  ‘Out into the weave from behind the InSec firewall. I randomised my wp address. They’ll know it’s InSec, but nothing else.’

  ‘Unless they see you with me, here.’

  ‘I’ve been running an anonymiser all the way in. I just look like another shopper – and the bandwidth load of all the promotional sprites here will confuse any surveillance even more. It’s even tough for puppets to handle. So I suspect Fist will have gone rather quiet.’

  ‘He has.’ A distant [fuck you] echoed through Jack’s mind. He laughed, then wondered briefly about living out the rest of his life in shopping malls. ‘Anyway, all this is very impressive,’ he continued. ‘You know your stuff. Where did you find that custom data density check?’

  ‘Wrote it myself.’

  ‘Very sharp for an East acolyte.’

  ‘We’re not all weathergirls and ad candy.’ Corazon smiled sadly. ‘Maybe she was right about me, at that.’

  ‘What next?’

  ‘I’ve been on the offensive. Quietly and discreetly. I wrote a passive app to track Nihal’s data flows. See if he was still around. And I’ve found him.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘He moves a lot. And he’s well protected, so I can’t be too precise. But he seems to be based somewhere in Access. He’s a bit lazy about his travel flags, I’ve got him passing through the station there regularly.’

  ‘I’m going to go after him.’

  ‘No, Jack. You’ve got to let me keep digging. We need to know more about him.’

  ‘And then what? You can’t even talk to Lestak about it. I’ve made my own plans. Let me follow them through.’

  ‘I want to help.’

  ‘You’ve helped already. It’s safer if you let me handle this. I’ll let you know how it goes.’

  ‘I’ll set you up as a contact,’ she said. And then, ‘Done.’ Jack imagined a new statue growing in his weavespace.

  ‘We’re almost finished now,’ she said. ‘There’s just one thing that’s been puzzling me. Why didn’t they kill you, back when it was all beginning?’

  Jack spread his hands flat on the table, fanned his fingers out and pressed them against the cool plastic table top. ‘Grey always said he did the best he could for me. Maybe he did.’

  ‘It’s so hard to tell what the truth is,’ sighed Corazon. ‘The Pantheon lying to us and manipulating us, for their benefit, not ours. That just makes us pawns, doesn’t it?’ Her words cut into Jack’s conscience. He thought of Harry and Andrea. Corazon saw him wince. ‘Is there anything else you want to tell me, Jack?’

  He paused for just long enough to convince himself that his answer would seem honest and told her: ‘No.’

  ‘I’ll be on my way then.’ She looked around. ‘I’m going to have to spend a little time in a quiet room, after all this.’ They said their goodbyes, then Corazon stood up, paid the bill with a wave and slipped out of the café. Jack waited for ten minutes or so more before leaving, watching tides of silent shoppers roll by.

  On the train back home, Fist emerged.

  [ I hated it in there. Don’t let’s go back.]

  [ We might have to.]

  [ I was wrong about that bitch. She’s dangerous. I hope you’re not going to see her again. We should block her calls.]

  [She’s on our side. If she tries to get in touch, it’s priority.]

  [She’s one of us? Is that why you didn’t tell her about Harry and Andrea? You’re just using her. You’re no better than Grey.]

  [ I’m just trying to keep them safe.]

  [ You’re fucking things up, Jack.] Fist’s high sharp voice held a soft new menace. [ I don’t care how safe we’re meant to be, going to her is an escalation. My property is going to get damaged.]

  [ It’s not yours yet, Fist. Until then, I’ll do what I want with it.]

  [Oh, we’ll see about that.]

  Chapter 20

  ‘What the fuck do you think you’re playing at, Jack? I told you, don’t go to InSec,’ said Harry, rage shaking his voice.

  ‘She came to me. And we can trust her.’

  ‘Christ, Jack, what would you know?’ He thrust a finger in Jack’s face. ‘You’re just an amateur.’ He stabbed it towards him. Jack was careful not to flinch. ‘A Homelands numbers boy.’ He jabbed again. Jack thought of pistols. ‘It’s my case, we run it how I say.’

  ‘It’s not your case,’ said Jack, quietly. ‘It’s our case. And I haven’t been an amateur for a long time.’ He refused to let any emotion enter his voice. ‘I fought a war. I spent five years in prison. I know who to trust. I learned the hard way.’

  Jack had also learned that overt, theatrical anger like Harry’s was often more impressive display than actual threat. The truly dangerous never blustered or gave warnings. They just struck, hard and fast.

  ‘You’ve learned a lot, Jack, I’ll give you that. But you’re still no copper.’ Harry grumbled some more, but the worst of the storm had blown itself out. ‘Damage is done now,’ he said, in the end. ‘We might as well use what she’s found. I’ll go see what I can get from Access station. Won’t be long.’

