City of Golden Shadow (86 page)

"You're Lolo?"

"Maybe," the lizard said. The voice was altered with all kinds of irritating noise, hums and scrapes and trendy distortion. "Why you beeped Wicked Tribe?"

Orlando's heart quickened. He hadn't expected to hear anything back on his query so soon. "Are you one of them?" He didn't remember a Lolo, but there had been quite a few monkeys.

The lizard stared at him balefully. "Flyin' now," it said.

"Wait! Don't go. I met the Wicked Tribe in TreeHouse. I looked like this." He flashed an image of his Thargor sim across. "If you weren't there, you can ask the rest of them. Ask. . . ." He racked his brain, struggling to remember. "Ask . . . Zunni! Yeah. And I think there was someone named Casper, too."

"Kaspar?" The lizard tilted his head. "Kasper, he zizz near me. Zunni, chop it, she far, far crash. But still no gimme-why you beep Wickedness?"

It was hard to tell whether English was Lolo's second language or the reptile-wearing Tribesperson was simply so sunk in kidspeak as to be almost unintelligible, even to Orlando. He guessed it might be some of both, and guessed also that Lolo was younger than it wanted people to think. "Look, I need to talk to the Wicked Tribe. I'm involved in a special operation and I need their help."

"Help? Cred-time, maybe? Candy! Whassa charge?"

"It's a secret, I told you. I can only talk about it at a meeting of the Wicked Tribe, with everyone sworn to secrecy."

Lolo considered this. "You funny-funny man?" it asked at last. "Baby-bouncer? Skinstim? Sinsim?"

"No, no. It's a secret mission. You understand that? Very important. Very secret."

The tiny eyes got even tinier as Lolo thought some more, " 'Zoon. 'L'askem. Flyin' now." The contact was ended.

Yeah. Dzang. That's something gone right, for once. He summoned Beezle, "You said you found a phone number for Fredericks?"

"Only one that makes sense. These government people, they don't want anyone finding out where they live, ya know. They buy those data-eaters, send 'em out to chew up anything tagged to their names that's floatin' around the net."

"So how did you find it?"

"Well, I'm not sure I did. But I think it's right-minor child named 'Sam,' couple other hits as well. Thing about data-eaters, they leave holes, and sometimes the holes tell you as much as the things that used to be there."

Orlando laughed. "You're pretty smart for an imaginary friend."

"I'm good gear, boss."

"Call it for me."

The number beeped several times, then the house system on the other end, having decided that Orlando's account number didn't fit the first-level profile for a nuisance call, passed him through to the message center. Orlando indicated his desire to talk with a living human being.

"Hello?" It was a woman's voice, tinged with a slight Southern accent.

"Hello, is this the Fredericks residence?"

"Yes, it is. Can I help you?"

"I'd like to speak to Sam, please,"

"Oh, Sam's not here right now. Who's calling?"

"Orlando Gardiner. I'm a friend."

"I haven't met you, have I? Or at least your name isn't familiar, but then. . . ." The woman paused; for a moment she went away. "Sorry, it's a bit confusing here," she said when she came back. "The maid has just dropped something. What did you say your name was-Rolando? I'll tell Sam you called when she gets back from soccer."

"Chizz-I mean, thanks. . . ." It took an instant to register. ". . . She? Just a second, Ma'am, I think. . . ." But the woman had clicked off.

"Beezle, was that the only number you had that matched? Because that's not the one."

"Sorry, boss, go ahead and kick me. Closest to fitting the profile. I'll try again, but I can't promise anything."

Two hours later, Orlando started up from a half-sleep. The lights in his room were on dim, his IV throwing a gallows-shadow onto the wall beside him. He turned down the Medea's Kids record that was playing softly on his auditory shunt. A troubling thought had lodged itself in his mind and he could not make it go away.

"Beezle. Get me that number again."

He made his way back through the screening system. After a short delay, the same woman's voice came on.

"This is the person who called before. Is Sam back yet?"

"Oh, yes. I forgot to tell her you called. I'll just see."

There was another wait, but this one seemed painfully long, because Orlando didn't know what he was waiting for.

"Yes?"

