Synners

2

The real stone-home bitch about night court was having to stay awake for it.

Sitting at the back of the well-populated courtroom, jammed between some fresh-face named Clarence or Claw and a null-and-void wearing a bail-jumper's Denver Boot, Gina tried to calculate her immediate prospects. Hit-and-run-probably fifty, since she'd only been an attendee, not a conspirator; a hundred if the judge got stoked by the time her turn rolled around. Possession of controlled substances would be another hundred. Public intoxication, disorderly conduct, failure to report a hit-and-run, trespassing, and resisting arrest-call it a hundred and fifty, red-eye special rate, possibly two hundred. The resisting charge was a stone-home joke, as far as she was concerned. She'd only run, she hadn't swung on anybody once she'd been caught. Like it wasn't natural to run like hell when a hyped-up battalion of cops came at you.

Fuck it, what difference did one more charge make, anyway? The fines would clean her out and then some, one more garnishment on her wages, so-fucking-what. All she cared about now was getting back on the street so she could find Mark and take him home. Stupid burnout had let himself get dragged off without a second thought again, and here she was paying the price for it. She wouldn't have been at the goddamn hit-and-run in the first place if she hadn't been looking for him.

She'd started out on the Manhattan-Hermosa strip, what the kids called the Mimosa, part of the old postquake land of the lost. She wasn't old enough to remember the Big One, hadn't even been living in the big C-A when it had hit. The kids who shanked it on the Mimosa didn't remember the quake, either. For all they knew, the old Manhattan Pier and Hermosa Pier and Fisherman's Wharf had always stretched out over dry sand, just to shelter the space cases who squatted under them. Some of the cases probably remembered the Big One. Probably not as many as claimed to.

The piers shouldn't have survived the Big One (which everyone was now saying hadn't been the real Big One after all, just the Semi-Medium One, but that didn't scan as well). Except for part of the old Fisherman's Wharf, though, they were still standing. Not in prima shape, but standing. Not unlike Mark.

Living through the quake and the postmillennial madness that had followed was one way to end up under a pier talking to your toes; taking some of the stuff available on the Mimosa was another. Mark had always been a candidate for a spot in the sand, even back in the early days before all the hard party-time he'd put in had really begun to take its toll. Sometimes she could almost let the fucking burnout go ahead and flush himself down the rabbit hole in his brain. Like someone had said years ago, some of us can cut the funk, and some of us can't.

But she wasn't ready to let him slip away. Whether he was still salvageable or not, whether he was even worth the trouble, she couldn't bring herself to say fuck it and let him go. So she did another night on the Mimosa, poking into shacks and lean-tos, searching under piers, checking out the jammers and scaring off the Rude Boys, looking to take him home, hose him down, and detox him enough to get him through his corporate debut day after tomorrow.

Several of the regulars had said they'd seen him hanging with a hit-and-run caravan headed for Fairfax. Toxed to the red line, no doubt. The stupe didn't even like hit-and-runs, but someone had probably said party-party-party fast enough to blank out any other thoughts, someone like Valjean and the rest of his no-account band. Like any of them needed to play hit-and-run in the Fairfax wasteland.

She'd ripped over to Fairfax as fast as the toy engine in the little two-passenger commuter rental would allow. The fancy rubble of the old Pan Pacific Auditorium had been hard alive and jumping by the time she made it, bangers and thrashers and the pickle stand in business while the hackers ran fooler loops on their laptops to confound surveillance. All the usual crowd you'd find at an illegal party set up fast in a public place, but Mark had already floated off somewhere else, if he'd ever been there at all. Before she could get a new line on him, the cops had come in and busted things up. She had almost sulked herself into a doze when most of the crowd that had been waiting ahead of her rose en masse to stand before the judge. To Gina's right a guy with a handcam climbed over two rows of seats for a better angle.

"Another clinic?" the judge said wearily, glancing at the monitor on her bench.

"Three subgroups, Your Honor," said the prosecutor. "Doctors, staff, and patients."

"At this hour?" The judge shrugged. "Oh, but of course. Doctors never keep regular hours. And if you weren't operating round the clock, some of your patients might reconsider. I wish you people would perpetrate insurance fraud in some other jurisdiction. Like Mars. Priors?"

"We'll get to that, Your Honor," said the prosecutor hurriedly as a few hands started to go up.

Gina sat forward, her fatigue momentarily forgotten. Insurance fraud wasn't exactly the kind of thing that called for a raid in the middle of the night. The litany of charges was boring enough: conspiracy to commit fraud, fraud, unnecessary implantation procedures-the usual for a clinic that put in implants under pretense of treating depression, seizures, and other brain dysfunctions. Just another feel-good mill, big fucking deal. She started to drift off.

"… unlawful congress with a machine."

