Metak Fatigue Part 16

The Mole would have to wait, if he only would.

Katiya answered on the second knock. The door to the second-floor apartment swung open with a rattle of locks and chains, and her eye appeared in the crack. When she saw who it was, she opened the door wider and let him in.

M. looked as though she had just woken from a deep Her hair was tangled; her eyes were bagged. She ""Nill a cotton nightshirt that barely reached the tops of @44T41*,. A silver pendant shaped like a miniature ingot from a chain about her neck - the only item of z, Roads had seen her wear. guided him into the lounge and collapsed onto an sofa, rubbing her eyes. The room was threadbare: A, sofa and one companion chair, a small table; no no carpet. Damp had stained the ceiling M, in places and made the paint peel from the walls. Rsr;@ air smelled of closed s.p.a.ces, of claustrophobia. "I'm sorry to disturb you," he said, standing in the middle of the room. "I don't mind." She curled her legs beneath her, u her head on the sofa's ma.s.sive armrest. ChildWke, she watched him. She seemed less nervous on her ivis ground.

He sat down in the other chair. "I only came to talk." "Have you found Cati?"

"No. Has he contacted you?"

No. She shook her head, eyes liquid. Silence claimed them again. He waited for her to speak - for ht sensed that she wanted to - but she didn't. After a minute or two, he broke the silence again: "I'm sorry. Can I have a cup of water?"

She went to another room without a word, and returned with a small gla.s.s.

Roads placed it on the arm of the chair without drinking from it. She watched with interest as he removed his contact lenses and dropped them into the water. They drifted to the bottom of the gla.s.s like curious jellyfish, and stared vacantly back at her.

t, I know all about the way Cati is," he said, raising his naked eyes. "But that's not why I'm here."She nodded, understanding the gesture for what it was: an exchange of secrets, and therefore of trust.

He continued: "I simply want to know more about him - where he came from, how you met, what he does, and so on. I need to understand him before I can help him."

She nodded again, and her eyes wandered. They drifted aimlessly across the walls, the floorboards, ceiling - everywhere but at him - as she retreated into her memories. When she spoke, her voice was soft. "I first met him ten years ago, by accident. I was . . .

working ... for a man called Jules. Had been since I turned thirteen. He kept me in money, as long as I did my bit. He looked after me, in his way."

Roads remembered the scars under her armpits. She had probably been a prost.i.tute, enslaved by addiction to her pimp. Some sort of tailored drug, perhaps, brewed in the dark quarters of the city; maybe even one that had heightened her s.e.xual response, inducing a volition in the act which would have made the degradation acceptable at the time - but even more abhorrent, later. ,Jules was a s.a.d.i.s.t, high on a power trip," she went on. 640ccasionally he'd get paranoid and freak out for a day. We - I wasn't the only one working for him - we knew when to avoid him if things looked like they were going bad. Still, he'd sometimes catch us off-guard. He'd beat the s.h.i.t out of anyone handy until they confessed to whatever it was that had him in a spin.

He'd make it up later - with real doctors, real sympathy - but we all knew he'd killed a girl once, and kept out of his way as much as we could. "Late one night, I was almost home when he caught me by surprise. I hadn't even made it through the front door when he was suddenly there, waving a knife, threatening to kill me. I tried to run, but he was too fast.

cl- hit me and I fell down. He kicked me a couple of I ust to hear me scream, and went to cut my throat t, the knife. "Then this guy appeared out of nowhere: it was Cati, I didn't know him then. He grabbed Jules and sloiv him to one side like a rag doll, then came back to .14;. if I was okay.

I was more afraid of Cati than Jules, tried to crawl away. His eyes were like nothing I'd 'Av seen before. But he wouldn't let me go. Jules went o him with the knife - I guess he'd only been stunned - I [email protected] Cati knocked him out. Didn't kill him, just put him tolA I with one punch. I'd seen Jules fight three men and 'I.lu when he went crazy, but Cati was so much stronger . he knew exactly where to hit. . ."

