Synaptic Manhunt (5 page)

‘We’ll need two sets of harness as well.’

The harnesses consisted of a wide leather collar with a single long rein attached to it. Jeb Stuart Ho brought them over to the Minstrel Boy, who took one of them and buckled the collar round the neck of the big green lizard. He led it out of the stall and handed the rein to Ho.

‘Hold this one, while I go and sort you out a mount.’

Jeb Stuart Ho gingerly grasped the lizard’s rein. To his relief the creature showed no inclination to go anywhere. The Minstrel Boy sauntered down the row of stalls, inspecting the other animals. Finally he stopped in front of a smaller lizard, with a yellowish mottled hide. He attached a collar to it and led it towards where Jeb Stuart Ho was standing.

‘This one should suit you. It’s pretty docile and easy to handle.’

Ho and the lizard looked at each other distrustfully. Slowly Ho stretched out his hand and scratched its nose. The lizard bleated gratefully. The Minstrel Boy sniffed.

‘Maybe we’ll turn you into a lizard handler before this trip’s over.’

Jeb Stuart Ho glanced at him sharply.

‘I have more important objectives for this journey.’

The Minstrel Boy shrugged.

‘We’d better get the saddles on, or we won’t reach any kind of objective at all.’

The huge bulk of the creatures made putting the saddles on them an awkward business. A set of stone steps ran up one part of the stable wall. The Minstrel Boy led the first lizard over to them. He got Jeb Stuart Ho to hold it while he picked up one of the saddles, climbed the steps and tossed the saddle over the animal’s back. After that, he had to scramble under its belly and buckle the girth. The whole process was repeated with the second lizard. When they were both saddled, he walked to the far end of the stable and pulled open a pair of high double doors. Sunlight streamed into the dim room, and the lizards shuffled and blinked nervously. Beyond the doors, an inclined ramp led up to ground level.

The Minstrel Boy climbed up into the saddle of the big green lizard, and Jeb Stuart Ho hauled himself on to the smaller yellow one. He watched carefully as the Minstrel Boy dug his heels sharply into the monster’s side. The lizard began to lumber forward towards the open doors. Jeb Stuart Ho tried the same thing with his own mount, and was surprised and pleased when it began following its big green brother.

As they climbed the ramp, Jeb Stuart Ho called out to the Minstrel Boy.

‘Should we not close the door behind us?’

The Minstrel Boy turned and laughed.

‘Why bother? With the doors open, the lizards will get restless and start trying to break out. It might force someone to do something about it.’

They reached the top of the ramp, and pointed their mounts away from Wainscote. Jeb Stuart Ho would have liked to gather more information about the place, but his mission was more pressing. He and the Minstrel Boy vigorously kicked their lizards, and the beasts broke into a ponderous, earth-shaking canter.

A.A. Catto stared sourly across the crowded room. The tables of the Venus Flytrap were each enclosed in their own plexiglass dome. If she dimmed the interior light she could see what was going on in the rest of the club; if she turned it up the rest of the club could see her. Right then, she had it set at medium. The other people in the place were reduced to dark murmuring shadows. She was just a dim shape to them inside the bubble. That was the way A.A. Catto wanted it. She didn’t want to see anyone, and she didn’t want to be on display.

A.A. Catto was beginning to hate the Venus Flytrap. She was beginning to hate the entire city of Litz. She was even beginning to hate herself. She looked down at her thirteen-year-old body encased in the brief metal foil dress. She was thoroughly sick of the thin arms and legs and half-formed breasts. The only thing that stopped her leaving off the growth retarder and letting it mature was the possibility that she might regret it afterwards. Once you allowed yourself to age there was no going back. You could halt your growth any time you liked, you could accelerate it if you wanted to. The one thing you couldn’t do was reverse the process. A.A. Catto was sick of living in an age of such incomplete and half-arsed technology.

