Spares

Club Bastard was an explosion of thrashing groovesters, contained within a barnlike building in the middle of a party floor. You couldn’t have gotten anyone else into the club without first compressing them to the size of a pea, and I suspect that when I pushed my way into the club someone must have been popped out of a window the other side. Music crunched out of massive speakers along every wall, competing with the cacophony of five hundred people all shouting at once. The music was Predictive Trance, the notes and words all fresh-minted in real time by a bank of computers on the far wall. The algorithms used for generating the lyrics are keyed to the effect of various recreational drugs, and thus the more out of it you get, the better you become at predicting what the words will be.

I shouldered my way through to the bar, buffeted on every side by bright young things. The line at the counter wasn’t very deep, probably because everyone in the place was bombed on happy drugs. Dying tendrils of the Rapt I’d taken were sparkling periodically in parts of my brain, and being surrounded by glittering eyes and expensive highs was not what I needed. I was grimly conscious of the fact that what I did need was more Rapt, and that I shouldn’t allow myself to have it. I was also still shouldering thoughts of the spares away as hard as I could. I knew I had to find them soon. Nothing had changed—including the fact that I didn’t know where to start looking. I wasn’t in a great state, to be honest, and had no high hopes of ever feeling better.

The gorilla behind the bar stared at me impassively when I got there, waiting for me to speak.

“Is Johnny in?” I asked, trying to look tough.

“Who wants to know?” the man said. He was trying even harder than me and succeeded only in looking like two types of shit in a one-shit waistcoat.

“I do, obviously, you stupid fuck,” I said, not impressed. “Or I wouldn’t have asked. Is he in or not?”

Huge hands closed around my arms. A Vinaldi goon stood on either side of me, two jabs in my back making it clear they were armed as well. The barman grinned.

“He’s expecting you,” he said.

The two goons steered me through the crowd toward a glass wall on the other side of the club. The glass was chroma-keyed to reflect only flesh tones, creating a shifting mirage of disembodied arms and heads. As we approached, a door opened to one side making it clear that the wall was one-way glass. I was bundled unceremoniously through the doorway and into the space behind.

Up a short flight of steps and into a large room, stretching the length of the wall. Sofas, bookcases, full AV rig; points of red and green LED’s in the semidarkness. Jaz Garcia stepped out of the gloom, gripped me by the throat, and pulled me forward.

“Careful,” said a voice. “I want to hear his explanation before I let you remodel salient features of his body. Though trust me, that will be an upcoming presentation.”

Garcia punched me solidly in the face, to promote cooperation and let me know the score. Then his other hand loosened barely perceptibly as he swung me round and let go. I was thrown accurately into a large chair facing the glass wall, and I had to admire his technique.

I knew what was going to happen. Maybe Nearly would look after Suej. Beyond the one-way mirror I could see all the happy youngsters below, dancing for their lives. Have fun, I thought to them. Shout those lyrics. You won’t even hear the gunshot when it comes.

Another man thrust his hands into my jacket and came out with my gun, which he placed carefully on a table. Then he waved some kind of detector over me. Nothing bleeped, and the man stepped back out of sight. Garcia had disappeared to stand behind me, and the scene was almost set. I heard a chair being scraped along the floor in front of me, and then set down, back toward me.

Vinaldi sat himself down in it, arms folded over the back of the chair. I wondered if guys like him had to go to some orientation class when they started out, to make sure they got things like that just right. I made a mental note to ask Dath in the unlikely event of my ever seeing him again.

He didn’t say anything for a while, so I started the ball rolling. “You wanted to see me,” I said, striving for a tone of friendly interest.

Johnny didn’t say anything again, or rather continued not to say anything. He kept that up for long enough that my remark disappeared as if I’d never made it. This was obviously to be his show, and his alone. I decided to just wait and let him have it his way.

“Randall,” he said eventually, “you ought to be congratulated. There should be statues to you. You are truly a very stupid man.”