She hesitated for a second to clear her throat. Roads waited patiently, guessing that she was unused to talking such lengths, especially about the life that she had secret for so long. "I was hurt," she went on. "Jules had broken a rib where he'd kicked me, and must have cut me at some stage without me noticing. Cati took me to his hideout in a wrecked Rosette cab and fixed me up - wouldn't let me go, wouldn't answer any of my questions. Just looked after me until I was better."

Her eyes clouded over, and Roads knew what she was remembering. How long had Cati held her? Long enough for her ribs to knit, at least, and for withdrawal symptoms to begin; long enough, perhaps, for them to pa.s.s. Depending on the particular drug she had been .addicted to, her physical distress may well have been acute.

Until she was better, she had said. In more ways than one.

"I don't know how long he looked after me; maybe a week or more. In all that time he didn't say a word. Isoon worked out that he was mute, that he couldn't speak. When I was able to, I tried to write questions on paper, but he couldn't read either. He could only understand a little speech, and make himself understood in return with his hands. When I was well, he made it clear that I was free to go. "But I didn't want to. He didn't frighten me any more. He had healed me, freed me, saved my life. I think I loved him even then, although all I understood was s.e.x. I wanted to thank him that way, to know him better, but he wouldn't. He wouldn't touch me. "I cried when he showed me why. I thought that it had been ... taken away from him. That he had been castrated. It wasn't fair, for either of us. "But I stayed anyway. He didn't really want me to g05 and I eventually got used to the idea. He looked after me, and I looked after him. I was the only person in the world that hadn't run away from him and didn't want to turn him in. I was the only one who had loved him in all his life."

She cried then, letting free the emotion that had been acc.u.mulating during the days alone. He watched her silently, building a mental picture of their relationship.' She needed someone non-threatening and strong, he someone who could accept what he was. Without communication, without even a s.e.xual bridge, it was hard to imagine any relationship succeeding; yet theirs obviously had, cemented by needs that transcended the everyday.

And was it so strange? She had never had a normal relationship. If one could accept the idea of s.e.x without love, why was love without s.e.x so unimaginable?

"We lived in the hideout for a month until Jules tracked us down and tried to get me back," Katiya went on wiping her eyes with the back of a hand. "We IM a, elsewhere to avoid a scene. Cati doesn't like to people. Jules kept coming for over a year, until one rivals killed him in a fight. Only then could we settle down." She looked around her, reliving her :14is the apartment. When her eyes returned to him, J76 , were sad, but composed. "He's been gone over three days now," she said. "The @A reason why he wouldn't come back would be fl", *11F.*, it's dangerous for me somehow; he's like that, protective. But if he's in trouble, then it's not he caused. He's the most gentle man I've ever a I ost a child. He wouldn't hurt anyone ... would m A.

Roads thought carefully before saying anything: "He N not have wanted to, but I think he has."

She Wiped her hands on her nightshirt and met his [email protected], "I'm sorry. I'll answer any questions you want to A thing to help bring him back. Life. without him ny wouldn't be worth living." "When we first met," Roads began, "you said that Cati occasionally left during the night." "Only recently. In the last month or so." "Could you tell me exactly when?"

She nodded and went to get something from another room. When she returned, she flicked through the pages of a small, bound diary and called out dates.

Roads committed them to memory. At least two of the dates matched with his recollection of Roger Wiggs' file.

On these two nights that Cati had disappeared, a supporter of the Rea.s.similation Bill had been killed elsewhere in Kennedy.

It wasn't proof, but it was enough to convince him. With a sinking feeling, he continued his interrogation of Katiya:How did Cati occupy his time? What did he do? Nothing. Before she had met him, he had lived by stealing food at night - usually after curfew, when the chance of detection was small. During one such raid, he had come across Katiya. She didn't like stealing, and neither did he, so she had ultimately found conventional employment. He stayed home during her shifts; they kept each other company at other times.

