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  ‘Delly, Brigitte’s got a spinner.’

  Lavish nodded to Muscle Massive and the Koreans and they all disappeared into the corridor. Glorious and the other girls ran out after them.

  It left me alone with Merv. I forced myself to smile at him again. He squirmed so nervously that I figured it was a new experience for him.

  ‘What’s happening?’ I asked.

  ‘S-spinner’s a b-bad client.’ He backed away, dropping a glass so that it smashed on the bar. ‘I got to go back to my i-bugs. Shouldn’t be doing t-this s-stupid j-job anyway . . .’

  ‘Can I come?’ My smile got wider. I stopped short of batting my eyelids.

  He glanced around at the empty bar.

  ‘I g-guess so,’ he said doubtfully. ‘Seeing as you’ll be working here t-too.’

  I vaulted over the bar and followed Merv through a narrow door into the cylinder of mirrors.

  Inside was a small, dark, circular room that could have been running the universe. The walls and ceiling were one large screen, or hundreds of small ones. They flicked up images from every cranny of the ’doirs and ran panoramas on the outside of the building from ground to penthouse level and into the city.

  Two full-body, coffin-shaped sensoriums took up half of the floor space.

  What was left was a bedroom complete with a deep recliner chair/bed and armrests wide enough to set up shop on. One of them winked and hummed with a variety of command controls: an old keyboard, pick-ups, touch pads. The other could have been the backroom of a chemist - tabs, derms, a portable drip - everything that frizzed, popped and kicked.

  Merv pulled out a tray of brown globs from a slot under his right armrest that looked and smelled like meatballs in sauce. He slapped one on his neck. Ooze dribbled down onto his collar.

  Meatware. Uugh. I had the same abhorrence to it as I did to NS. It all worked on the same principle though NS was tidier, more straightforward. As far as I could see, invisible implants were one thing. Having stuff sucking at your neurologics through your skin was quite another.

  I had enough of that sort of thing going on inside me.

  Aside from the mayhem of tek, good-luck charms crammed every spare mill of space. Rabbits’ feet, Lady Lucks, horseshoes, shamrocks, Samadhi and Mojo bags. Every shape, size and incarnation. Some more obscure than others. Necklaces, brooches, tiepins, ornaments, rings, bracelets, mobiles.

  I felt for the chain under my shirt and wondered if Merv would even recognise it as one of his own.

  He moved confident as a canrat among the clutter and sank in his chair. The sandalwood scents didn’t disguise the scent of stale body fluids. A tiny portable san had been rigged in the corner. By the smell of it the nanos needed renewing.

  I swallowed a couple of times and switched my olfaugs down to minimum.

  ‘I-impressive,’ I said.

  I tried to memorise the hardware - just to piss off Teece - but the range of gear was over my head.

  I noticed a circle burned into the floor around the chair. I went to step over it and got stung by something.

  ‘What the freak was that?’ I swatted at my ankle.

  ‘To-oo close,’ Merv yelled. ‘Y-you’re too close to me.’

  I stepped back from the circle.

  ‘This is my place. N-no one comes in h-here.’ He made a circular motion with his hands.

  I spread mine wide, placating him. ‘Sure, I understand.’ I wasn’t sure I did, though. I liked my own space too but Merv was . . . twitchy.

  ‘I don’t usually have people in here when I’m working, so keep still.’

  Before I could reply, he spasmed and his jaw went slack.

  The screens flicked alive with images of one particular ’doir. Every different angle you could imagine. I stared at it for a minute or two, trying to make sense of what I saw.

  ‘Aura bugs,’ Merv said. He was back with me again, eyes alert, jaw tight. The meatware squirmed like a leech on his neck. ‘B-better than CCUs, ’cepting that they die.’

  He made a garbled noise in the back of his throat and the bugs arranged their view to one composite.

  ‘Y-you need anything, Delly?’ He spoke into a pick-up shaped like a cross.

  Lavish was bent over a body of a grrl. Her blood pooled around his feet. In another corner of the room the Koreans restrained a naked man. Muscle Massive was crying.

  ‘Get me the cleaners and a taxi ’pede. Mr Pregora understands not to leave his top-ups so long next time. Please deduct 50,000 Hems from his account,’ said Lavish.