Her eyes snapped open. A murmur went through the courtroom, and somebody smothered a giggle. The guy with the handcam had climbed over the spectators' rail and was panning the group carefully.

"And what, Mr. Prosecutor, constitutes unlawful congress with a machine?" the judge asked.

"It should come up on your screen in a moment, Your Honor."

The judge waited and court waited. Several long moments later the judge turned away from the monitor in disgust. "Bailiff! Get downstairs right now and inform central we're having technical difficulties. Do not call. Go, physically, and tell them in person."

Next to Gina, Clarence or Claw gave a loud, showy, fake sneeze. The judge banged her gavel. "We can cure the compulsively comedic here, you know. Six months for contempt may be old-fashion aversion therapy, but it works, and we don't have to bill your insurance company, either." The judge's glare fell on the prosecutor. "You have been warned repeatedly about inputting evidence and confiscated material without following proper decontamination procedures."

"The procedures were followed, Your Honor. Apparently they need updating."

"Who was responsible for the storage of this data?" the judge asked, surveying the group sternly. A hand went up timidly from somewhere in the middle.

"Your Honor," said the defense attorney, stepping forward quickly. "Data storage personnel cannot be held responsible for viral contamination and spread. I cite Vallio vs. MacDougal, in which it was determined MacDougal had no culpability for an infection that may have already existed."

The judge sighed. "Whose data was it, then?"

"Your Honor," said the defense attorney, even more quickly, "the owner of the data cannot be cited without establishing-"

The judge waved the woman's words away. "I get it, I get it. Viruses form all on their own, input themselves without a human agent, and nobody's ever responsible."

"Your Honor, even leaving aside the issue of self-incrimination, it's very hard these days to prove that any virus in question was not preexisting and inert until triggered by-"

"I'm familiar with the problem, thank you very much, Ms. Pelham. This doesn't alleviate the immediate situation."

"Move for a recess, Your Honor."

"Denied."

"But the virus-"

"Counselor Pelham," the judge said wearily, "it may come as a shock to people of your generation, but courts were not always computerized, and it was not only possible but routine to conduct business without being on-line. We will continue, using hard copy as needed; that is why we maintain court clerks and court reporters. I still want to know what this 'unlawful congress with a machine' charge is supposed to be." She turned her gaze on the prosecutor again.

"Your Honor," said the prosecutor smoothly, "this particular charge also has charges of breaking and entering and industrial espionage attached to it. The complainant wishes to have all proceedings in this matter kept confidential. Permission to clear the courtroom, Your Honor."

"And who is this complainant?" the judge asked.

"Your Honor, the complainant wishes to keep that information confidential, too. For the time being, that is."

"Answer the question, counselor. Who is the complainant?"

Gina glanced around for someone who looked ready to bolt, but the only other people left in court had been pulled in at the hit-and-run with her. And the guy with the handcam, who had been forced back over the rail into the spectators' area by the other bailiff.

"Permission to approach the bench, Your Honor," said the prosecutor.

The judge nodded. "Granted. This had better be good."

They conferred for several moments while the group from the clinic shifted around, nervous but silent. The guy with the handcam was half sitting on the rail, looking sourly at the gag-sticker the bailiff had slapped over his lens.

"Court finds confidentiality will serve the public good," the judge said abruptly. "Before we clear the court, who else is waiting and why?"

The other bailiff herded the clinic group off to one side as Gina straggled up with Clarence or Claw, and the loser clunking his Boot on the floor, and the rest of the hit-and-run people, to stand before the bench. The judge cut off the reading of the charges.

"Is that it? No first-degree murder, no other unlawful-congress-with-a-machine perpetrators? Very well. The court is dismissing the charges against you," she said, her gaze resting momentarily on Gina, "even though I know a few of you have quite a long list of priors. Since we have managed to apprehend none of the conspirators, and since we have more important fish to fry here tonight, the court is letting you off with full knowledge that you will all undoubtedly be back here on some other night. What's one conviction more or less? Except you," she added, pointing at the loser with the Denver Boot. "You can spend the night canned, and we'll pick up the rest of your story in the morning."

Gina had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning. It didn't quite work. The judge shook her head and motioned for the room to be cleared.

"So, you up to do it again?"

Gina looked up at Clarence-or-Claw's smiling face. Didn't this guy ever get tired? Whatever he ran on, it had to be better than most of the stuff you could get from a hit-and-run pickle stand.

"I'm up for getting the fuck outa here," she said, brushing past him. He trotted down the shiny hall after her.

"No, really," he said, in a half whisper. "I know where it's happening right now, hit-and-run, better than the one where they caught us."

"Get the fuck outa my face." She walked faster, pushing through the fatigue that was weighing more heavily on her by the moment.