  Andrea wasn’t around. The house was silent. Jack went upstairs and looked into empty bedrooms. Her aunt’s clothes were vacuum-packed in plastic, to protect them while she was gone. Jack made himself a cup of tea, carefully remembering where the kettle and mug had been so he could replace both in exactly the same place. Then he went back into the living room and waited. After an hour or so, Harry reappeared with several security camera images.

  ‘That’s Nihal. Easy once Corazon showed us where to look. He’s usually there at about half eight in the morning.’

  ‘How did you get these, Harry? You can’t have clearance.’

  ‘The way I always get information. I went and talked to the camera nests. I found out what they wanted, gave it to them and then they helped me out.’

  Jack arrived at Access station early the next day. Clustered hordes of rush-hour travellers pushed and shoved around him, flowing relentlessly into
train after train. The commuter noise broke over Jack in waves: the rumble of a thousand footsteps, the swish and rustle of a crowd’s worth of clothing, the harried whispers of people throwing words into the weave, the muttering of on-platform conversations. Every couple of minutes another train would pull in, ready to take passengers along the mainline, through the Wart and into Docklands. The surge towards each one pulled Jack across the platform. Worried that he might be pulled on to a train, he found a quieter spot at the end of the platform. Even there the crowds were packed tight.

  Fist manifested above their heads, alternately drifting away to laugh at ‘the lumpen proletariat’ or floating back to Jack to complain. [ This is a dangerous waste of time.] There was a light breeze blowing across the platform. Fist pretended that it had caught him, and drifted with it. It pulled him away from Jack. [ Waste of time, waste of time, waste of time,] he chanted as he went. Jack ignored him, scanning the crowd for Nihal. The skinner’s doughy, nondescript face was topped with thin strands of combed-over hair, and sat on a pudgy little body. In all the pictures, he wore a slightly battered, light grey suit, without any sigils.

  ‘That should make him easier to spot,’ said Harry.

  ‘It’s a bit of an affectation, isn’t it?’

  ‘He games the weave professionally. He knows how worthless it all is.’

  As eight thirty approached, the crowds started to thin out. The platform was still crowded, but the commuters didn’t have to struggle so hard to board each train. Two station workers appeared with a ladder. One of them climbed up to a camera nest, pulled out a spanner, and started tinkering with the cameras, while the other held her steady. ‘Tell them five minutes,’ she shouted down, ‘Rose willing.’ Her colleague shrugged. Jack looked for Fist. The puppet had been running through the crowd, occasionally shouting with frustration as his cageware stopped him from touching people. Now, he’d vanished.

  Then, Jack caught sight of Nihal. He spotted the battered grey suit first, then the round face. The skinner was a little sweaty, a little out of breath – an apparently insignificant man, running to make up time, heading for an office where someone would grumble about him being late again.

  Watching him take up his position on the platform, Jack marvelled at the acuity of his disguise. One of the most powerful technical adepts in Docklands, someone capable of weave manipulation feats that maybe only a dozen others across the whole system could duplicate, was carefully defining himself as a nobody. His skills, Jack realised, weren’t just technical. They were rooted in a deep understanding of how people choose to present themselves, of what’s read into that presentation.

  Then Fist’s voice hissed in Jack’s ear: [ The cameras are out. I don’t like it.]

  [ You’re being paranoid. I’m going to talk to him.] Jack pushed through the crowd towards his target. He and Harry had carefully considered how best to greet the Skinner. ‘Shake him up a bit, but not too much,’ Harry had said. ‘Let him know that we’re on to him, that we’re looking for information, but that if he gives it to us he’ll be OK.’ Jack closed in on his target. ‘If he acts nervous, mention my name. He used to work for me, back in the day.’ Jack was almost on Nihal, thrilled with the thought that his investigation might at last be about to take a firm, unambiguous step forwards.

  And then two small hands covered his eyes and a thin voice shouted in his ear.

  [ I’m not letting you do this!]

  [ What are you playing at, Fist?]

  [ This stops now.]

  [Let go!]

  Distracted, Jack stumbled and nearly fell, knocking into someone as he did so. There was a yelp of surprise. Someone swore, someone else half-whispered ‘Fucking sweathead,’ and Jack felt another commuter pushing hard against his back. He collapsed to his knees, reaching up and over his head to pull at Fist, too disorientated by the unexpectedness of his attack to banish him. ‘You’re not going to screw this up,’ he yelled, forgetting to talk in his mind only, and then he’d pulled Fist away from his eyes.

  Unreal fingers left imagined scratches in his face. The subdermal processors that allowed him to interact with Fist’s virtual presence mimicked sharp pain. ‘You little shit!’ he shouted, throwing Fist down on to the platform and muffling his screaming mouth with a hand. The puppet went limp and Jack looked up. A small circle of space had opened up around him. Commuters looked away, weaveselves already programmed to block him out completely. Only Nihal was staring him, an expression of shocked recognition on his face. He took one step back, then another, as Jack pulled Fist back into his mind and stood up. The puppet screamed abuse from the depths of his head.

  ‘You’re not a sweathead,’ stuttered Nihal. ‘You’re a puppeteer.’