Just from that one word, he knew. Because it wasn't processed to sound masculine, it was higher than he was used to, but he knew that voice.

"Fredericks?"

The silence was complete. Orlando waited it out.

"Gardiner? Is that you?"

Orlando felt something like rage, but it was an emotion as confusing as it was painful. "You bastard," he said at last. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I'm sorry." Fredericks' new voice was faint. "But it's not like you think. . . ."

"What's to think? I thought you were my friend. I thought you were my male friend. Was it funny, listening to me talk about girls? letting me make a total scanbox out of myself?" He suddenly remembered one now cringeworthy occasion where he had talked about how he would put together his ideal female from the different body parts of famous net stars. "I . . . I just. . . ." He was suddenly unable to say more.

"But it's not like you think. Not exactly. I mean, it wasn't supposed to. . . ." Fredericks didn't say anything for a moment. When the familiar-but-unfamiliar girl's voice spoke again, it was flat and sorrowful. "How did you get this number?"

"Tracked it down. I was looking for you because I was worried about you, Fredericks. Or should I call you Samantha?" He put as much scorn into it as he could summon.

"It's . . . it's Salome, actually. 'Sam' was a joke of my dad's when I was little. But. . . ."

"Why didn't you tell me? I mean, it's one thing when you're just messing around on the net, but we were friends, man!" He laughed bitterly. "Man."

"That was it! See, by the time we were friends, I didn't know how to just tell you. I was afraid you wouldn't want to string with me any more."

"That's your excuse?"

Fredericks sounded on the verge of tears. "I . . . I didn't know what to do."

"Fine." Orlando felt as though he had left his body, like he was just a cloud of anger floating free. "Fine. I guess you're not dead or anything. That's what I called to find out in the first place."

"Orlando!"

But this time he was the one who hung up.

They're out there, so close you can almost smell them.

No, you can smell them, in a way. The suits pick up all manner of subtle clues, extending the human sensory range so that you can feel nearly a score of them moving toward you through the fog just the way a mastiff can scent a cat walking on the back fence.

You look around, but Olekov and Pun-yi still haven't returned. They picked a bad moment to check the signaling equipment at the landing site. Of course, there aren't many good moments on this hellhole of a planet.

Something moves out on the perimeter. You focus the filter-lenses in your helmet; it's not a human silhouette. Your hand is already extended, your gauntlet beam primed, and it takes only a flick of thought to send a horizontal thread of fire razoring toward the intruder. The thing is fast, though-horribly fast. The laser tears another piece off the wreckage of the first expedition ship, but the thing that had crouched in front of it is gone, vanished back into the mist like a bad dream.

Your suit sensors suddenly blast into alarm mode. Behind you-half-a-dozen loping shapes. Idiot! You curse yourself for being distracted, even as you turn and throw out a coruscating tangle of fire. The oldest trick in the book! These things hunt in packs, after all. For all their resemblance to earth crustaceans, the creatures are terrifyingly smart.

Two of the creatures go down, but one of them gets back up and drags itself to shelter on one fewer-jointed leg than usual. Illuminated by the residual fires from your assault, it darts a look at you as it goes, and you imagine you can see an active malice in the strange wet eyes. . . .

Malicious giant bugs! Orlando's finer sentiments went into revolt. This was the last time he'd ever trust a review from the bartender at The Living End. This kind of crap was years out of date!

Still, he'd paid for it-or rather his parents were going to when the monthly net bill was deducted. He might as well see if it got better. So far, it was a pretty standard-grade shoot-em-up, with nothing that appealed to his own fairly particular interests. . . .

There's a fireworks-burst of light along the perimeter. Your heart leaps-that's a human weapon. Olekov and Pun-yi! You rake a distant section of the perimeter to provide cover for your comrades, but also to let them know where you are. Another burst of fire, then a dark figure breaks into the clearing and sprints toward you, pursued by three shambling, hopping shapes. You don't have a very good angle, but you manage to knock one of them down. The pursued figure flings itself forward and rolls over the edge of the trench, leaving you an unencumbered shot at the things following it. You widen the angle, sacrificing killpower for coverage; they are caught, jigging helplessly in the beam as the air around them superheats. You keep it on them for almost a minute, despite the drain of battery power, until they burst into a swirl of carbon particles and are carried away on the wind. There is something about these creatures that makes you want to kill them deader than dead.