"Hey, wait-"

She swung around a corner, half turning to slap at him, when something smashed into her, and she went down hard on the polished floor. Sheets of paper rained down and scattered. There were frantic footsteps as someone chased after them.

Pushing herself up to a sitting position, she rubbed the side of her face and then blinked at what seemed to be a solid wall of business suits. She looked up.

"Mount Rushmore," she said. "Little far west of home for this time of year?"

The faces stared down at her impassively, three men and a woman. Attack of the Living Suits. She shrugged and pulled herself up on the nearest one, using his pockets for handholds. He didn't move or change expression, and she was sorry immediately. His face was familiar. At the moment she couldn't remember what it was associated with, but it couldn't have been anything good. The look in his eyes said he knew her, too, and he didn't like her, a lot.

Fuck him. She ran a hand through her dreadlocks and went into a too-toxed-to-live act. "Gotta stop having these crazy-damn dreams," she muttered, and elbowed her way through the middle of the group.

She got down to the first floor without further incident and also without Clarence or Claw or whoever he was. On the way out some instinct made her divert to the doors right of center, so she had a perfect view, without being seen herself, of Hall Galen and Lindel Joslin getting out of the unmarked limo at the curb. The young guy who got out just after them she didn't recognize. But the last guy out was Visual Mark.

The young guy hesitated at the bottom of the steps as the others, including Mark, started up. Gina drew back farther against the wall as Galen paused to turn to him.

"Come on, Keely," he said in that oozy voice that had always reminded Gina of a perverted baby. "You think they come out and fetch state's evidence off the front steps?"

Joslin put one skeletal hand to her mouth and gave a giggle that only dogs should have heard. Gina still couldn't buy the skinny bitch-twitch as an implant surgeon. Anyone lying on a table who saw that coming on with an implant needle had to be stone-home crazy or dead not to jump up and run away screaming.

"You said I'd have a signed hard copy of the deal by now," the young guy said. "I don't see one." He was even younger than Gina had first thought, barely not a kid; an ex-kid.

"S'waiting for you inside with our lawyers."

Gina winced; only a kid would buy Galen doing casual. You could practically see the words stalking around on stilts. Run, fool, she thought; what the fuck, maybe they don't think you've got the nerve so they won't have anyone to chase you.

"You said I'd have a hard copy in my hands before I ever set foot inside," the guy insisted, still holding his ground. But not very well; he was going to let them reel him in any minute. Gina didn't really want to watch, but there was no way to leave without being seen.

"Now, Keely," Galen said, with the lip-smack that had always made Gina want to pop his chocks, "we said we'd pull for you, but there's no way you can speed up a transcription or a hardcopy machine. They can only chug along so fast, you know."

The kid looked down and mumbled something about a hard copy again.

Galen dropped all pretense of congeniality and stumped down the stairs to stand two steps above the kid and just an inch taller. "There's a whole courtroom and an impatient judge waiting. We're going in anyway. You can go in turned over, or you can go in and get turned inside out. It doesn't really make a whole lot of difference to me personally."

Mark yawned noisily, and for a moment he seemed to be looking through the shadows directly at her. Gina tensed; then his gaze wandered past her. She slumped back against the wall. Even if he had seen her, she probably hadn't registered as anything but more of the video playing in his head. Hell, he probably didn't know where he was himself. When I get ahold of you, motherfucker, Gina thought, oh, when I get ahold of you, won't be nothing left but shit and blood. He didn't look as if there were all that much more to him now-skin and bones, with lank brown Jesus-length hair, a broken nose, dazed, faded green eyes, and a voice permanently buried in gravel. But Mark never had looked like much, even in the early days when they'd first been in the video business together, when it had just been her and Mark and the Beater and a revolving cast of others, hammering simulations into rock-video visions. But that had been back when the Beater had still been the Beater, and Mark had still been a banger instead of a burnout, and Hall Galen the Boy Mogul was still working on hitting the potty with it. And Joslin was torturing hamsters, most likely.

As if Gina's errant thought had activated her, Joslin came to life and went down the few steps to Mark. Don't touch him, bitch, Gina said silently, her mouth moving unconsciously with the words as Joslin's dead white hand came to roost on Mark's shoulder. Get your claw off him, bitch, that meat is mine.

Joslin's hand stayed there, as if she meant to anchor him against a sudden gust of wind that would blow him away. The way he was going these days, it wouldn't have taken much more than a light breeze. But he still had fire enough to make killer video. Not the only reason she wasn't ready to let him go yet, but it was the one that stood when she couldn't get anything else to stand up with it.

