Code Noir Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Acknowledgments

  Marianne de Pierres was born in Western Australia and now lives in Queensland with her husband and three sons. She has a BA in Film and Television and is currently completing a Graduate Certificate of Arts (Writing, Editing and Publishing) at the University of Queensland. Her passions are basketball, books and avocados. She has been actively involved in promoting Speculative Fiction in Australia and is the co-founder of the Vision Writers Group in Brisbane, and ROR - Writers on the Rise, a critiquing group for professional writers. She was involved in the early planning stages of Clarion South and is a tutor at Envision. You can find out more about her at www.orbitbooks.co.uk and on her website www.mariannedepierres.com

  Code Noir

  MARIANNE DE PIERRES

  Hachette Digital

  www.littlebrown.co.uk

  Published by Hachette Digital 2010

  Copyright © 2004 by Marianne de Pierres

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  eISBN : 978 0 7481 2010 9

  This ebook produced by JOUVE, FRANCE

  Hachette Digital

  An imprint of

  Little, Brown Book Group

  100 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DY

  An Hachette Livre UK Company

  for Nick

  Prologue

  Recent Past

  ‘Ms Plessis, I need work done. Privately.’

  A gurgle of hysteria escaped my chest, it triggered a guffaw that made my guts ache and my eyes blind with tears.

  A media class bio-mekanical ’Terrogator squatted before me in the dirty alleyway, unimpressed with my reaction. Meks excelled at that look. Even the bios.

  Drying my eyes, I readjusted the audio tendril the ’Terro had snaked into my ear. Mirth was suddenly replaced by curiosity. And suspicion.

  What did this ’Terro and its journo pal want from me, except to hand me over to their bosses for the murder of Razz Retribution?

  A crime I did not commit!

  ‘You understand I wasn’t expecting . . . conversation,’ I said.

  The journo’s voice crackled down the tendril. The real person was snug in her Prier ’copter, hovering above me somewhere. The ’Terro was just the messenger.

  ‘If anyone learns of our meeting, I’ll be killed and you’ll lose your chance.’

  I glanced about for it but the alley only afforded me a narrow view of the sky. The Prier would be there though, hovering like a carrion crow. ‘What chance is that?’

  Teece entered from one end, scouting for me. I stopped him with a wave of my hand. He nodded, backed out and disappeared.

  ‘We don’t all believe it.’ The voice was female, tense and faint.

  ‘Believe in what?’ My patience was a helluva lot thinner than her voice.

  ‘The media want you for Razz Retrlbution’s murder.’

  ‘So tell me something new—’

  ‘But the threat is bigger than you realise. There’s something you need to know. And this is the proof.’

  The ’Terro handed me a small, ornately carved box. I turned it over a few times. No trademarks, no inscriptions, nothing to determine its origin. No apparent booby traps, just a heavy scent of spices.

  Holding my breath I flicked open the little gold catch. Inside, two peaks were lined with velvet. On each peak sat a tiny semi-circular flap of skin, tattooed and shrivelled, but recognisably human.

  Which part of a human though?

  Teece was back in the alley, firestormer strung over his wide shoulders, chest heaving with exertion.

  ‘Proof of what? What do I need to know?’ I said quickly. I saw Teece flame the ignition. No! I shook my head frantically and waved my arms. Don’t . . .

  The ’Terro unfolded to full height, yanking the comm tendril from my ear. It snapped out a weapon, following my line of sight with its ’scope.

  ‘TEECE,’ I bellowed. ‘NO—’

  Too late!

  I hurled myself sideways and low, hands covering my face, as he razed the ’Terro.

  Frig!

  ‘Parrish. Parrish! Are you all right?’ he ran to me, wrenching me on to my feet, his face bent out of shape with concern through the smoke and fumes.

  I batted singe from my hair and squared my already blistering shoulders. Staring at the pile of smoking slag, I allowed myself a tremble. Even in death the ’Terro smelt like meaty bones - almost human.

  In the distance I heard the whine of the retreating Prier.

  ‘Thanks.’ I managed to keep my sarcasm to a minimum. Teece thought he’d done me a favour. Maybe he had.

  So why did I feel that I’d been thrown a lifeline, only to see it twisting into a noose?

  Chapter One

  Present

  Two thin streams of water drilled into me like a needle gun. I told myself it was as good as a massage and jumped around under it like a dancing grrl in a cage. One arm, then the other. One breast, then the other. One buttock, then the . . .

  ‘What the hell—’ I spun around as the water suddenly cut off.

  The man standing in the doorway of the san with his hand on the valve had the pleasure of my best side. He didn’t look impressed.

  I stepped straight out and into his face, too annoyed to be embarrassed. ‘—are you doing?’

  ‘We have immediate need of your service, Parrish Plessis,’ he said.

  Those words had become too familiar. First the Prier pilot, now this. I couldn’t remember hanging out the sign that said ‘gun for hire’.