“I try,” I said, and Garcia struck me across the back of the head with a gun. It hurt like fuck.

Vinaldi smiled thinly. “What made you think you could do this?”

“Do what?” I said, blinking my eyes against the pain in my head. “Tell me, Johnny, what is it you think I’m doing?”

“In a way it is reassuring that all my problems come down to you. It is reassuring to me because I thought I had some kind of miniseries-sized revolt on my hands, and now I find all I have is some stupid ex-cop with a death wish. I see you’re fucked up again, which is no surprise to me. Your life is no use to you, is your problem, and tonight Jaz will put you out of your misery.”

I stared back at him then, something beginning to strike me as wrong with this picture. Partly it was what Vinaldi was saying, mainly the atmosphere around me. Grimly celebratory. These guys thought they were putting an end to something here. I didn’t know what that might be.

“What are you talking about?” I asked Vinaldi, genuinely interested. “I haven’t even started trying to take you down. When I do, you’ll know about it and you won’t have time for this kind of conversation. You’ll be too busy digging bullets out of your face.”

I was expecting another blow from behind, but it still surprised me with its force. My head was thrown forward and I resolved to pace myself a little better. Two more like that and I’d be out, and I hadn’t been really rude yet.

“Five of my closest associates have been killed,” Vinaldi said. “And you’re trying to tell me you’ve got nothing to do with it?”

I stared at him for real, then. “Nothing at all,” I said, genuinely astounded.

Vinaldi laughed humorlessly. “Jaz said you’d say that. Me, I thought you’d have the sense to realize the position you’re in and tell the truth, but Jaz, he says you’re stupider than that.”

“Jaz would know,” I said. “He’s the yardstick, after all.”

Another crunch from behind, and this time a firework of stars went off above my right eye. So much for pacing myself. I shook my head and glanced through the glass wall for a moment, trying to refocus on something. It took a while. The crowds outside were still dancing, though there seemed to be some sort of confrontation happening far off at the main door.

I tried to reorient myself around what was going on. It seemed to come down to this: Vinaldi thought I was the guy who was whacking his associates. He had to be fucking crazy.

“You’ve got to be fucking crazy,” I said. “You think I’m going round clipping your friends?”

“I know you are.”

“As you keep pointing out, I’m not a cop anymore. I’ve got no problem with your associates. My only problem is with you.”

“So you try to take me down from the outside. Slow death. I frankly admire the ambition.”

“So do I, but it isn’t me. I wasn’t even in town when the first guys were killed,” I said.

Vinaldi smiled, with real humor this time. “You think I’m going to believe a word you say?”

“You’d better, because it’s true. And if it isn’t me trying to take you down, then it must be someone else.”

Without taking his eyes off me, Vinaldi signaled into the gloom behind him. The henchman who’d frisked me padded out of the darkness, carrying something. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that something was still going on in the club beyond the glass, but then my attention was utterly taken.

On the floor in front of me had been placed a cardboard box.

I leapt toward it, but Jaz and another goon smacked me back into the chair, pinning my arms to stop me from doing it again.

“Who the fuck’s in there?” I shouted, still struggling vainly. “If it’s Jenny or David I’m going to kill every fucking one of you!” Jaz and his colleague laughed good-naturedly; I wasn’t in a position to do anyone any harm.

But the atmosphere changed. Vinaldi looked at me strangely. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m not joking, Vinaldi; if it’s David or Jenny you’re fucking dead.” The Rapt in my head had finally cleared enough for Nanune’s death to strike home; and I was out of control with the realization. “Whatever it takes, you’re dead.”

Vinaldi’s frown intensified. “I know nothing of this David or Jenny. Are you trying to be clever, Randall?”

I stared at him, not knowing what the hell was going on.

Deep breath. “Who’s in the box?” I said.

“Someone you were seen talking to yesterday.” Vinaldi nodded, and the henchman leaned over to open the box. I could see what was in there before he lifted it out, and felt a wave of relief wash over me.