She probably still wouldn't be ready to let him go when he finally went, and he was going. They all knew it, her, the Beater, even Mark himself, in some far, as-yet-intact recess of his burning-out head. Galen knew it as well as anyone, and what he wanted in night court with some old wreck teetering with one foot already off his boogie-board, and an ex-kid who obviously didn't want to be state's evidence, and a bitch-twitch whose specialty was brain implants, was one of the better questions of the night.

But the best question was what the fuck was Mark doing there all on his own without a word to her. She and Mark were in it together, always had been. They'd been in it together in the beginning, and when Galen had bought most of the video-production company out from under the Beater, and they'd been in it together when Galen had let the monster conglomerate take EyeTraxx over from him, and they were supposed to be in it together the day after tomorrow, when they were due to show up for their first full day working for the monster conglomerate-

The realization came just as the kid gave in and let Galen take him slowly up the steps. That bad-news, familiar face in the courthouse: Somebody Rivera, a minor honcho with the conglomerate, Diversifications, Inc. He'd been around to EyeTraxx a time or three, sniffing at this and that, taking a survey of what his company had bought itself. She'd managed to dodge him every time, but she'd never kidded herself. Rivera had known who she was and what she was, and if he'd really wanted to, he'd have found her no matter where she was. Anyone could. Just follow the trail of court-ordered garnishments on her income.

Surprised that fucker, she thought. What little satisfaction she could take in that fact was short-lived. Ace fuckers like Rivera didn't like being surprised. She'd pay for it.

Or Mark would. The sight of him disappearing through the doors at the top of the steps sent a wave of goose bumps along her scalp, around each dreadlock. She had a sudden, wild idea of following him, hiding out till he emerged from the court and then jumping his ass, but there was no telling how long he'd be in there. Besides, Rivera would probably have someone looking out for her now. She'd wait for him at his place.

Something moved above her in the darkness, and for a moment she thought Rivera had already sent a goon for her. Then she saw the outline of the handcam against the darker shadows.

"Pretty interesting scene, huh?" he said. "You seemed to find it pretty interesting, anyway." He came down a couple of steps.

"Got that gag-sticker off okay, then?" she asked.

"Don't happen to know any of those people, do you?"

She blew out a short breath. "You?"

"I asked you first." He laughed a little. "But what the hell. Some of them. Your turn."

"Some of them," she echoed.

"It would be nice to know where we overlap." He moved down to the step just above her. "Can I interest you in a well-dressed cup of coffee?"

Gina wiped her hands over her face. "Right now, you couldn't interest me stark naked in a bathtub of lime Jell-O. Who are you working for?"

He hesitated, and she could practically feel him deciding whether to lie or not. Mark contended that extreme fatigue would do that to you, give you such heightened perception to nonverbal clues as to be all but telepathy. Assuming you could stay awake enough for it to register.

"I gypsy," he said at last. "It's a good living-"

"If you give good tabloid," she said.

He had a sexy laugh, even at this hour. "-if you can find slots for your stuff. I don't think I'd have much trouble finding a slot for this, if I knew a little more about what it was."

Gina yawned. "I don't think you're gonna find a slot for any of that. I think you're gonna find that suddenly nobody gives a fuck about raids on feel-good mills, that it's just another dog-bites-man story and nobody needs it, not even the most desperate tabloid net at the bottom of your market barrel."

"Is that so." No sexy laugh now; no expression in his voice at all.

"And then," she went on, "I think sometime real soon, you're gonna try uploading or downloading, and you'll find a virus has run through your entire file storage and chomped every second bit into garbage before it ran right into your handcam and told it to fuse itself. And maybe you'll have the bad cess to have passed the fucker on to one of your cherished markets, and they'll hand deliver a lawsuit while you're still standing around trying to figure out what happened to the guts in your cam. I think you could even find out that your insistence on scoping out news is classified as a case of obsessive-compulsive disorder, and they recommend you be treated with implant therapy. And the next thing you know, you won't care about what's news anymore. Is that too high up in the stupidsphere for you?"

"You sure about all that?" he asked evenly.

"No." She yawned again. "The only thing I'm sure of is they put a gag-sticker on your lens and the judge cleared the courtroom. Everything you've got is illegal as hell, and you'd go to the can just for attempting to sell it, so they probably wouldn't get to you until your sentence was up."

"You seem to know a lot about this," he said, leaning in a little closer.

"I don't know dick. I'm dead, and I'm going home to lie down decently until it's time to go to work."

"And who do you work for?"

Gina jerked a thumb at the now-empty steps. "Them." She turned and went down the stairs, leaving him to chew on that, if he could.

She was too tired to be able to tell whether she'd really thrown the fear of God into him or not. With any luck he'd at least bury the stuff if he didn't flush it. And without any luck, it wasn't her worry. She had big problems of her own.

And she was still going to jump Mark's skinny, burned-out ass. She was really going to pop his chocks.