  ‘That’s right. And I’ve come to talk to you.’

  A small circle of space opened up around Nihal, as other people’s personal weavesystems recognised that he was interacting with an invisible and shut his presence out too. He took another step back.

  ‘They warned me you might come.’

  Jack had imagined that he would carefully manage the meeting, but that was impossible now. ‘We just need some information.’

  ‘You’re not onweave and your puppet’s caged. There’s no way you could have found me on your own. Someone sent you. Who?’ Panic fluttered through Nihal’s voice. Jack was impressed that he’d deduced Fist’s presence so quickly. He needed to calm him. ‘I’m a friend of Harry Devlin’s.’

  He’d expected puzzlement, perhaps surprise, but not naked fear. Nihal stifled something that could have been a scream. His face refreshed to white. He turned and fled through the crowd, bouncing commuters out of his way as he cannoned through them. ‘No, wait,’ shouted Jack, but it was too late. Nihal was halfway down the platform, heading for the exit. Jack took off after him. Nihal’s flight had opened a path between the commuters. Weaveware anticipated Jack’s rush through it and kept it open, ensuring that nobody would be run into a second time. There was the distant whine of an InSec flyer. Automatically summoned, it would be here in moments.

  ‘Fuck,’ said Jack again.

  [DON’T GO AFTER HIM, YOU STUPID BASTARD!]

  Jack skidded to the top of the exit stairway as Nihal reached the bottom, the tails of his jacket flying up around him as he leapt down the last of the stairs. He looked back, panting with exertion, sweat glossing his forehead, and swore. He swore again as he saw that the exit gates had switched to emergency lock mode, then disappeared through an arch opposite them. Jack took the stairs two, three at a time before skidding through the archway himself. He was on another platform. This one was almost empty.

  [ YOU’LL JUST GET US LOCKED UP! GET OUT OF HERE!] yelled Fist. Then, a little quieter: [ InSec’ll be in here, Nihal’ll be out of here, and you’ll look like a fucking idiot.]

  [Shut the fuck up.]

  Dim yellow light illuminated Nihal running towards the far end of the platform. There were only a few people on it. All seemed oblivious to the two men. ‘I just need to talk!’ Jack shouted. Nihal reached a door in the wall. He tugged on it, but it didn’t open. Beyond him was the end of the platform. Past a low barrier, steps ran down into the darkness. The void began to fill with the rumble of an approaching train. Nihal stepped back from the door, looking uncertainly at Jack then round at the steps. The lights of the oncoming train rattled closer beyond them.

  ‘I only want some information,’ Jack called out, now walking towards Nihal. He had his arms out and his palms open, to show that he was unarmed. Fist grabbed the soft parts of his mind and pain raged through them. Jack doubled over, clutching his head and swearing.

  ‘You can’t even control your puppet. You don’t know what it’s capable of.’

  Jack shut Fist down. He’d pay later in exhaustion, but for now he was too angry to care. [ I don’t want any damaged goods,] shouted Fist’s disappearing voice.

  ‘He can’t hurt anyone,’ said Jack.

  ‘I can smell Pantheon on you, Puppeteer. And something worse th
an that, if you’re here on behalf of Devlin.’

  ‘I’m here for myself, nobody else.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  The approaching train roared in the darkness. There was no point trying to speak. Nihal turned away from Jack, ready – once the train had reached the platform and halted – to run for the stairs and the safety of the tunnel. As he did so the door in the wall opened. Nihal started towards it. A short, middle-aged woman emerged. She was wearing off-green combat trousers and a red jacket, and she had dyed her hair blue. At this distance, in this light, it was difficult to see her skin’s blue tint, but Jack knew it would be there. It was the woman who had forced herself into his interview at Customs House.

  She raised her hand and pointed something at Nihal. There was a crack loud enough to be heard over the train’s howl. Then the skinner was staggering backwards, a small dark hole shining fresh in his forehead, and tumbling over the edge of the platform. Brakes howled, but the train could not stop. It batted Nihal’s body forward a little way before the corpse rolled over and disappeared beneath its silver wheels. They gleamed red. Emergency brakes squealed the train to a halt. There was silence.

  ‘I turned the station surveillance off,’ she shouted. ‘Run down the tunnel, they won’t know you were here. So much simpler if I could just kill you too!’ Then, she vanished back through the door. A warning chimed and the train’s doors opened. A few people stepped out and started walking for the exit. The travellers waiting on the platform joined them. They looked serene, untouched by the death that had unfolded in front of them. Jack realised that their weaveware would have blocked the entire scene out. It would now be calmly asking them to move out of the station. There would be apologies for the delay, but no explanation of its cause.

  A roaring noise filled the platform, echoing in from the entrance. It was the InSec flyer landing outside the station. Jack had no desire to be arrested. He ran towards the door that the assassin had emerged from. It was firmly locked. The end of the platform was only a few metres away. Jack leapt the barrier and ran down the steps into the darkness of the tunnel.