How? just by being together. Sometimes she'd talk to him, irrespective of how much he actually understood. Other times she'd teach him how to cook, or to use his strength productively. Recently, they had discovered Tai Chi in an old book; Cati had a natural affinity for the ancient discipline.

Did he ever seem to drift off, as though he was listening to voices she could not hear?

No. Was she aware of the existence of the control-code? No. She didn't know what he was talking about. Had he ever acted irrationally? Harmed her in any way?

No. The only time she had seen him use physical force was against Jules.

Did Cati know anything about the Rea.s.similation? Had he expressed an opinion regarding it?

No. She didn't think he truly understood what was going on. He saw the world on an interpersonal level, .and had difficulty with the more abstract concepts of governments and governmental departments.

Did she know when he had first come to Kennedy, or how?

No. She a.s.sumed that he had crept past the automatic machine-gun emplacements somehow. They were supposed to be impenetrable - and Roads a.s.sured her [email protected] m, was more or less the case - but she didn't put past Cati's superhuman abilities. [email protected] Cati told her anything at all about his past? NrcH V, e was unable to speak. "But I guessed a little," she added, "from the way he ike him when I was Iheard stories about people I [email protected] before I skipped school and hitched with Jules. must have been in the army at one stage, or To be honest, I try not to think about it, just L him the way he is." "So he can only communicate with you by hand ii, and gestures?" "Yes. Except for when he has something really M., - to tell or show me." "And what does he do then?" "He'll draw me pictures." "Can I see them?" [email protected] She hesitated for a second, then went to get them. She . I with a cardboard box two-thirds full of sheets A IL paper torn from notebooks. On every one was a M IFIexvio picture, usually in black and white.

The drawings were crude - minimalist in a child-like I - but competent. Cati conveyed information, not detail. People were outlines possessing few features.' Only Katiya herself was drawn with care, as though she was the one real person in the world. Kennedy was portrayed as a series of empty boxes with blank s.p.a.ces between them.

All in all, the pictures concerned events that Cati had seen and did not understand, or things that were important to him. There were a lot of pages to glance through, although less than might have been expected for ten years' work. Roads browsed through them all, hoping there might be something useful among the ma.s.s of detail:Katiya in their home on Old North Street; the bent span of Patriot Bridge; two men arguing, one holding a gun; a woman with a small child in a pram; two dogs mating; an object that he did not at first recognise, then realised was the necklace around Katiya's neck. "He gave me that when we first moved here," she said, noticing the picture in his hands. Without embarra.s.sment, she added: "He doesn't understand the idea of bond contracts, so this is the closest I'll get to a wedding ring. I never take it off."

Roads continued browsing. The further he went, through the box, the more yellow the pictures became. The last fifty were especially brittle, and obviously drawn as a series - telling a story of sorts, perhaps. There were images from Cati's life before Kennedy: the War, the Dissolution, other dark-skinned men that could only have been his fellow CATIs, things that Katiya would not have understood without knowing more about his background.

Detail was especially spa.r.s.e in this sequence, and Roads remembered with a shock that Cati must have been no more than five years old at the time these events took place.

Five years old, and already a killer. Roads found it hard to imagine what Cati's thought processes must have been like. Human? Mechanical? Or alien - different in an entirely new way? Certainly the things that he had been compelled to record in his pictures were atypical of the everyday person's concerns: no friends, no scenery, no joy. just facts, one after the other, as interminable and impersonal as the pages of a calendar.

And yet, strangely, Cati was human enough to feel love.

Then Roads reached the final picture in the box. Not the first picture drawn, for it was clear the box had been over the years. Expecting it to be just 014 in the series, he turned it over ...

froze. Katiya noticed the abrupt change in his expression.

Irl, is it. Roads held it up to the light so she could see. "Do ot know who this is?"

