Edge (10 page)

    Nothing.

    "I'm Sophie Cumberland's father."

    There was a reply that sounded like "Ugh", which was enough. He turned the handle.

    Inside, on the wall behind the boy's chair was a poster of Fireman Carlsen in half armour, blade in hand. A white blanket covered the boy's lap. These were the things Josh noticed first, before he processed the too-pale, almost blue complexion, the bruise-purple hollowness of the eyes.

    "Hi, Marek."

    It took a second, but then Marek nodded, then he pushed PAUSE on the unfolded control pad attached to his phone, freezing the wallscreen display.

    "What are you watching?"

    "
Firefly
," he said.

    "The old Joss Whedon thing, or the remake?"

    "Huh? It's just out."

    "The remake. Any good?"

    "Still on the first chapter. There's no way out of Serenity Valley, no third-level choice till later."

    "Uh, right."

    When he'd been Marek's age, games, novels and movies had been separate things. Phone accounts had not been bank accounts; and phones were not computers.

    Marek's gaze returned to the stilled image on screen.

    
This is stupid.

    They had nothing to say to each other. He should leave the poor kid alone, let him immerse himself in imagination, forget the reality of what occurred. Up on the wall, the flat muscularity of Fireman Carlsen – motto:
Sh*t hot with a blade
– was a mockery. It was the end-of-fight shot from the rematch against Slicer Stross, the Fireman's comeback from defeat, a classic fight. Why had no one taken the poster down?

    "I just wanted to say I'm sorry about… everything."

    "Sure." Marek's lower lip seemed to be swelling.

    "Look, I can–"

    Then Marek was sobbing. "He sliced me." He pulled the white blanket aside, pulled up his pyjama shirt, revealing white plastic, an abdominal shell. "They were slipping out, my things, my insides. They're soft and, and… wet."

    "Yes."

    "You don't know. Nobody–"

    Josh's voice dropped. "I know."

    Marek stopped. His eyes went wide as Josh touched the plastic with one finger.

    "This is bad," Josh went on. "Real bad, and you can get through it. You ever heard of Ironman?"

    With a sniff: "The remake?"

    That was promising, the slyness of his humour.

    "I mean the event. Run, bike, swim. You ever seen it on screen?"

    "I guess."

    "Friend of mine competes, fittest man I know. Had one of these" – Josh tapped the plastic – "for nearly two years."

    "He's… all right?"

    "Oh, yeah." Apart from rippling scars, the hollow curvature of skin and missing muscle. "Super, super fit."

    "Oh."

    Josh stood up. For some reason, the movement brought back his memory of the movie – game, whatever – that Marek was watching, and the military disaster it began with.

    "You know, if the events at the start hadn't happened, there'd have been no story. They survived the hard times, got through them."

    "Oh."

    "Take it easy, my friend."

    He let himself out of the room and went downstairs, not quite smiling, but aware that he might have done some good.

    
Sophie. Oh, Jesus, Sophie.
Some good, but not enough.

    Tears like acid came from nowhere.

Finally, Irina showed them out, her smile sad but her eyes bright; and she watched them until they reached the car, then closed the door. Josh reached for the door handle, but Kath stood unmoving. Then tipped her head back toward the house.

    "Take a look at this."

    She walked back to the wheelie bin out front, and pointed to one of the recycling boxes behind it. Then she raised the lid.

    Vodka bottles filled the box.

    Josh said, "He's having a hard time of it."

    "Not Carl. He doesn't drink."

    "But–"

    The brightness in Irina's eyes. The near-permanent sad smile.

    "Shit."

    "I wish I could help, but I don't know how. Eileen would kill me if I tried."

    As headmistress, Eileen O'Donoghue would be worried about legal implications.

    "I don't know how, either."

    Kath opened the car door. "Maybe you need someone to look after you."

    
This feels wrong.
"You go on. I'm all right."

    "What do you mean?"

    "I'll walk back. Be glad of the exercise."

    "It must be five kilometres."

    "Right."

    He turned away and began walking. After a minute, he heard Kath's car hum into life, then roll past him. She continued to the road's end, then sped up, and was gone from sight.

    
Just trying to help.

    Maybe. Or maybe she was a vulnerable woman looking for a vulnerable man to connect with, which made sense only if the Cumberland marriage was over, which half of him couldn't accept while the other half took it as read.

    Both halves felt awful.

• • •

He was in his own car when a call came through. The image was of Haresh Riley, known to everyone in the Regiment as Raghead Mick and seeming not to mind. Josh pressed to accept.

    "Did Tony tell you to call me?"

    "Tony who?"

    "Shit."

    "Oh yeah, Tony Shit. He did ring, come to think of it. Said you were a miserable fucker who wasn't going to see his mates unless they called him first."

    Josh had no idea what to say.

    "So the RV is the Bunch of Grapes, seventeen hundred precisely. Be there, or we'll have your nuts."

    "You'll eat all the peanuts in the pub?"

    "See? You're better already. Out."

    The phone blanked out.

    "Tony, Tony, Tony."

    Silly bastard, trying to be helpful. And then there was Kath Gleason, and her
Maybe you need someone to look
after you.
They were wrong, all of them; for the person who needed help was Sophie, but no one was doing anything, achieving anything, while she was trapped in a hell whose entranceway read Persistent Vegetative State, the abandonment of hope, a sentence no one seemed capable of commuting.

    Bad, bad, bad.

 

    He was on time, because if you agree to a rendezvous you keep it. With a glass-tipping signal to Haresh, he established that they had drinks already, and there was a drink waiting for him. It would be Diet Coke, and he could trust them not to spike it without telling him. Threading his way among the crowd, he checked the environment – harmless, cheerful, and noisy – and the five guys: Haresh, Kev, Vinnie, and Del, plus a wideshouldered man he didn't know.