  Merv sucked his lip in, chewing at it. ‘What about Brigitte? Sh-shall I call the medic, Delly?’

  ‘Not the medic, you fucking moron - get the body bus.’ Lavish hissed.

  With another curt noise, Merv cut the pictures dead and replaced them with other images of the Luxoria. The audio stayed live, though, with Lavish screaming about the blood staining his clothes.

  After a few moments Merv killed that too.

  I sat, numb, while he went through the official protocol of reporting the death to the Militia. When the body bus had been ordered and the death logged through the correct channels, he peeled the meatware from his neck and stood up. His skin was blotchy with distress.

  I felt an impulse to squeeze his shoulder, to comfort him - or myself - but I suppressed it. Merv didn’t like to be touched.

  ‘Happen much?’ I asked.

  ‘Once is too much, isn’t it?’ he said, hoarsely.

  Emotional answer, but he was being evasive, I knew.

  ‘No Militia inquiry?’

  Merv paced the two steps that his circle would allow. ‘Our clients are mainly media. M-militia can only touch us if we breach licensing regs. S-stupid stuff. Hygiene and fire. Everything else that happens here is . . . well . . . untouchable. Besides, the media own the Militia. If the client had been a R-royal then maybe . . .’

  Suddenly the sandalwood scent cloyed my airways. We sat in silence while I digested what he’d said. No wonder Honey had done a runner.

  ‘How do you work in a place like this?’ I said quietly.

  Merv licked his lips a few times, deliberating over his answer.

  ‘It’s w-worth it, see?’ With shaking hands he picked up and caressed a small black dog-shaped object from his console. I’d assumed it was another charm.

  ‘See this? She’s a QI mole. Her name is Snout. Keeps Brilliance from knowing where I am. Where I’m looking.’

  I knew I had that stupid look on my face again, but I couldn’t seem to find anything else to replace it.

  Strange world. Strange people. Strange rules.

  ‘What is a QI mole and who the freak is BRILLIANCE ?’ I snapped, losing patience with myself more than with Merv.

  He flinched and clasped the dog defensively against his body.

  I took a breath. ‘I’m sorry, Merv. There’s a lot I don’t understand and what just happened . . . well, it shocked me.’

  He nodded, relaxing his grip.

  I felt the teeniest bit guilty at the lie. I sure as hell didn’t like what I’d seen. But had it shocked me? Sadly, no.

  ‘You’re going to get yourself into trouble round here if you don’t know,’ he said.

  I squirmed a bit. True. But I didn’t need to hear it quite so plainly from a superstitious nerd in a flesh joint.

  Still, that realisation was beginning to sink in. I’d been born in the ’burbs and thought I had a handle on the city. But this place was as dangerous as The Tert, only it was dressed up in air-fresh and high heels. If I was going to survive long enough to accomplish anything, I needed to bum a ride up a steep learning curve. A week, Lavish had said, until he’d contact Monk again. Looked like I had that long to learn enough to survive.

  Time to play my trump. ‘Honey sent her love.’

  Merv froze for a second, then mumbled a command into an interface pick-up. Around us the screens dimmed as though, everything had gone to sleep.

  ‘D-delly likes to see records of everything,
’ he said. ‘We got about a minute before I have to do some explaining.’

  I nodded.

  ‘You’ve seen h-her?’ His eagerness was pathetic.

  ‘She said to tell you that she was fine. That she’d found the guy who’d take care of her. Just how you planned it.’

  I made the last bit up. But Merv seemed to buy it. Probably because it was close enough to the real story. I didn’t tell him that the guy used to be mine.

  Tears misted his eyes. ‘Delly mustn’t know where she is. He’ll s-send someone after her.’

  I touched my fist to my chest in a gesture of honour. ‘Trust me.’

  He nodded, jiggling and biting his lip again. The flush rising in his cheeks told me that the news had given him more pleasure than a day in a sensorium.

  So I hit him up. ‘She said you’d be able to help me?’

  Merv’s face closed over as soon as I said it. ‘Hhow do I know this is for real? H-how do I know you’ve seen her?’