Something like what? Do they try to sell you memberships to religious nodes? How bad could they be?

Orlando was having trouble keeping his mind on the simulation. He kept thinking of Fredericks-no, he realized, not about Fredericks so much as the gap where Fredericks used to be. He had thought once that it was strange to have a friend you'll never met. Now it was even stranger, losing a friend you'd never really had.

Olekov crawls toward you down the length of the trend. Her right arm is mostly gone; there is a raw-looking blister of heavy plastic just above her elbow where the suit has sealed off at the wound site. Through the viewplate, Olekov's face'd shockingly white. You cannot help remembering that planetfal on Dekkamer One. That had been a good time, you and Olekov and ten days' leave.

The memory rises up before you, Olekov as she emerged from a mountain lake, dripping, naked, her pale breasts like snowdrifts. You made love for hours with only the trees as witnesses, urging each other on, knowing that your time was short, that there might never be a day like this again. . . .

"Pun-yi . . . they got him," she moans. The terror in her voice snaps you back to the present. The atmosphere distortion is so great that even this close, you can barely hear her voice for the noise on the channel. "Horrible. . . !"

Dekkamer One is light-years away, forever lost. There is no time to help her, or even to humor her. "Can you shoot? Do you have any charge left in your gauntlet?"

"They took him!" she screams, furious at your seeming indifference. There is something irreparably broken in her voice. "They captured him-they've taken him down into their nest They were . . . they were putting something through his . . . his eyes . . . as they dragged him away. . . ."

You shudder. At the end, you'll save the last charge of the gauntlet for yourself. You've heard rumors of what these creatures do to their prey. You will not allow that to happen to you.

Olekov has slumped to the ground, her shivers rapidly becoming convulsive. Blood is dripping back from her injured arm into her helmet-the seals are not working properly. You pause, unsure of what to do, then your suit sensors begin to shrill again. You look up to see a dozen many-jointed shapes, each the size of a small horse, skittering toward you across the smoking, debris-strewn planetary surface. Olekov's sobbing has become a dying person's hitch and wheeze. . . .

"Boss! Hey, boss! Let those poor imitations alone. I gotta talk to you."

"Damn it, Beezle, I hate it when you do that. It was just starting to get good." And God knew, distraction had been hard enough to come by during the last week. He looked round at his 'cot with irritation. Even without the trophies it still looked pretty dismal. The decor definitely needed to be changed.

"Sorry, but you told me you wanted to know if you had a contact from that Wicked Tribe group."

"They're on the line?"

"No. But they just sent you a message. You want to see?"

Orlando suppressed his irritation. "Yes, damn it. Play it."

A congregation of yellow squiggles appeared in the middle of the room. Orlando frowned and brought up the magnification. At the point where he could see the figures clearly, they had very poor resolution; either way, squinting at the fuzzy forms made his eyes hurt.

The monkeys hovered in a small orbital cloud. As one of them spoke, the others went on smacking each other and flying in tight circles. "Wicked Tribe . . . will meet you," said the foreground simian, melodramatic presentation belied by the pushing and shoving in the background. The spokesmonkey wore the same cartoonish grin as all the others, and Orlando could not tell whether the voice was one he'd heard before or not."Wicked Tribe will meet you in Special Secret Tribe Club Bunker in TreeHouse." A time and node address flashed up, full of childish misprintings. The message ended.

Orlando frowned. "Send a return message, Beezle. Tell them I can't get into TreeHouse, so they either have to get me in or else meet me here in the Inner District."

"Got it, boss."

Orlando sat himself in midair and looked at the MBC window. The little digging-drones were still hard at work, pursuing their goals with mindless application. Orlando felt strange. He should have been excited, or at least satisfied: he had opened up a connection back into TreeHouse. But instead he felt depressed.

They're little kids, he thought. Just micros. And I'm going to trick them into doing . . . what? Breaking the law? Helping me hack into something? And what if I'm right, and there are big-time people involved in this? Then what am I getting them into? And for what?