    Haresh pointed: "Josh Cumberland, Matt Klugmann. Now drink."

    "Hey," said Josh.

    "Likewise." Matt's accent was American Southwest. He raised his beer. "Bottoms up, old chap."

    "Jesus, don't let these buggers teach you how we speak."

    "You mean, they might be less than truthful? Heaven forfend."

    "Hey," said someone nearby. "Who are these fuckers?"

    On the wallscreen, the picture changed to a news report. Two overweight men in suits were sitting at the bar counter, and one of them had the screen's remote in hand. It didn't take massive awareness to notice the tensing body language around the room, or the scowls as
Knife Edge
was replaced by pictures of President Brand failing to return Premier Han Lei's bow at the Geneva Conference.

    "Asshole," muttered Matt.

    "The guy who changed the picture?" asked Del. "Or your duly elected president?"

    "Either one." Matt stared toward the screen, and a muscle at the side of his mouth jumped. "There."

    The image changed back to
Knife Edge.

    "Er, we like to be more discreet," said Haresh. "Ghosts in the night, remember?"

    "Shit, have I got cowflap on my boots again?"

    "When don't you, good buddy?" said Del. To Josh: "Epsilon Force, been here four months, poor bastard."

    The barman took the remote from the guy in the suit, shook it as though to demonstrate that it was broken, then put it below the counter. He made no attempt to change the image back.

    "So who'd you piss off," asked Josh, "to end up among this lot?"

    "Truth to tell, I can't rightly remember, there bein' so many."

    "See?" said Del. "Fits right in."

    "Too bad it's not a compliment," said Josh. "What have you been–?"

    "Hush," said Haresh. "They're going back to the House after training. Should be interesting."

    Everyone was looking at the screen, besides the businessmen finishing off their drinks, looking ready to leave.

    "Why interesting?" asked Josh.

    "Shit," said Del. "You missed the previous episode?"

    "Well, yeah."

    More important things to worry about.

    "Two of the lightweights, André and Lynwood, had a little contretemps."

    Matt mouthed the word:
contretemps.

    "Oh," said Josh. "OK."

    Haresh leaned forward. "What he means is, Lynwood pissed down André's leg, standing at the urinal. In the training centre."

    "And the cameras were there? Jesus."

    "They're both on Fireman Carlsen's team," said Del, "so they're not likely to have to fight each other until much later. If they make it that far."

    "Unless they go for it on their own time."

    "Right. Exactly."

    Knives and booze were banned from the Knife Edge House. But so were phones and wallscreens – only a few hardcopy fight mags allowed – which meant close confinement for sixteen semi-pro fighters, most from troubled childhoods or they wouldn't be there, although three fighters over the years had been PhDs, and a handful of pros in the Knifefight Challenge Federation held master's degrees.

    A grudge match with its extra excitement accounted for the leaning forward in seats, anticipation as the drinkers focused on the wallscreen. Under other circumstances, Josh would have resonated with the mood.

    "Come on, mate," said Haresh. "Let's check out the beer garden."

    "All right."

    On screen, two of the fighters, in the kitchen of the training house, were having at it with rolled-up hardcopy mags. Half of the regulars were laughing at the sight, but Del and Kev held still, along with several older men sitting quietly here and there. To some people, the use of improvised weapons to shatter a cheekbone or take out an eye was as basic as polymorphism and delegation in software design, or the inverse-power law of adaptive networks. Or perhaps Ghost Force thinking was a form of insanity, far removed from the thoughts of ordinary people.

    Josh followed Haresh out into the garden. There were plenty of seats free, in contrast to the crowded indoor lounge.

    "You remember Lofty getting us to read the
Go Rin
No Sho
?" Haresh put his beer down on a table.

    The
Go Rin No Sho
, or Book of Five Rings, was written by master strategist Miyamoto Musashi, the Japanese counterpart to Sun Tzu and von Clausewitz. Josh was never sure whether the three of them were geniuses or psychopaths. Musashi, unbeaten swordsman, stank with body odour, his skin scrofulous – after assassins tried to cut him down in the bath, he developed a phobia of bath-houses – and led an isolated, friendless life.

    "That thing Musashi wrote" – Haresh sat down, scanning the environment – "about mastering one discipline gives you mastery of all? But then Lofty said, no matter how many times he hit the punchbag, he still couldn't play the fucking piano, because of specificity in training."

    "And you said: Maybe you ought to take the gloves off, Lofty. Make it easier to hit the keys."

    "Right."

    "And Lofty made us do a hundred push-ups for laughing, as I recall."

    "Yeah. So, look." As Haresh sipped beer, he maintained a clear view of their surroundings. "Marriages are casualties of war. Always have been."

    "Except that I'm out of the life. Should've made things different."

    "Civvie street. I have no idea how to cope with that. Not sure I'd want to."

    "It's not so bad."

    "Backstabbing shits for co-workers" – Haresh scowled – "and no sense of camaraderie."

    "And no one trying to kill you."

    "Good point. Look, you know software and combat. I'm wondering," said Haresh, "if you need a job. Something you're good at, cause like Lofty said, training is specific."

    "I'm doing stuff for Tony."

    "He seemed to think you need a break. Something different from teaching corporates."

    "Like what?"

    "I notice you didn't say he was wrong."

    Josh rubbed his chin with his thumb, and stared up at the sky. It was empty of inspiration.

    "I got something," Haresh went on, "from our Epsilon Force pal in there."

    "You mean Captain Implant?"

    "Yeah. They don't travel commercial, not those guys."