Slab City Blues

Slab City Blues - text-3

“So he killed the Black Lotus?”

“Yes.”

“And stole Madam Choi’s rat?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“He killed the Black Lotus because he had been hired to keep him alive. I have no idea why he stole the rat.”

“The Black Lotus was hired to keep him alive?”

“Yes. The ampoule Dr Ricci recovered contains a drug used to control heart defects. Tyger Joe’s heart was surgically weakened when he signed his contract with MEC. He must receive regular doses of cardeferon or he will succumb to myocardial infarction. MEC sees this as an incentive to loyalty. I assume the Black Lotus tried to inject Joe with the drug and died in the attempt. This would indicate an eagerness on MEC’s part to retrieve their champion. He’s worth over six billion in Universal Accreditation after all.”

“How close are they?”

“They lost him at Madam Choi’s rat contest.”

“How long before his heart gives out?”

“Assuming he doesn’t have a cardeferon supply of his own, about fourteen hours.”

“What’s he doing here, Freak? Seems a long way to come just to steal a rat and have a heart attack.”

“The Slab is currently home to ex-Doctor Mariel Janus, one time Nobel laureate who pioneered accelerated de-Splicing techniques before losing her licence after several patients died during treatment. As you know, de-Splicing is a lengthy and expensive process, taking several months. Dr Janus’s technique enables a subject to become fully human in a matter of hours. I have information that she is continuing to perform the procedure, quite illegally of course, and at an inflated price.”

“MEC know about her?”

“Oh yes. Of the forty MEC operatives on the Slab, twelve are engaged in surveillance of you. The remainder are attempting to locate Dr Janus. I estimate they will find her within eleven hours.”

“I don’t get it. Joe’s the best, that Puma guy won’t even scratch him. They treat him like a god. Why throw it all away?”

Something shifted in the wall of flesh, some small spasm of discomfort. “Do you remember the time before the war, Alex? Do you remember what it was to be a slave?”

Memories clouding - pain and fear and hate. I shook them away. “Yeah, I remember.”

“I too was once a slave, as Tyger Joe is a slave. What do all slaves dream of?”

I pulled my gun from its holster, a standard issue Sig 4mm, checked the magazine and made sure I had my spares. “Twelve, huh?”

“Yes. Comms indicate they’re getting desperate and will use extreme measures. MEC has already offered me a large sum to provide information. Naturally I refused.”

“Well they don’t know you like we do. I’ll need you to jack into the security net and do the tactical. Like Langley, remember?”

“Of course.”

“So where do I find this Dr Janus?”

Quad Gamma of Yang Fifteen is mostly deserted in the early evening when the devout neo-Catholic locals troop off to mass leaving a perfect shoot-out set.

“Ready?” Freak via the smart’s earpiece.

I reached into my jacket, gripped the Sig. “Yup.”

“Targets one, two and three directly behind you. One: red shirt. Two: blue raincoat. Three: suit and tie. Be advised: Jeds in the area.”

“Got it.”

I stopped abruptly and turned. They were good, barely a flicker. Red Shirt just kept walking. Blue Raincoat and Suit veered off to the right. They’d walk on by and let their colleagues take over the tail.

There was a time when policemen had to give a warning before they shot someone, which is a pretty good idea when you think about it, ethically speaking.

I put the Sig’s laser-dot over Red Shirt’s throat and pulled the trigger. A pre-programmed ten shot burst of 4mm caseless is usually pretty messy and Red Shirt was no exception. His head stayed on though, which is unusual.

The few Jeds on the street vanished like ghosts. No screams or panic. f*****g Demons, shooting people again…

I caught Blue Raincoat with the second burst and swept Suit into a shop window with the third.

Freak in my ear: “Four at three o’clock. Reading weapons: H&K Mark Six tazers. They want you alive, Alex.”

I took cover behind a newsstand, firing as they rounded the corner. I could tell they were professionals by the way they didn’t bother to pull their wounded into cover.

“Three more on the rear flank.”

Pivot and fire, Sig’s inhibited recoil feeling like a dentist’s drill, making them dance and spin and fall, provoking a fierce blaze of war nostalgia.

“On the grocery roof, six o’clock.”

Drop, tazer dart shatters on the pavement, pivot and fire, sniper spinning on the roof. Magazine fires empty and ejects. Slam in a new one. Scan for targets. Bodies, some wounded moaning, dropped weapons, and blood of course. Hey, even a sad sack like me is good at something.

“Freak?”

“That’s it.”

“You said twelve. I count eleven.”

“There’s nothing on the scope. You better get moving.”

I ran to the Pipe and took the Grey line for the Extremity.

I checked my watch: 2030. Joe had about ten more hours before his heart went bust.

“Alex, I’m reading an encrypted transmission from the Extremity to MEC Orbiting HQ on St Rowan. Running decryption now… It’s tough stuff, very expensive work.”