No. Someone Can met, I guess. Is he important?" "I think so." He turned the picture around to study it *61. The sudden sinking feeling in his stomach was fill ITT-1 only by annoyance at not suspecting sooner.

It was a portrait of a man - someone Cati had known well, for it was drawn with surprising The man's features were irregular, twisted; his =11 and face were completely bald. Most telling of all, the man was portrayed only from the neck up. And in the picture, Keith Morrow was smiling.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

2:45 p.m.

"Keep them out!"

The cry rang out across the crowd like a profanity at a wedding. Barney studiously ignored it as she patrolled the perimeter of her allocated area - nodding at fellow officers, smiling at children, making her presence felt in a dozen small ways. The best way, she knew, to prevent sticky situations was simply to be there. Not only would it have been impossible to silence every dissenting voice, but it might even have been counter-productive. Many a gathering had inflamed into riot as a result of overzealous policing.

She only hoped that being there would be enough. The crowd had begun showing signs of restlessness half an hour earlier, as three o'clock drew near.

Bunched against the Gate, it spilled along the main road into the city like water behind a dam. All in all, perhaps twenty thousand people had turned up to watch the arrival of the RUSAMC. The straight, grey line of the eastern arterial freeway split the ma.s.s of heads in two, aimed like an arrow for the centre of the Rosette. The road was lined with RSD officers, plus several squads of MSA troops, conspicuous in their black uniforms.

Although the occasional anti-Rea.s.similation cry did nothing to ease the tension, the greatest threat came is small-time agitators eager to create a stir. Groups dotted the crowd, jostling people nearby 44 for something to do. Easily bored, yet easily [email protected] by novelty in a city where nothing had for decades, they waited just as nervously as the Ia4c around them. Occasionally this nervousness itself in short-lived squabbles that needed to be V with quickly before they developed into anything serious.

She kept one hand at her side at all times, within easy 11, of her radio. If there were serious troublemakers WM- there, she would be ready. She also kept a close eye for anyone in an overcoat, sungla.s.ses and hat, half- . -7 a glimpse of bright redskin burning under the sunlight. If Cati did appear, she had no idea what she . possibly do to stop him. Neither she nor her squad Was armed with anything more deadly than a baton. I At two fifty-five, a m.u.f.fled cheer went up from the people closest to the Wall. The cheer echoed through the crowd, returned stronger than before from those further 7 up the road, then died. A false alarm, Barney a.s.sumed, noting that the people watching from rooftops nearby - and therefore able to see over the Wall - had failed to take up the cry.

Yet, regardless, her pulse quickened. She was as human as the rest, just as unsure about what the Reunited States might do to the city in which she had lived her entire life. Stedman's arrival would bring Rea.s.similation one step closer. Once he was here, there would be no turning back.

And once the RUSAMC was in the city, Roads' time would be almost up. He ha a ready lost the cases - regardless of his stubborn pursuit of Cati. Given the Reunited States' firm stand on blomodifications, a Humanity Trial would not be far behind.She wondered how she would have felt if her father had been in his shoes. No less confused, certainly. Everything she had taken for granted had been turned upside down in less than twenty-four hours.

Taking a deep breath, and trying not to think about the future, Barney settled back on her heels to wait.

At exactly three o'clock, a stronger cry went up as the Wall's automatic defence systems were deactivated. Warning lights that had flashed upon its summit for as long as she could remember suddenly died along the arc before her. The background hum of generators gradually ebbed and died. - Without consciously realising it, Barney inched forward to find a better vantage-point. As she did so, she became aware of a new sensation. Like a subsonic, the faint rumbling eluded her actual hearing, making its presence felt in the bones of her skull instead. Puzzled, she glanced around her, catching the eye of one of her squad. "That's something I haven't heard for years," he said, sticking a finger in his ear. "What is it?" "Heavy machinery, acoustically-dampened." The officer took off his cap and brushed back his grey hair. "And lots of it."

Barney turned back to the Gate, wishing she was with the MSA guards on top of the Wall. The sound set her teeth on edge. More than anything she wanted to see - and feared - what was waiting Outside to be let in.