  I flipped out the mystic star and looped it over my head, dangling it in front of him. Ike’s wetware hung on the same chain, a grotesque twin.

  His expression now was a mixture of relief and pleasure. He tried to snatch the star but I held it out of his reach.

  For a terrible moment I thought he might cry. I got a rash when people cried.

  ‘What do you w-want for it?’ he said.

  ‘Information,’ I said. ‘I want to know who is behind a project called Code Noir. Cross-reference it with a name, Ike del Morte.’

  Merv stroked a tiny empty space between St Christopher and a blood doll. I figured the space belonged to the Mystic Star. ‘And you’ll give me my s-star back?’

  ‘When I have the information.’

  His whole body jerked in agreement. ‘The Amoratos eat in a c-café called Freeza’s that Delly owns. We c-can talk more there at breakfast. You better g-go now.’

  I took my cue from him, slipping the star around my neck. Then I headed back out to the bar.

  Chapter Eight

  I was helping myself to another drink as Glorious and the Koreans reappeared at the door. She made straight for me, pale and distraught. Her hands dabbed at the blood spatters on her underwear as she blurted her message straight out.

  ‘Delly said I should show you where your room is. He said you can eat with us at Freeza’s Café on 151, or you can stay in the club - otherwise the deal’s off. Either Lam’ - she nodded at the Korean with a shaved head - ‘or Tae will . . . be with you.’

  I gave the small, tightly muscled men my best grimace.

  Their return smiles were uncomfortably bland.

  I switched my attention back to Glorious. ‘Everything all right?’

  She trembled violently. ‘Brigitte was new. She didn’t have a spotter.’ She blinked at me through frightened eyes. ‘I know it’s selfish. But all I can think of is . . . one day it might be me.’

  Suddenly she bent over, hair spilling around her face, looking like she might get sick.

  ‘You should . . . err . . . lie down,’ I said awkwardly. I wasn’t used to comforting beautiful women about murder. Actually, I wasn’t used to comforting anyone. And the gloom of the low-lit bar was getting to me. I wanted out of the place.

  Glorious straightened up and swallowed a couple of times, composing herself. ‘I’ll show you your room. It’s right next to mine.’

  Lam trailed us out into the corridor and on to the lift.

  ‘We live on the floor below the club,’ Glorious explained, pressing the button.

  We were there in a blink. Lam stepped out first and held his hand to the sensor to make sure the door stayed open. Just in case.

  I followed him and Glorious out into another plush corridor decorated with native plants and squirming fish murals.

  Glorious caught me eyeballing the fish and managed a laugh. ‘Used to make me seasick at first. It’s supposed to be relaxing.’

  A sleek black-and-silver-tailed fish swam alongside me for a few paces before it flicked its tail and retraced its path towards the lift. I thought of Kiora Bass, one of Daac’s Fishertown devotees, and wondered if she was still alive.

  Lam showed me the code to my door lock and watched me go inside. Then he settled himself cross-legged by the door.

  The room was more than luxurious by my standards. The bed was the real deal and so were the ’drobe, san and entertainment unit. A weird module hunkered down at one side.

  ‘What’s that?’

  Glorious had followed me in. Colour had seeped back into her cheeks and her crafted turquoise eyes had regained some shine.

  ‘That’s the Alkem. And those clothes in the wardrobe belong to the Luxoria. You’re free to wear any of them if they fit but if you damage anything Delly takes it out of your pay. Merv keeps account of all that side of things. Don’t you, Merv?’

  I glanced behind me for the nerdy boy but came up empty.

  ‘Every room in the Luxoria and our apartments contain i-bugs for our protection. Merv monitors them all the time,’ she explained.

  ‘Doesn’t he ever sleep?’ I asked, wondering what would happen if I inhaled a bug.

  ‘Only the hours when clients aren’t in.’ She saw my expression and tried to reassure me. ‘Merv’s very discreet. You’ll get used to it. It’s kind of comforting.’

  I knew a few voyeurs - all of them would have murdered to get a gig like this. No wonder Merv hung around.

  I pointed to the Alkem again. ‘What does it do?’

  ‘Put your things away and tap me here when you’re ready.’ Glorious pointed to a number on the comm. ‘We’ll start right away.’