Way over on the other side of the club she could just make out Reave. His face was illuminated by the rainbow lamp above the four square table. He sat with his back to the curtain of black water that served as one wall of the club. She could see from the anxious, stupid look on his face that he was losing consistently. He was more interested in watching the tits of the topless dealer than in paying attention to his cards. She was beginning to get sick of Reave. She kept him,, she dressed him, chose all his clothes and all his makeup. He looked particularly cute tonight in his black silk suit and purple lipstick. If only he didn’t always behave like a dummy. A.A. Catto expected, if not intelligence, at least some originality. All Reave seemed able to come up with was doglike devotion.

Her hand moved towards the silver ring on her left hand. It was inlaid with a complicated gold pattern. Reave wore a matching collar. The two pieces of jewellery were linked by an energy transfer. A.A. Catto only had to move the ring to push any experience from a soft tingle to unbearable pain straight into Reave’s nervous system. She turned the ring a fraction in the direction of pain. Reave jerked, dropped his cards, then looked in her direction and smiled. A.A. Catto’s lower lip stuck out and her mouth turned down at the corners. He was so predictable. Even when she hurt him, he took it as a sign of affection. There were times when she felt like turning him loose to fend for himself.

Beside her in the bubble, one of the club’s specially cloned entertainers was still going through his mildly obscene monologue. He wore a white suit, black shirt and an archaic white necktie. His right ear was pierced by a plain gold ring and his black hair was slicked back and shining. His face was framed by symmetrical sideburns. A.A. Catto assumed that some pretty, juvenile gangster from the motion picture era had been used as a model for his batch. The big thing in Litz right then was images from the days before break-up. A pale, almost albino girl drifted past the bubble. She wore high, polished boots and the black and red uniform of some ancient, long vanished political/military culture. A.A. Catto wondered if she ought to get an outfit like that. She turned to the clone and cut him off in mid sentence.

‘Do you think I’d look nice dressed like her?’

He responded without even looking at the girl.

‘You’d look cute in anything, babe.’

His accent and vocabulary were tailored to match his image. The only trouble with clones was that they were anxious to please to the point of paranoia. A.A. Catto sighed, and smiled sweetly.

‘Hold out your hand.’

The clone did as he was told. A.A. Catto took the thin black cheroot out of her mouth and ground it out in his palm. The clone gasped, clutched his injured hand and then drew back his fist to hit her. A.A. Catto shook her head.

‘Don’t bother. I don’t want to be beaten up. I’m bored with you. You’re dismissed.’

The clone got to his feet, still nursing his hand. A.A. Catto grinned as he walked away in the direction of the availability point. They were so funny, programmed like robots but still human enough to suffer. Although they could get tedious, A.A. Catto thoroughly approved of clones. They were good to have around.

She stood up herself, left the bubble and moved quietly to where Reave was still losing at four square. Reave didn’t notice her as she came up behind him. A.A. Catto twisted the ring hard into the pain register. Reave screamed, his back arched, and he toppled from his stool. The topless clone halted in mid-deal and waited, holding the pack of long rectangular cards in front of her full breasts, to see what would happen. Clones weren’t programmed to show emotion unless it was expected of them.

Reave lay on the carpeted floor, hunched in a foetal position. The other customers of the Venus Flytrap coolly acted as if nothing had happened. After about five seconds, A.A. Catto started to become impatient.

‘Get up, damn you.’

Reave whimpered and slowly uncurled. A.A. Catto nudged him with her toe.

‘I said get up.’

Painfully he climbed to his feet. He massaged the back of his neck and looked reproachfully at her.

‘Why did you do that?’

A.A. Catto’s lip curled.

‘Because you’re pathetic.’

‘Pathetic?’

‘You’ve lost a fortune tonight.’

Reave ran his fingers through his long straight hair.

‘But it doesn’t matter. We’ve got permanent, unlimited credit.’

A.A. Catto clenched her tiny fists.

‘I know we’ve got unlimited credit. It’s my credit.’

‘So what’s wrong?’

‘You had to go and lose.’

Reave nodded towards the still motionless clone.

‘It’s very hard to win against clones. They’re programmed to be almost unbeatable.’

‘So why play?’

‘It was something to do. You wouldn’t talk to me.’

‘Do you wonder that I don’t talk to you?’

Reave looked round helplessly.

‘I …’

‘Oh, for god’s sake, shut up. We’re leaving.’