Then, silently beneath the rumble and the buzz of voices, the Gate swung open, sliding on runners still smooth after years of disuse. The gap widened metre by metre until it reached its full twenty-metre extension. And when the way was clear, the vanguard of the RUSAMC convoy entered the city.

crowd fell back as one in the face of what before it. First came four pairs of anti-tank V, launchers. Ma.s.sive, six-wheeled machines a dark olive, they crept forward like insects at a walking pace, completely automated. The stings of C4.Imissiles pointed to the horizon over the heads of 4 @i- crowd; a variety of optical sensors mounted on their flanks impa.s.sively regarded the sea of people,

41.

for possible targets. Next came -person nel carriers, each carrying fifty ONIGM-Irelt4d.. The RUSAMC troops stood firmly to saluting the crowd. Their uniforms were =1 khaki, as they had been a century ago; only a 4,, slight changes, that no doubt meant a great deal, WMI-Mr M-- o the soldiers of this army from those of the 001.1 that had preceded it.

There followed an impressive variety of combat craft: ground-effect skimmers mounted with machine-guns; jeeps loaded with anti-aircraft sh.e.l.ls; tanks armed with pulse-lasers and sonics; ground-to-air hybrids that looked part-jeep, part-helicopter; and many others outside Barney's experience. Troops rode in the vehicles or marched alongside them, as disciplined as the machinery they accompanied.

Barney watched in awe as the procession rumbled by. The Reunited States of America Military Corps had arrived in style - she couldn't argue with that.

She had expected an army of refurbished left-overs from the old regime, not this bewildering display of newly-minted weaponry. Kennedy Polis wouldn't last a day against the might of such an invading force.

Of course, she reminded himself, this was exactly the point General Stedman was trying to make.

Barney noted with surprise that General Stedman himself hadn't appeared. She would have expected thefigurehead of a peaceful invasion to ride in an open vehicle at the fore.

Perhaps, she thought, his absence implied a lack of confidence, or trust.

Either way, it was a slightly ominous sign.

Gradually, the initial display of brute force mellowed into one more sophisticated. Unarmed troops marched in file, flanked by security androids.

Spindly snipers barely as tall as an average person dodged and weaved among the troops, nimble and well-coordinated on two legs, their red "eyes"

flickering and darting. Surveillance robots dodged between marching feet like skinny, sixlegged rabbits, startling adults and delighting children by occasionally ducking into their midst.

Robots. Barney hadn't expected such advanced technology even in her wildest dreams - although with biomodification outlawed,there was a tactical niche to be filled. If people couldn't be given the capabilities of machines, a machine with the manoeuvrability of a human was the logical alternative.

But not even the old USA could have built Als with the required sophistication small enough to fit into the cranial cavity of one of the "rodents". Each robot would be linked to some sort of central processor, she guessed - a separate vehicle. She kept a careful eye out for such a control van, keen to grasp even the slightest weakness to this overpoweringly superior force. It would be large, probably covered in antennae and, by its very nature, vulnerable. If someone were to destroy the centre, the robotic proportion of the RUSAMC would be effectively wiped out.

It was a comforting hope that the force arrayed before her might have some weakness, no matter how small.

The procession of troops ended suddenly. The tramp of boots faded, leaving another peculiar sound in its wake: a buzzing, the rasp of a distant chainsaw. The crowd %Ilrq =1 to itself, curious to see what was coming. Nma it finally arrived, Barney's air of cautious _M4 Shattered, leaving her unsure what to think. P Roje;z.- vehicles glided through the Gate. All three were M*Mt;m and painted a dull black; a circular coat of N [email protected] in blue and gold was their only decoration. The h ;i-twu were no larger than tanks and might have been The third was as large as a moderate a chain of linked structures similar to a desert riftwot, There were no antennae to be seen, but Barney A nonetheless that this was the control van. It C ompletely undefended. Most incredible of all was the fact that none of the Ww appeared to have any means of propulsion.