The hood from the Minimart.

“This was delivered an hour ago. That’s why you’re here, Randall. You come and disturb me at my home and I think ‘Let him go, he’s nothing.’ Then this is delivered and I have to reconsider.”

“Johnny,” I said. “Listen to me. I went in this guy’s store, and he made me. That’s all. I didn’t bomb the place and I didn’t cut his head off. I’ve got problems of my own: All I wanted was to get out of town. Then at Howie’s an hour ago I got a box just like this one with the head of a friend of mine in it.”

“Bullshit,” Jaz said. “Look, boss, let me just kill the fuck now. I’ll do it as slow as you want.”

Vinaldi waved Jaz back, looking carefully at me. A bleeper went off somewhere in the background of the room, but no one paid any attention to it. I let my eyes run across the crowd on the other side of the glass, trying to think how the hell I was going to convince him. Something in the view caught my eye, but then it was gone. My mind was racing, trying to fit this into the picture. It wouldn’t fit.

“Something’s going down,” I said rapidly, trying to think as I spoke. “Someone killed Mal, maybe looking for me, maybe not. But they wanted Mal, too, because of some murders he was looking into. I came to you last night because I thought you’d done them, or had them done.”

“I told you, you fuck, I don’t have women murdered except on special occasions.”

“But somebody does, and those two women were tied to you. Maybe the other three were too. Just like it was your guys who got killed—they all come back to you. And the same guy killed Nanune.”

Vinaldi got as far as asking who the hell Nanune was when the bleeper on the desk sounded again, louder and more urgently this time. He turned furiously: “Jesus, there’s four of you here—can’t one of you answer it?” Then he turned back to me, and I saw his not inconsiderable intelligence trying to sift through what I’d just said. Maybe he’d come up with an answer. I hoped so. Perhaps he could let me in on it. “So who—?”

A rustling sound. Not heard, but sensed. In my head, as it had been in the elevator. Neck going cold, I whirled my head to look out the glass, suddenly understanding what I’d noticed through the wall out of the corner of my eye.

“He’s here,” I said.

“Boss,” shouted the guy at the desk. “Something’s getting fucked up out there.” I had time for a sliver of déjà vu and then everything went ballistic. Jaz and the others scrambled for their cannons amidst a blizzard of swearing.

“Who’s here?” Vinaldi asked me, confused, but I didn’t have to answer because the door was opened and the question was answered.

The man with the blue lights in his head.

He calmly shut the door behind him and fired. Jaz spun away, hit in the arm. The other hoods forgot all their training and stared at the man in the doorway, hypnotized by the flashing blue lights.

“Hey, Johnny,” the man said, leveling his gun at Vinaldi. “Looking good. Remember me?”

For the first time in maybe his entire life, Johnny Vinaldi looked utterly dumbfounded. He stared at the man, brow creased, seemingly unaware of the laser sight on his forehead.

“Shutdown,” the man with the blue lights said as he pulled the trigger, and I did something completely unexpected. Unthinkingly bracing my heels against the heavy chair I was sitting in, I launched myself at Vinaldi, smashing into his chair and knocking the pair of us across the floor. The bullet whistled through the air just above us, Vinaldi’s eyes still locked on the man with the lights.

The man appeared to notice me for the first time, and laughed delightedly in recognition. “Hey, Jack’s here, too,” he said merrily, meanwhile holding his gun to the side to shoot Vinaldi’s second henchman. “What a happy coincidence. There’s people who are really pissed at you. You and I got stuff to talk about.”

I felt otherwise, and lunged toward the table, carelessly knocking it over and sending my gun skittering toward the wall. Johnny had regained his composure and was reaching for his own weapon, but it was all far too slow.

The door was kicked open and five of Vinaldi’s men swarmed in—the guys who’d come for me at Howie’s place. The man with the blue lights leapt out of their way like a gymnast, and again I heard a rustling sound at the back of my mind like spiders walking on leaves. But mainly I heard the sound of gunfire as everyone fired at one another at once. I swiped my gun up from the floor, keeping my head below the level of the sofa.