  ‘Our Clever Men have been taken. You must find them.’

  He didn’t even try to make it sound vaguely like a request. But then the Cabal Coomera were like that. All sombreness and threat.

  This one seemed to shimmer - a dark-skinned figure with tribal scars on his bare chest and face, and an assassin’s bleak, hooded eyes. His open leather jacket and titanium-capped boots were the only tangible part of him.

  The ancient ceiling fan extractor of Teece Davey’s bedroom - my current home - struggled to disperse the steam that curled around him.

  You didn’t invite the Cabal into your home. Certainly not into your san.

  Behind him a couple of paces stood an identikit. Except older, leaner.

  ‘How did you get—?’

  The pointless question died on my tongue. These guys were Kadais. They made it their business to sneak around and scare the whatsit out of everyone.

  Already I had a creeping urge to prostrate before them and beg for mercy.

  Jeez, Parrish, get a grip!

  The younger one slid forward w
ithout stepping - or so it seemed.

  Spooky.

  Legends said they once wore feather feet, and sang tribal lawbreakers to their death. These days the tribes were pretty damn diluted, like all the other nations that lived in The Tert, but a flavour of tradition survived. And the Kadais were the ones who ran the hits.

  He handed me a crumpled tee.

  ‘Remember you owe us goma.’

  I struggled into the shirt, using the time to think.

  Goma. Blood debt. They’d killed my ex-employer, Jamon Mondo - before he killed me. Goma was something you didn’t re-neg on with the Cabal. In repayment they wanted me to stop Loyl-me-Daac, a renegade from the Cabal, from experimenting with genetic manipulation.

  I figured there was only one way to do that: execute the guy.

  Simple. But there was a downside. Daac happened to be the only person in this world I had deep feelings for. Not to mention serious issues with. Either way I didn’t think I wanted him dead.

  ‘Your goma is . . . difficult for me,’ I said cautiously. Then I ventured, ‘He is your dirty washing, after all.’

  I saw a flicker of amusement cross the younger one’s face.

  The Cabal wanted rid of Daac. He’d strayed from their code of beliefs. For all their sinister ways, they weren’t hell bent on genetic supremacy. Trouble is they didn’t want to soil their hands with it. Or couldn’t, due to some old custom.

  The older one frowned a gully. ‘The matter of the karadji is more pressing. You will attend to it before you repay goma.’

  Karadji. The Clever Men. The ones with spirit power.

  ‘W-will I?’ I stammered. There’s something about the Cabal. An aura of dignity, and a cold, hard belief in what they did. It brokered no quarrel. Even from me: Parrish Plessis, pugilist and self-styled warlord.

  ‘Four of them have been taken from us. Those remaining are in hiding. And it is not just our karadji. We believe others are in danger as well . . . shaman of all beliefs.’

  A couple of months ago I would have whimpered aloud at the thought of taking on such a task. Right now all I felt was the heavy resignation of someone who only ever gets deeper in it. ‘I’m - uh - pretty busy.’

  It was worth a try.

  ‘When you find them, we shall return to you the research that holds the answers you seek, Parrish Plessis. This we pledge.’

  An answer to the Eskaalim! The creature that invaded and tortured my mind. The creature that changed me - that would eventually possess my body and soul.

  My heart high-jumped at a chance to survive.

  See, I was infected by an alien parasite that was working overtime on perverting my humanity. Sounded weird, but the reality was weirder. I didn’t have long and I wasn’t the only one.

  I blamed Loyl Daac for it. My theory was that his genetic fooling had loosed this creature on the world after it had been dormant for aeons. Maybe he could reverse what he’d done, except now he no longer had the splicing codes - they’d been stolen. The Cabal were telling me they knew how to get them back.

  They watched me, adopting an implacable take-it-or-leave-it-and-suffer-the-consequences silence.

  Find our karadji, they said. Find them! Like that was easy? Welcome to The Tert, boys - haven for the rather-be-lost-than-found! Sanctuary of secrets and zipped lips.

  ‘You have Loyl Daac’s stolen research?’

  ‘We will.’

  I hid a sigh. It was as good an answer as I’d get. It meant I had to trust them. And for some reason I did. Call it misguided respect.

  The older one did the spooky thing and slid alongside his partner, his expression bleak and cautionary. ‘There is one condition. If the karadji are not safe before the next King Tide, Parrish Plessis, the deal is off.’

  King Tide? I swallowed my qualms and nodded in agreement.

  With the slightest swing of his shoulders he threw a dagger in a low arc. It stabbed the floor at my toe tips.

  I didn’t even have time to twitch.

  Hotly, I bent down, jerked it free and waved it at them.

  Too late! The doorway wore nothing but air.

  I moaned aloud, letting the built-up fear and anger stream out of me and then subside. With only a tiny tremor I handled the dagger. The hilt shone like steel-coloured marble. Polished iron ore.