“Let me guess. She’s selling him out.”

“Decryption complete. I’ll patch you in.”

A click then a woman’s voice, educated Downside vowels grating on my underclass ear: “-uarantee my reinstatement with the UN Medical Ethics Committee?”

Male voice, not so educated: “Our Chairman plays golf with the Secretary General, Doctor. He’s a very compassionate individual, and a Christian. He knows the value of forgiveness.”

“Well, what I have is also very valuable.”

“You have my personal assurance. And if you check your Zurich account you’ll find a substantial gesture of good faith.”

A pause as Janus checked her smart. “I see.” Her voice was actually quivering. “I am now transmitting the whereabouts of the item.”

“Get me there, Freak,” I said.

“Clear the carriage.”

I looked around. Four Jeds, a couple of them too Blissed to care either way, but Freak has this morality problem. I waited until we pulled into Yang Twenty then showed them the Sig. Had to slap the Blissfuls around a little before they followed the others onto the platform.

“OK.”

“Hold tight.”

A lurch as Freak diverted the carriage from the main line to one of the rapid access tunnels. The Pipe main lines run around and through the Slab in gravity-change friendly spirals but the techs need to move around the system quickly hence the vertical tunnels intersecting the network. First time I used one I found out the true meaning of free-fall. I gripped the nearest hand-hold with both fists and braced myself against the wall, mentally saying goodbye to my lunch.

“You’re not going to scream again, are you?”

“Let’s go!”

The floor tilted, my guts tried to wrap themselves round my spine and I screamed. I couldn’t help it.

The Yin Extremity is a symphony of architectural elegance and a wonder of engineering where dolphins play in shimmering pools and young lovers stroll the tiered forests hand in hand beneath a square mile of pre-tensile glass revealing an endless canvas of stars.

The Yang Extremity is equally spectacular but it’s also a garbage dump. There are mountains of the stuff, all the stinking, unrecyclable crap we’re not allowed to flush into space any more. A few years ago several tons of junk collected into a ball and failed to burn up on entry, leaving a pretty big crater in Toronto.

Unsurprisingly, the Extremity is one of the places Demons generally avoid which makes it an attractive locale for Slab fugitives. They’re grouped together in three unhappy, constantly feuding shanty towns called Faith, Hope and Charity. Whoever said criminals have no gift for irony? If you thought Yang-side was bad you should take a walk down here, just don’t expect it to be a long one.

Freak guided me from the Pipe exit, through the foothills, stumbling over non-biodegradable s**t and keeping a wary eye out for an opportunist with a crossbow. Janus’s place was an aluminium hab-pod surrounded by razor wire, floodlights and automated mini-guns. “How the hell do I get in there?”

“I’ve already cut the power. Left the lights on to keep the locals away.”

There were a few corpses in advanced stages of decomposition littering the no-man’s land between the hills and the pod, testament to the fact that Extremists took a long time to learn some obvious lessons.

The outer gate was on an electronic seal and swung open at the first touch. “How many inside?”

“Just Joe and the Doctor. She’s jacked him into an immersion couch, we’ve been having an interesting conversation.”

“Glad you’ve made a new friend.” I kicked the door in. Janus, tall and Downside elegant in an obligatory white coat, was speaking into her smart. Joe, four hundred pounds of fur and muscle, lay on a couch with a king size drip in his arm and immersion leads on his temples.

“Hello, Doc” I said. “You’re under arrest for conducting an unlicensed medical procedure. Hope there’s enough in your Zurich account for a good lawy–”

This was when MEC Security Operative Number 12 shot me in the back with a tazer. I never heard a thing. Very slick.

Tazer shock feels a bit like being hit by a jackhammer travelling at a hundred miles an hour. It also makes you piss yourself and gibber around on the floor, all very embarrassing for tough guy detectives.

I was still in paralysis when I resurfaced. Janus was predictably dead with a hole in her forehead and Number 12 was staring down at me. He had those perfect teeth no-one is born with and a leathery face that didn’t match the dentistry.

“How you feeling, Inspector?”

“Schlumph,” I replied.

“Never mind. Won’t last much longer.” He wandered over to Joe, still sedated into oblivion on the couch. “Will you look at the size of this guy? Don’t appreciate it when you see him on the hol. But up close like this he’s really incredible. Had six hundred riding on him for the Ortega fight…”

He droned on as I swivelled my eyes about desperately. The Sig was on the floor a few miles away. Something was scratching nearby, something out of view because I couldn’t turn my head.

“… that mega-mutant of yours has shut down the pipe so my colleagues are having to climb down here. It’ll take a few hours so I thought I’d pass the time with you.”

“Thnshks.”

“You’re welcome. You know, that job you did on my team was remarkable. ‘Course, none of them had our experience.”