I don’t like enclosed spaces too much. I turned and fired straight at the glass wall.

The result was nothing like the shattering in Howie’s place. That was just straight glass. This window had electronics built into it, and fractured with a grinding folding scream. A jagged sheet broke out of it, tumbling down into the room and revealing the sweating dancers beyond.

I grabbed the overturned table and yanked it onto its side, crawling quickly toward the hole in the glass, flinching against the impacts I expected to come. Everyone seemed to be too busy trying to kill someone else. Vinaldi was crouched by the wall, behind the body of a fallen bodyguard, firing into the melee by the door.

“I’m still going to kill you,” I told him, then jumped through the wall and tumbled into the crowd beyond. None of the dancers seemed to be aware of what was happening, the gunfire inaudible beneath the pounding noise and flickering lyrics. I pushed my way out through the crowd, and when I emerged panting into the street I turned for the elevators and ran.

“Hey—what the hell happened to you?”

I shouldered my way past Nearly and into her apartment. It was dark—lit only by warm strip lighting down at floor level—and neat, cozy, personal. Presumably she didn’t do business here, though a few items dotted around the apartment—the TV, some of the furniture, a rearWindow on the back wall—hinted that she did good business somewhere. Suej was sitting in the middle of the floor, a mug of coffee in front of her. She jumped on seeing me, face aghast.

“What?” I said, and then looked down and realized someone’s blood was spread liberally all over my clothes. “It’s not mine,” I said, putting my arms around Suej, and holding her tight.

When we disengaged I turned to see Nearly holding a mug out to me. “We don’t have time,” I said.

“Sure you do,” she replied, thrusting it into my hands and letting go. I kept hold of it—barely. “You’re not going anywhere now. Just sit down and be quiet.”

Without really knowing how, I found myself in a chair. My entire body ached in a nonspecific way. Rapt crash. My head hurt in several very specific places. But we needed to be moving on. To where, I didn’t know.

Nearly seemed to read my mind. “Where you going to go, big guy? Howie’s okay—we gave him a call. But his place is going to be too hot for a while.”

“We’re putting you at risk by being here,” I said. “I’m not prepared to do that. I don’t even know you.”

“That’s sweet of you and don’t think I don’t appreciate it but I think you’re kind of tired right now and working out what to do next is going to be a high mountain to climb.”

I stared at her, something that she’d said striking a chord.

“While I remember,” Nearly continued apologetically, “Howie asked what he should do with the box. Did you want it kept or anything? Because otherwise it’s kind of gross.”

“What was in the box?” Suej asked. I took one look at her and knew I couldn’t lie.

“Part of Nanune,” I said. “I’m sorry, Suej.”

Her eyes glazed, and then she nodded. “A big part?”

“Big enough,” I said, and then—horrifically—had to stifle a yawn. Suej didn’t seem to notice. My head was feeling strange. Sour adrenaline, I guessed.

“Do you know where David is?” Suej asked, looking at the carpet.

“No,” I said. “But I know who’s got him, and the others.”

“Is he from Safety Net?”

“I don’t know where he’s from,” I said heavily, though I felt I should. Something was still tugging at my mind. It pisses me off, when it does that. I wish it would just come out and speak its piece rather than pussyfooting around in the shadows. Probably the result of too much drugs, too often, for far too long. Kids, don’t live like this at home. I yawned again and realized—something was wrong, I looked down into my mug: My sight was blurring, but I could see that I’d finished the coffee.

“What have you done tome?” I asked querulously.

“Nothing bad, and it wasn’t just my idea,” Nearly said. “Just a sedative.”

“You’re with them,” I said thickly, voice slurring. The walls seemed to be sliding down into the floor.

“I’m not with anyone,” she said, standing and carrying a blanket over to me. “What you see is what you get. Now get some sleep. Your mommies will look after you.”