Reave turned and signalled to the dealer that he was giving up his place at the table. She smiled an automatic sexy smile.

‘Thanks for the play, sir.’

Reave grinned back.

‘That’s okay.’

A.A. Catto scowled disgustedly.

‘Do you have to be so grovelling polite to clones?’

Reave shrugged.

‘It doesn’t cost anything. I mean, they are still human.’

‘You disgust me. You and your stupid ideas.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Do you always have to apologize?’

‘I …’

A.A. Catto’s hand moved to her ring. The colour drained our of Reave’s face and he held up his hands.

‘Please … not now. If you knock me out again it’ll only slow us up getting away from here,’

A.A. Catto smiled.

‘That’s true. You know, Reave, now and again you show flashes of crude intelligence.’

Reave bit his lip and said nothing. It wasn’t worth talking back to her when she was in this kind of mood. He followed her as she turned on her heel and swept out of the club. There had been a time when Reave might have made some kind of gesture behind her back, but now he didn’t even bother. He simply clasped his hands behind him and walked a few paces to her rear.

As they approached the club’s exit, the liveried doorman, resplendent in maroon and gold, snapped to attention and saluted.

‘You require transportation, Miss Catto?’

A.A. Catto shook her head.

‘I think I’ll walk, but you better get me some guardians.’

She handed him her credit card, and he dropped it into the call box on his wrist.

‘How many would you like, Miss Catto?’

‘Three should be enough.’

The doorman punched out the guardians’ code, and within seconds three clear-eyed, square-jawed clones swung into the foyer of the club in perfect step. They wore the one piece silver uniforms and red and blue helmets of the Litz Security Corporation. They halted in front of the doorman. Each one was at least two metres tall. They towered over everyone else in the foyer. The centre one of the three saluted the doorman.

‘Guardian unit reporting as requested. Which is the client?’

The doorman indicated A.A. Catto. The centre guardian turned and saluted again,

‘How may we serve you, miss?’

‘My companion and I have decided to walk home. We’d like you to escort us. I trust you’re adequately equipped?’

The guardian touched the long nightstick and heavy-duty stun-gun at his belt. His companions were similarly armed.

‘We are equipped for anything that might occur in the street.’

‘We might as well proceed then.’

The centre guardian bowed and held the door open. The one on his left preceded Reave and A.A. Catto into the street. The one on his right brought up the rear. After the darkness of the club, the street was a blaze of glory. Although no daylight was built into the environment of Litz, and it was a city of perpetual night, its illuminations were magnificent to look upon. At street level each ground car was festooned with lights. The stores, theatres, fun palaces and brothels vied with each other in the size and splendour of constantly shifting, glowing, illuminated signs. Overhead, searchlights slashed across the sky, probing the darkness with their slim fingers.

Every window in the high buildings showed its own light, and the lighter than air craft that floated between the tall towers all carried their own spots and riding lights. Some were even floodlit from below.

A few people hung round the carpeted sidewalks outside the cabarets and casinos. Small groups of whores made the come-on outside the bordellos and nudie bars, but apart from them the streets were almost empty of pedestrians. A.A. Catto and Reave only passed a few isolated people, all escorted by tall clones from the various security services. Every so often a black-uniformed, two-man foot patrol from the Litz Department of Correction would stroll past. The LDCs weren’t clones. They were normal men who enjoyed the dangerous and brutal work.

The streets of Litz may not have been safe for unprotected individuals on foot, but for ground cars it was a different matter. The huge shining vehicles streamed past in a continuous procession down the wide, ten lane thoroughfares. Their lights added to the general display of the endless Litz night.

A.A. Catto, Reave and their three guardians reached the first intersection. As they waited for the traffic control to change, the guardian who seemed to have the role of leader looked at her questioningly.

‘Where do you wish to go, miss?’

‘The Orchid House.’

A.A. Catto waved her hand towards the slim pyramid that stood a few blocks away, towering over the surrounding buildings. The guard looked at it and then back to the girl.

‘If we took the main throughways it would be a longer walk, but there would be less possibility of incident.’

A.A. Catto grinned at him.

‘Let’s take the back streets, huh? I’m sure you boys can take care of any incident.’