Prodigal (25 page)

“It’s not that,” Lea said, turning to face her. “I don’t even know if it’s real. It’s just…”

After a moment, Novak prodded, “Is there something I can do for you, Lea?”

“How long would it take you to do a full workup on Avalon’s blood?”

Novak raised an eyebrow.

“Toward what end?”

“A comparative construct,” Lea said. “I want to know if Avalon injected herself with the same flash the others carried.”

“You have reason to believe she has?”

“Just a hunch.”

Novak studied her carefully, the way a psychologist might study a patient. Lea didn’t much care for it.

“Many times,” the GME ventured, “you can form a close connection with an adversary. Enemies get to know each other even better than friends. Given your history with Avalon, it wouldn’t at all surprise me if that was the case.”

Lea chewed the inside of her lip, irritated but trying not to show it.

“Is there a point to this, Didi?”

“The
point,
my dear, is that I believe you. Your instincts have always served you, whatever you might think. But you should also remember that no matter how well you understand your enemy, your enemy also understands
you
. Keep that in mind as you plot your next move.”

Novak then snapped off her rubber gloves and walked over to the quarantine hood. Lea stood aside to let her pass, and didn’t say a word as her GME slipped her hands into the manipulator controls that she used to handle the samples.

“May I assume this is top priority?” Novak asked.

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll have your results in forty-eight hours.” With a wink and a smile she added, “Twenty-four if you toss in a bottle of single-malt.”

Lea nodded, and left the room.

Walking the dim corridors outside, Lea took her time getting back to the stairwell. As she climbed up to the Operations level, she thought about what Novak had said—and wondered what the hell her next move would even be. With all her people doing their jobs, it seemed there was little she could do but wait—and waiting was the worst of all possible options. When her phone rang, Lea actually welcomed the intrusion. That changed as soon as she saw who it was.

“Please hold for Trevor Bostic,” a voice on the other end said.

Lea hated the way Bostic always had his assistant announce him. She swore under her breath, hoping that at least a few of the expletives found their way past his flunky and into the corporate counsel’s ear. She had been dreading this call since her return from Chernobyl but knew there was no way to avoid it.

“Lea!” Bostic greeted her with all the enthusiasm of an old friend—and none of the chill she expected after a failed mission.

“Hello, Trevor,” she managed, wondering what he was up to. “Sorry I haven’t called you before now. I meant to get around to it as soon as I got back—”

“Say no more. You’re a busy woman.”

Now Lea was
really
worried. Bostic wasn’t this cheerful unless he was about to drop the blade on someone.

“Thanks,” she replied, not knowing what else to say.

“No need to thank me, Lea. In fact, I’m the one who should be thanking
you.
”

“Any special reason?”

“I’d rather not explain it on the phone,” Bostic said, lowering his voice. “Any chance we could do this face-to-face? I’m in transit right now, but I’ll be free in a couple of hours.”

“Your office?”

“I was thinking my place.”

Lea felt unclean at the prospect but was too stunned to refuse.

“Yeah, sure,” she said. “Whatever you say.”

“Wonderful. My driver will swing by to pick you up.”

“Sounds good.”

“Oh—and Lea?”

“Yes, Trevor?”

“I have a little surprise for you—so don’t be late.”

The connection went dead.

Osaka was just the way Avalon remembered it, an experiment in Social Darwinism run amok. Infected with the smells and sounds of a postinformation society, a permanent haze spilled out of the alleyways like toxic ghosts under hemorrhaging streetlamps. Between the shadows and the orange sodium glow, Avalon cast herself out among the street species that packed every corner of the Ebisu-bashi district—a lone pillar trailing a long black coat, her footsteps clicking in sync with the savagespawn beat that seemed to pour from every open doorway. The wild heat of a thousand bodies assaulted her sensuit, but Avalon paid it little mind. Osaka
was
the subculture, the center of the Asian Sphere, and she knew its pulse the way she knew the species that inhabited it. They fed only on one another, colliding at random—particles in some chaotic flux.

Their passions were legion, as was their hunger, stoked by synthetic pheromones that charged the air with a perverse electricity. Moans and screams, vaguely human, aligned in phase with the music, building into a climax of narcotic energy that rippled through the crowd. Chemical sweat conducted that wavelength, a contact high that carried everyone toward the same agony and ecstasy. As she walked past the brothels and the nightclubs, Avalon studied their faces and gestures—filtering the pertinent data from all the ambient noise, searching for signs of any potential threat. All she found, however, was corruption and decadence: people trafficking themselves, darting in and out of the darkness, slaves to their own skin.

Avalon pushed against the tide of writhing bodies, making her way along the edge of the Dotombori Canal toward the old Kirin Plaza. The four main pillars of the building were majestic at a distance, the granite edifice jutting into the night under a dazzling constellation of artificial stars.

That illusion disintegrated as Avalon drew closer, a metamorphosis that more closely resembled the distorted reflection that fell across black water. The entire structure seemed on the verge of collapse, held together by generations of exterior rigging. A shell of its former self, the Kirin embodied all of Osaka after the
tokaijishin
—a quake so devastating that the Incorporated Territories abandoned the city like an acid memory. Since then, forty-five years of Zone Authority rule had resurrected the debris into this necropolis, a polluted memorial to the walking dead.