spines pointed downward and at odd angles from belly of each craft; strange energies stirred the dust tii the road beneath. The nasal buzzing grew louder as approached. All three vehicles floated one metre above the earth. The crowd fell silent. As Barney watched, a hatch on the top of the foremost "caravan"

opened and a familiar face rose into view: General Stedman, the leader of the RUSAMC envoy, at last. He was an imposing figure, even from a distance: at least two metres high and solidly built, he possessed a full head of grey hair and light-brown, weathered skin; his face was stern behind its smile. Barney sensed indefatigability radiating from the man.

The General nodded in greeting at the crowd around him and raised a hand to wave. Half the crowd cheered; more than a few remained speechless. Only a small proportion dared to boo.

One of these latter, taking the unenviable role of David in the face of such an invincible Goliath, actuallythrew a rock. The stone, larger than Barney's fist, arced through the air toward the control van. "Kick them out!"

Stedman's eyes followed the stone, unconcerned. Had it continued unchecked, it would have missed the General by a metre or so and struck the hull of the van.

Instead, it was suddenly deflected downward into the ground by an invisible force, and shattered harmlessly into fragments.

The crowd stirred. A squad of RSD officers moved in to apprehend the rock-thrower. Stedman, untouchable behind the invisible defences of the control van, smiled more widely and began to wave.

Only then, as the caravan drifted past, did Barney remember her promise to call Roads. "Phil?" she subvocalised. "Are you watching this?"

A moment pa.s.sed before he replied, his voice m.u.f.fled but clear through the cyberlink: "No. I've been busy. What's happening?"

Not sure whether he would believe her, she described the arrival of the RUSAMC at the city gates. When she reached the floating vehicles that had just pa.s.sed, she realised she lacked the words to summarise it accurately.

"Field-effects," supplied Roads. "Force feedback, levitation, boundary-blurring, whatever. You can use them to do anything from float a house to make its walls invisible - even build it out of energy alone, if you like. The technology was talked about during the War, although I never saw it in actibn." "And that's what they're using?" Barney shook her head. "If you'd told me, I wouldn't have believed you. I never dreamed such things existed."

"They might not have, until now. Stedman or his predecessors must've dug the plans out of the old bunkers."

ure, 'Thank G.o.d. I was half-expecting you to say: 'S were everywhere when I was a kid. Every home had "No. Not at all. We -Hang on." A group of people were trying to rush IT;; cordon to follow the procession up the road. Barney the squad to force them back, noting the in the eyes of the citizens of Kennedy, the 61. fearful stare - even in those who weren't She didn't blame them. The unruly group didn't put up much of a fight. When the cordon was secure again, the crowd began to A couple approached the Gate to peer Outside. pursued them to request that they fall back, and to take a quick look herself. All she saw was the rutted remains of the highway and a green plain rolling off into the distance.

"Sorry." Barney returned her attention to the cyberlink. "After all this waiting, I almost expected to be disappointed. I simply had no idea "None of us did," Roads said. "And - Christ! I thought I was going to die when he stuck his head out of the control van, or whatever it "Stedman. I just knew something bad was going to happen. I could feel it in the crowd. I kept thinking of Cati, and of what a big target El Generalissimo had made of himself." She snorted, then explained the ease with which the rock had been deflected. "What a b.l.o.o.d.y joke. You might as well give up now." "I think I see your point. If Cati can kill Stedman, then what chance do we have of catching him? And if Cati tries and fails, then the States are quite capable of dealing with him themselves. Right?""Spot on. Better to quit while you're ahead, Phil." "Nice try, but sorry.

Machines are just machines. They have to be powered somehow. Field-effects - and robots, for that matter - will be thirsty; Stedman will have to turn them off eventually. Anyway, he's going to have to leave the control van to meet the Mayor. What about when he's inside Mayor's House?"