The last things I saw were Suej sitting on the floor next to me, whispering tunnel talk; and Nearly’s face a little farther away, clear skin and big eyes framed by dark chestnut hair.

“She’s beautiful,” I thought foggily. “Pity she’s killed me.” The thought seemed somehow consistent with life in general.

I woke up shaking violently, but it didn’t last too long. Ten minutes and a cup of coffee scavenged from Nearly’s immaculate kitchen saw me through to the end of it. In a way it was kind of a nostalgic experience, though I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone.

The apartment was empty, but a note in the bathroom told me where they’d gone:

Taken the day off, it said, in a firm hand. Cone shopping on Indigo Drive. Underneath, in Suej’s much less confident scrawl, was added: Come meet us? ps I tole Nearly about things

I showered rapidly, swearing quietly under my breath. Though I was grateful to Nearly for looking after Suej the night before, they shouldn’t have gone out alone. I was also somewhat annoyed about having been knocked out, though even I could tell I was better for it. The face I saw in the mirror didn’t look exactly human, but at least I resembled some allied species. Back in the living room I discovered a pile of men’s clothes neatly laid out, presumably for me. They were my size at least, a black suit and midnight blue shirt. Rather smarter than my usual attire, and I didn’t know where they’d come from, but I put them on under my coat and left the apartment still clutching a second mug of coffee. So what if I was wearing some John’s cast-offs; it didn’t matter to me. And I could hardly cruise Indigo Drive covered in brown splatters of someone else’s blood.

A local elevator took me up to 98, and a short walk got me to the start of the shopping strip. It was eleven o’clock by then, and from the way the crowds were beginning to swell I realized belatedly that it was Saturday. Indigo Drive is kind of a point of honor in the world below the 100 line. In the original MegaMall the two-story 9495 floor had been the most prestigious of the shopping arcades, plumb in the middle of the aircraft. Pretty lanes of bijou shoplets ranged round sweeping highways of outlet stores, dinky little cafés, and restaurants, with not a bar in sight. All the most chichi stores had since migrated up into the shopping floors in the 130s and above, but Indigo Drive was still hanging on in there. It was the best shopping there was without getting a pass to go higher; and things were a hell of a lot cheaper. The stores had resisted the high life fashion of costs lots-LCD panels in clothes which showed in dollars just how expensive they’d been—which meant that they were no use to anyone from above 130. But for people in the 70s-120s, Indigo Drive was the place to go.

I wandered the main streets for an hour, partly looking for the girls, mainly enjoying the brief sensation of not being shot at. I recognized some of the stores; others seemed to have changed, the partial familiarity making me feel as if I’d never been there before. Then a way ahead of me I saw a face in the crowd which looked like Suej’s, and quickened my pace. She disappeared at Nearly’s side into a clothes store, but not so quickly that I couldn’t see her expression: big smile, bright eyes. I stopped hurrying, to give them a little more time, and hung around outside to finish a cigarette.

When I entered the store, I reached without thinking for some MaxWork. Only when I had a small, half-finished device in my hands did I realize what I’d done, and I ground to a halt in the doorway, staring down at a partially constructed nest of chips and components. People tutted as they walked round me, but I barely heard them. I could remember perfectly what I was supposed to do with the stuff in my hands, but I put it back, turned round, and left the store.

When I reached the outside again I stood for a while, staring ahead but not seeing anything as it was. Everything seemed to have changed, as if in some small way the past had suddenly become married to the present. As I stood there, I thought I felt a child run a hand against mine, but when I looked there was no one there. Maybe it was just a coincidence, or perhaps I was finally realizing that was always the way it was going to be. I walked unsteadily to a bench and sat down, trying to avoid looking at the MaxWork bench just inside the store. I was thinking of Henna, and the past, in a way I hadn’t ever really done since things had changed.