My eyes flicked up at him.

“Yeah, I’m a Vet too. On the other side of course. Still, all over now eh? No hard feelings.”

He was wearing a stealth suit of non-reflective, insulating fabric. That’s why Freak missed him. All he had to do was stay in the shadows while I scragged his friends then follow me to the Pipe. Latched onto the carriage somehow when Freak put it in free fall. Real hard-core space commando s**t. He must have killed dozens of us in the war.

The scratching got louder. I had regained enough mobility to crane my neck a fraction of an inch. There was a large white box under the operating table about three feet away. The scratching stopped, started, stopped again. I heard something sniff the air.

“…after the war I had some trouble reintegrating into society. Not that there is much of what you’d call a society anymore. You should see it down there, Jesus…”

There was a catch on the front of the box and I was starting to lose the numbness in my arms. But Number 12 was certain to kill me the nano-second I moved.

“…I mean the poverty, you wouldn’t believe it. There I was, a three times decorated war hero for Christ’s sake, and what do they offer me? Refuse disposal specialist. I guess that’s when my anger management issues first manifested themselves…”

“Alex?”

I’d forgotten about Freak. “Yspls?” I kept it to a whisper. Number 12 probably thought I was throwing up.

“I can see the box on the room scanner. If I give you a diversion can you move far enough?”

“Uh.”

“OK. Just a sec.”

The box was starting to shake as what was inside got angry.

“…one day this MEC suit turned up at the psych ward with a contrac-”

Joe moved, not much, just a spasm as Freak ran a pulse charge through the immersion leads, but it was enough to get Number 12’s undivided attention. “What the f**k!”

I lurched across the floor, trailing saliva and piss, scrabbling at the box, finding the catch more through luck than judgement. Number 12 was already putting the laser dot on my forehead when a streak of black erupted from the box and latched onto his face.

The Emperor was trained to put on a show so it took longer than it should and Number 12 made some disgusting noises before it was over. The Emperor sat on the body, licking blood from his snout and regarding me with the cold, baleful stare singular to rats. I knew he was smart enough to tell friend from foe but he was such a vicious little bastard he might kill me just for the hell of it. After a few seconds he turned away, hopped up onto Joe’s massive chest, curled up and went to sleep.

“I estimate you will regain full mobility within two hours. That provides us with an adequate window to move Joe and destroy this place before the arrival of MEC Security. I can provide transport but we’re lacking a destination. Colonel Riviere has refused asylum for Joe in the Axis…”

“Ishokay.”

“Pardon?”

“Isst’s OK. Uh’ve got shumwer fer im.”

“I don’t really know why I did it,” Joe was saying. “I saw the little guy was about to get torn to pieces and I just couldn’t leave him there.” He paused to look around. “Nice place.”

“The Black Forest,” I said. “As it was in the thirteenth century. There’s a wide selection in the library if you want a change. Just ask Freak.”

“Thanks, Inspector. How long will it take?”

Shorn of his fur and muscle it was surprising how ordinary Joe was. Big and tough, certainly. But nothing special. I mean that in a nice way.

“About seven months. Standard de-Splicing period. You’ll be pleased to know you died in a shuttle crash last night. Along with most of your management team.”

“These things happen.”

I smiled. “Gotta go, Joe. I’ll come and visit soon.”

“I’d like that. And hey, remember what we talked about, you know, about Sniffy.”

“I can’t believe you called him Sniffy.”

“He likes it.”

I shook my head. “Jack me out please, Father.”

I was standing over Joe’s body. The machine grafted onto his chest was already starting the programmed alterations: blood change, DNA realignment, everything he needed to make him human again. In the meantime he could stay here with Father Bob.

I pulled the leads from my temples and turned to Consuela’s couch, laid my hand on her face, traced her profile.

“Would you like me to leave?” Father Bob asked.

“No.” I bent down and kissed her forehead. “The blue switch, right?”

He nodded.

I looked down at her hawk face for the last time. I had always liked to think she looked as if she was sleeping but I knew now she just looked like a dead woman plugged into a third-rate life-support system. She was right. I had made her a prisoner, a slave. And what do all slaves dream of?

“‘Bye, Con.” I hit the switch and she sighed, face going slack, head lolling to one side. She sounded relieved.

I carried the box to the air ducts on Yang Twenty-Four. They lead directly to the mid-outer hull, Rat Country. I undid the catch and stood well back as he ambled out, stopped at the lip of the duct to sniff the rush of air, ears pricking up at the scent of so many brothers and sisters. He glanced back with that same glittering, baleful stare, then was gone.

I dug my hands into my pockets, feeling something cold and sharp, realising I’d forgotten to give Consuela the dolphin brooch. It was raining as I walked away. I hate the rain.

END

A Song for Madame Choi