  The Cabal spear that had killed Jamon Mondo had been jewelled. Opal inlaid and glittery.

  I fingered the handle of this one. It felt cold and warm at the same time.

  The sensation sent a shiver.

  Worse than any premonition.

  Chapter Two

  Less than a week until King Tide!

  I closed the screen on the cute wave metaphors of the tide tables and tried to listen to Teece, but that knowledge engulfed my thoughts.

  So did the fact that the whole of One-World was crawling with meteorologists sprouking about how it would be the biggest tide in the Southern Hem’s history. Close to thirty metres due to the full moon and some other tongue-tying stuff that they couldn’t explain sensibly in a news grab.

  It had brought the closet crazies out, and given the confessed ones carte blanche. Judgement Day was getting a fair whipping. Punters had already lined the beach dunes to catch the spectacle, while others had fled to the borders of the Interior.

  The Militia were busy planning how to save the supercity’s inhabitants from themselves.

  ‘You’re insane!’ Teece complained.

  His deliberate insult finally captured my attention. I thrust out my hips, fighting the temptation to shake my fist in his face. ‘They’re just kids, Teece. They need a home.’

  ‘Just kids? They make bio-weapons, for chrissakes! Anyway, there are so many of them!’

  The ferals that Teece and I were arguing over fell into the ‘Parrish protects’ category and these kids were getting a home.

  See, there’d been a war in The Tert recently. One of those weird things that the history archives will describe as ‘the six-day war’ or the ‘fifteen-day war’ or ‘the short war’ or some such convenient ridiculousness that was far from the reality. In truth it went for five days, and was for the most part eerily silent and absolutely brutal.

  The ferals had been part of the reason I survived it. One kid in particular, Tina, had sacrificed herself to change the momentum of things. I owed her, and them, a debt beyond repayment.

  I could start, though, by finding them somewhere to live that had water and power and a san. Trouble was, I cared - but I was damn likely to die or change into something that didn’t if I didn’t find an answer soon.

  Now the Cabal had given me a glimmer of chance to see my hope through, but I needed someone to get things happening while I grabbed my chance to live.

  That someone was Teece. He wouldn’t do it because he believed in it. He’d do it for me. That was OK. I wasn’t shy on calling favours.

  ‘The ’goboys are mostly gone now, apart from a few stragglers. We can convert the barracks.’

  ‘What’s this “we”?’ Teece growled.

  I trailed a finger along his skin, above the worn nylon of his biker pants. It’s not my style to play coy or use flirtation to get what I want, but Teece and I had been close since Jamon Mondo had taken a Cabal spear in his chest.

  He’d even let me live with him these last few weeks.

  And maybe I was loosening up a little? He sure seemed to appreciate it when I did. This time he grabbed my hand and squeezed.

  ‘What’s it really worth?’ He grinned.

  I pulled away and regarded him steadily, taking in his massive wide chest, long raggedly bleached hair and faded blue eyes. Teece the original bikie surfer. A tek wizard with a sharp mind for biz.

  He was looking back just as hard at me. What did he see? I wondered. Had I changed?

  I felt like I had. Gone were the dreadlocks in favour of a rough cut. Gone were the outrageous nylon skin-tights. I was still loaded with the usual arsenal. Right this moment I packed two unconcealed pistols strapped
in holsters, a necklace of lethal pins and a stack of garrotting wires threaded into my underclothes. Teece reckoned it was like being friends with a human booby trap.

  The Tert - the run-down villa sprawl where Teece and I lived - was as cold as it ever gets in late August, enough to keep me in a short-fringed leather jacket over matching duds. Not cold enough for me to zip the jacket up. The thoroughly dude clothes were a gift from a friend, Ibis, who said he’d picked them up in a ‘collectables’ shop in Vivacity. Ibis is such a girl when it comes to clothes.

  But that was just the outside stuff.

  Inside was where the real difference lay. The parasite was feeding off the epinephrine manufactured in my adrenals. I was its host. And to say I wasn’t happy was a blind understatement.

  I was pissed off.

  Teece knew what was going on, but we didn’t discuss it - the hallucinations, the voices in my head, my accelerated healing - and I took care to make sure he wasn’t contaminated with my blood.

  Blood contamination was one way the parasite spread - the slow way. And I was one of the few people in the world it was affecting - so far. My guess was that there were probably about a fifty or so of us. Eventually it would take me over completely. At least that was its aim.

  If I didn’t find a way to stop it, my aim was to kill myself before it could.

  That was something else Teece and I didn’t discuss. But sometimes I’d catch him looking at me like he was in pain. I knew then he was thinking about what might happen.

  You see Teece loved me. Truly. The way people should.

  And in a perfect world I would have felt the same way. But I didn’t. I respected and liked and cared loads about him, but my deepest desire was reserved for someone else. Loyl Daac.