Remembering how, like every man alive, I’d trailed round after my woman in clothes stores, gazing dazed with boredom into the middle distance and periodically nodding at stuff that was being shown to me. A handbag; a dress; some shoes. How I’d never been able to tell the difference between them, and how, like all those other men, I’d done MaxWork to ease the tedium.

Fifty or so years ago Arlond Maxen’s father had been following his wife round a store just like this when a very lucrative bulb went off in his head. Maxen had been thinking that he’d do anything at all to make the time pass quicker, and then suddenly realized that he probably wasn’t alone. All these guys, he mused, looking round him at the walking dead, following their women and bored out of their minds: all those wasted man-hours.

He could give them something to do.

So MaxWork was born. A small bench inside every women’s store, with components and half-finished products laid out. You followed your wife or girlfriend into the store, and just picked one of the devices up. In the early days Maxen made sure the kiosks were staffed by eye-candy; after a while it became such a habit that the babes weren’t even necessary. While you trailed around the racks of cloth and leather you did some work on the device; simple, absorbing tasks which anyone could do, picking up from where the last guy had left off. When you left the store you put it back on the bench on the way out, to be picked up by the next boyfriend or husband along. When the devices were finished they were taken away, but there were always new ones to complete.

It was the kind of scheme Howie had been trying to emulate all his life. Perfect, in every way. Relief from tedium for the men, fewer bored sighs for the women to endure—and free labor for the Maxen Corporation, cheaper even than droids. Everybody won, but Cedrif Maxen won most of all. Thirty years later he was the richest man in New Richmond—and now his youngest son had it all.

That’s the history, for those of you who’re interested, but that wasn’t what I was thinking about. Walking into the store had carelessly wiped a cloth across a window blackened and opaque with time. The path of that cloth was still filthy, but just transparent enough to reveal glints on the edges of memories lost in the darkness beyond. I’d tried so hard not to think of any of it. Not even of the horror at the end, just of the times before that Bad things done, and said; things which could never be undone. Not just the bad, either; good and bad memories hurt in different ways, but they hurt just about the same.

At that moment, I would have given anything to walk round a shoe store following Henna’s glee, watching the way her eyes calculated cost, the way her hands reached out to caress and assay, it could never happen, and for a moment I was seized with a distraught desire to go down to 72 and the clothes left in our old apartment; to look at them, touch them, see if I could remember the day when they were bought. To try to take myself back to that day and this time not grunt and yawn, or bury myself in MaxWork, but be there with her and live every minute as it passed. So many minutes, and hours; so many days ignored away. And then suddenly it’s over, and she can never come back, and all that time returns to stay.

At a squeal from the shop door I looked up to see Suej running toward me. It took me a long moment to recognize her. I’d never seen her face looking that happy, and she was wearing different clothes. My cast-offs were gone, and she was wearing a thin summer dress, a subtle print that twisted and changed as she moved. She looked younger, and older; like someone I knew and someone I’d never seen before. Behind her came Nearly, a wry smile on her lips and a different look in her eyes. As Suej thudded into me and wrapped her arms around me I raised an eyebrow at Nearly, and she shrugged.

“Been a good month,” she said.

And then, an afternoon that really felt like summer, though winter was in full force outside. I found I still couldn’t go in the stores, but waited happily enough outside, smoking on benches and standing in doorways, nodding sagely when required. A coat for Suej, at Nearly’s insistence, and a small bag to keep her nonexistent things in. Almost the last of Howie’s money from me, on a pair of shoes’ to go with the dress. Coffee and sandwiches in the square, surrounded by the contentedly weary; Suej’s eyes as they went from bag to bag, alight with acquisitive joy.

We should have been running, or I should have been searching for the rest of the spares. A man I didn’t know had my death on his mind, and the spares didn’t have anyone but me to care about what happened to them. But this was an afternoon I should have had long ago, and while having it now didn’t change anything, at least it was one that was squared away. You have to accept gifts occasionally, because there are some things you can’t give yourself. That afternoon was a small present from the gods, one which was heavily overdue. I took it, and was glad.