  Start what? I didn’t want to start anything. ‘Don’t you wanna take some time to . . . um . . . recover?’

  Something about Glorious made me trip over my words.

  Maybe because she was cultured. Maybe because she was inordinately beautiful - I’d always maintained that beauty fucked with people’s minds. Or maybe it was that she was soft and feminine and polite and I didn’t know how to deal with that.

  She shook her head. ‘Thanks, but I need to think about something else.’ She smiled shyly.

  I tried hard to tell if it was practised or real and came up with nothing.

  ‘So when you’re ready . . .’ she finished

  Try never.

  She left me and I paced the room in agitation.

  I badly wanted to have a wash but not with an audience. I was allergic to strangers watching me naked.

  ‘Merv,’ I called.

  ‘Yes, Jales?’ A thin disembodied voice came back.

  ‘I’m going to wash. You eyeball me and I’ll flush Snout down the san. Understand?’

  I took his silence to mean clear-as-Viva-water.

  It would have to do.

  Before I thought about it any more, I stripped, dumped my clothes in the separate cleaner and jumped into the san. When I’d finished, I repacked my kit and sat it by the door. I wanted out of here the moment I could. I certainly wasn’t settling things neatly in drawers.

  Hell, I never put things in drawers.

  I paced again until the indecision of what I should do next made my limbs heavy with fatigue. The entertainment unit told me it was late afternoon of what already seemed like a very long day.

  Now I was here I had to wait for Merv to find the information I needed. Frustration sandpapered away under my skin. I hated having to do anything slowly. Impatience was my virtue - my curse. I wanted to tear the fabric of Viva apart and make someone answer for Mo-vay.

  And Roo.

  And Wombebe.

  But I couldn’t do that with my fists. I had to be smart for a while. I had to learn.

  Calmed a little by that thought, I lay down.

  Not meaning to, I slept. Dreams crowded in, worse than ever before, semi-waking dreams full of blood and the deep ache of unfulfilled orgasm.

  Sometime later the bed got too soft and I woke finally, on the floor, twisted up in the sheet in a corner of th
e room. The sky through the window polariser looked like morning. The Entertainment Unit said five a.m. when I asked it. I stretched and disentangled myself.

  ‘What time is breakfast, Merv?’

  ‘Morning, Jales. Were you comforable on the floor? I didn’t like to wake you.’ He sounded weary, like he’d been up all night.

  ‘Fine,’ I lied.

  ‘Lam will show you the way to Breezas for breakfast when you’re ready.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘They often run out of bacon by seven,’ he added casually. ‘I always like to be there before that.’

  I took his hint and nodded at nothing in particular. I-bugs made it odd to have a conversation with him. Not even a camera lens to look into.

  ‘Where can I exercise?’

  ‘Delly doesn’t allow the Amoratos to leave the building. But three doors up from Glorious there’s an aerobics glove.’

  Aerobics glove. Uugh. The memory of Gigi’s vreal set was fresh in my mind and this sounded like something you might get buried in.

  ‘I think I’ll settle for bacon,’ I replied.

  Lam was waiting in exactly the same position that I’d left him, cross-legged chewing something that looked like last-century biltong.

  ‘Don’t you get cramp?’ I sniped.

  He gave me the benefit of his perfectly bland smile again and sprang up, immediately limber and agile.

  Obviously not.

  ‘Lead me to the bacon,’ I said.

  He turned on his heel toward the lift.

  I tried a couple of times to lure him into conversation as we whizzed up two floors and made our way through some heavily glazed security doors and an ID check.

  The Korean wasn’t biting.

  We stepped through into an abyss. The transparent walkway gave me instant vertigo as though I was flying without an engine or wings. Annoyingly, Lam didn’t even seem to notice the drop of thousands of feet to the pavement.

  My thoughts of a hearty breakfast faded.

  How on earth did people eat up here?

  Others walked behind us, emerging from other floors. They were suits, mainly, with a smattering of clergy dressed in their brocade robes and snazzy sandals.

  We marched a step ahead of them until we reached the middle of the bridge where the sides curved outward into a bowl shape. Lam waved me into the entrance of a jungle-decor café, complete with animal noises and a bio-robotic python slithering among the fake tusk stools.