Avalon joined the steady flow of traffic that headed toward the Plaza, crossing the iron bridge that stretched across the canal. Hordes of street species obstructed the way, choking the main artery that cut through the district. The Kirin brooded over the whole scene, its cracked and shattered windows dripping blood-red neon. Virtual billboards appeared out of nowhere, pasting over the building’s wounds with lurid Crowley icons and promises of untold pleasures, while echoes of demonic laughter boomed from loudspeakers above the door. It was Dante’s own vision of hell, complete with a flood of volunteers begging to get in.

Avalon stayed back for a while, evaluating the meat that shuffled in and out of the Kirin. They were the usual mix of street species and tourists looking for sin, plus a few Tesla girls working the street trying to lure potential customers. Their porcelain skin glowed under the blacklights, conferring a satire of purity to their hypersexual poses. To the men who strayed near, the temptation was primal. They lolled into the Teslas’ teasing embrace, caressed by long, sharpened fingers and lustful tongues—until the teeth came out. Then blood would flow and the girls would drink, their canines injecting tecs to induce a state of euphoria. A Crowley pimp stood by to make sure things didn’t get out of hand, but the willing victims didn’t seem to care. They only wanted more, which the Teslas promised in sweet whispers as they ushered each man inside.

None of the faces looked familiar. Avalon did a scan for concealed weapons but didn’t find any of those either. The pimp at the door appeared to be the extent of the Kirin’s security, without so much as a surveillance camera to back him up. Avalon wasn’t surprised. The people she was supposed to meet here didn’t want to be photographed—especially with an enemy of the state. They had far more to lose than just their lives.

Satisfied she had seen enough, Avalon stepped off the curb and crossed Soemon-cho. A sweeper lumbered in behind her, stopping briefly to pick up the corpses that had rolled into the gutter, belching incinerator smoke before moving on. Avalon walked out of that sickly-sweet haze toward the entrance of the Kirin. Hisses of outrage arose from the patrons waiting in line, who swore at her in a dozen languages, but she ignored them. Like most species, they were wired up for talk but too stoned for action.

The Teslas, on the other hand, reacted to her presence the instant she arrived. Claws flexed, they contorted their bodies into defensive postures, their feline growls reverberating in unison. With backs against the wall, they inched toward the protection of their pimp. The crowd, itching for a fight just a second ago, fell into an uneasy quiet. Fear spread among them like a contagion, punctuated by the bass pounding against the walls of the Kirin.

Avalon made a straight line for the door. When the Crowley pimp realized the situation, he extracted the girls from his arms and blocked Avalon’s path. He turned to her with every intention of pushing her back, working himself into a froth of manufactured anger—but all that ended when he saw the apparition in front of him. His expression, once flush with testosterone, just as quickly drained to pale, his arms dropping flaccidly at his sides. The pentagram hanging from his neck swung back and forth while the pimp cleared his throat, taking his voice down an octave to reassert his bravado.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

Avalon cocked her head slightly. The pimp had a cosmetic physique, muscles bulging beneath oiled skin. Bone grafts put him half a meter over Avalon’s height, but in a teetering way, offsetting the shock value of the blasphemer tattoos that covered his shaved head. Obviously, the kind of man who knew how to handle his whores but not much else.

“You can get out of my way,” Avalon replied. “Or you can have me do it for you.”

The pimp’s eyes darted between Avalon and the crowd. He didn’t want to lose face in front of his customers, but he didn’t want to lose his life either.

“This is a holy place, sister,” he said, a latent pleading in his tone. “We’re not looking for any trouble.”

“You don’t know what trouble is.”

The Teslas slipped in behind him again, entwining themselves around his hulking torso. Their hands slithered down the ropy lengths of his arms and legs, fondling him out of sheer habit, but the pimp barely noticed them. He was too busy contemplating his chances.

“Your choice,” Avalon prodded.

For a moment, the pimp’s vitals spiked into high gear. His heartbeat and respiration raced under the influence of adrenaline and synthetic steroids, broadcasting his intent to Avalon’s sensors. She mapped out his every possible move, calculating seven different ways she could kill him before he drew his next breath; but then he blinked, breaking whatever courage he had gathered, and he backed down.

“Guns?” he asked.

“Don’t need one.”

The pimp nodded as he and the girls stepped aside.

“Whatever it is,” he said, “don’t make it personal.”

Avalon reached for the door, pulling it open to a flood of sound and vision.

“I never do,” she said, and disappeared inside.

The bacchanal was in full swing, though Avalon doubted it ever stopped. With fresh bodies constantly rolling in off the street, the Kirin was a perpetual motion machine—an obscenity, even by Zone standards. She took in the entire scope at once, her sensuit collecting data faster than her relays could process it. The scene unfolded in a series of decaying flashes, each frame peeling away a new layer of horror. As she walked through the Kirin, she saw everything: the faceless throngs, the parade of flesh, the men in masks, the women in chains—all trading roles of master and servant, perpetrator and victim, beating and penetrating one another with vengeful ferocity. Deeper inside, the activities took a more ritualistic turn as hooded figures chanted verses in ancient Latin, offering the lust of their followers as a gift of worship. A few of them stopped dead when Avalon approached, perhaps imagining that she was a manifestation of the Dark Father they summoned. She dismissed them with a flat glance. Avalon had no use for their devil. Her own atrocities made his pale by comparison.