Lawrence Watt-Evans - Nightside City.pdf - Lawrence Watt - Evans - margozap

Chapter One

THE CITY OUTSIDE MY WINDOW WAS A CACOPHONY OF neon and Stardust, a maze of

blinding glitter and flash, and from where I sat it was all meaningless, no

discrete images at all-nothing discrete, and certainly no discretion. I knew

that the casino ads were shimmying and singing like sirens, luring passersby

onto the rocks of the roulette wheels and randomizers, sucking them in with

erotic promises of riches, but all that reached me through the window was a

tangle of colored light and a distant hum, punctuated every so often by the

buzz and blink of a macroscopic floater passing nearby. Even the big ships

landing or lifting didn't bother me-the window was angled so I couldn't see

them unless they buzzed the Trap, which would have gotten any pilot's license

erased, and the port's big damper fields kept the noise out of the city.

As long as I kept the window transparent I always had the flicker and the

sparkle and the hum for a background, and the blaze of light and color was

there if I bothered to look, but I didn't have the noise and flash grinding in

on me.

I liked it that way. There was a time when I'd had an office in the Trap, as

we called it-the Tourist Trap-but that was a long time ago. When the case I'm

telling you about came up I had my little place in the burbs, on Juarez

Street, and I could see the lights of Trap Over all the more clearly for the

added distance. Instead of the overwhelming come-ons, the holos and the

shifting sculptures of Stardust, all I saw was just light and noise.

And was it ever really anything more?

Of course, I won't lie to you-I wasn't out in the burbs by choice, not really.

When I was young and stupid and new at my work I fell for a sob story while I

was on a casino job, and I let a welsher take an extra day. He was off-planet

within an hour, and IRC had to shell out the bucks to put an unscheduled,

shielded call through to Prometheus and nail him there. They weren't happy

with me, and when Interstellar Resorts Corporation isn't happy with you, you

don't work in the Trap. Even their competitors don't argue with that.

I'm just glad the bastard didn't have enough cash to buy his way out-system;

if IRC had had to chase him to Sol or Fomalhaut or somewhere, I'd have been

lucky to live a week.

Of course, if he'd had out-system fare he would have paid his tab in the first

place. It wasn't that big, which was another reason I'm still up and running.

When you can't work in the Trap, though, there isn't that much detective work

left on Epimetheus, short of security work in the mines. I wasn't ready to fry

my genes out there in some corner of nightside hell, making sure some poor

jerk who didn't know any better didn't pocket a few kilocredits' worth of hot

ore. Mine work might have had more of a future than anything in the city, but

it's not the sort of future I'd care to look forward to.

And I didn't know anything but detective work, and besides, I wasn't going to

give IRC the satisfaction of driving me out of business.

That left the burbs, from the Trap to the crater's rim, so that's where I

went. It's all still part of the city, really- everything inside the crater

wall is Nightside City, and anything outside in the wind, or off Epimetheus,

isn't, which keeps it simple. So I was still in the city, and I figured I

could pick up the crumbs, the jobs that the Trap detectives didn't want, and

get by on that.

Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. I worked cheap and I made sure

everyone knew that. I got my office out in Westside, where you could almost

see the sun peeping over the eastern rim, where the land was cheap because it

would be the first to fry as the dawn broke. I was only on Juarez, though; I

wasn't all the way out in the West End. I stayed as close in as I thought I

could afford, to buy myself time. Eastside, in the crater wall's shadow, would

be safe for about three years after the West End went-not that I'd care to

stay there once the port, over to the south of the Trap, goes-and that meant

it was more expensive. I might have found more work out that way, I don't

know, but there were too many people out east who knew what IRC thought of me.

In Westside they generally knew, but none of them could afford to care.

One thing about moving out of the Trap-I moved right out of my social life,

too. My friends at the casinos somehow never found the time to call me

anymore. I didn't meet any tourists out on Juarez, either. The people I did

meet-well, some of them weren't bad, but they weren't exactly high society.

Besides, I had to work so hard to survive I didn't have time to hang out in

the streets. Most of my business dealings were with clients or with software,

and socializing with clients is always a mistake.

I don't see anything wrong with socializing with software, as far as it goes,

but it tends to be pretty limited. You don't meet much software that takes the

same approach to things like sex, credit, food, or family that humans do.

Software doesn't have family in the human sense.

Of course, I didn't have very much family. All the family I had left in the

city was my brother Sebastian, and he worked in the Trap; he called sometimes,

stayed in touch, but he didn't make it a point to drop by, if you know what I

mean. His employers might not have been pleased if he had.

We hadn't been all that close anyway. We weren't any closer with me out on

Juarez.

I had my office, and I did any work that came my way. I tracked down missing

husbands, missing wives, missing children, missing pets-biological,

cybernetic, or whatever. I went after missing data and of course, missing

money. Anything anyone mislaid I went after, and more often than not I found

whatever it was.

I got a break once when I followed up a string of complaints about a crooked

operator at the Starshine Palace and nailed a guy so dumb that he was skimming

from both the customers and the house but who had a really slick way of doing

it; catching him was good work, and it got me a lot of good publicity. It also

made me an enemy, as the casino had Big Jim Mishima on the case, and I beat

him to it, and the casino kept Jim's fee as a result. Big Jim resented that,

and I can't blame him, but I couldn't see my way clear to screw up; I had a

reputation and damn little else, and I keep what I have. At least, I do when I

can.

The Palace almost considered talking to me again after that, since I'd saved

them some juice, but then IRC reminded them of the gruesome details of my past

and they decided I still wasn't welcome.

But I was less unwelcome at the Palace than in any of the other casinos-like a

leftover program wasting memory, but one they might need someday, not pure

gritware.

I did a few other jobs here and there-whatever I could get. I ate dinner most

days, usually lunch, too, and I never got more than two months behind on my

rent or my com bill. Every so often I even splurged on a drink or a sandwich

at Lui's Tavern, two blocks over on Y'barra, and watched Lui's holoscreen

instead of my own.

Of course, in a year or so I was going to have to go to the mines, move east,

or get off-planet if I didn't want terminal sunburn, and it didn't look as if

I'd have enough saved up to get off Epimetheus. Moving east didn't have much

appeal-it just put off the inevitable. I was beginning to contemplate the

inevitability of a career in heavy metals.

My situation was not exactly an endless scroll of delights, and my prospects

were a good bit less rosy than the sky I saw behind the Trap. That sky looked

a little brighter every day, even when Eta Cass B was out of sight somewhere

below the horizon. Which it wasn't, just then, when this case first came up.

It was out of sight of my window, but I knew that Eta Cass B was high in the

west, and I could see its glow reddening the dark buildings just across the

street, while its big brother reddened the eastern horizon and washed half the

stars out of the sky above with a blue that looked paler every day.

The sky used to be black, of course, and was still black and spattered with

stars in the west, but the first hint of dark blue was starting to creep up

from the eastern rim even before I left the Trap, and there were fewer stars

to be seen every time I bothered to look.

Every time another star vanished, so did another chunk of the City's

population; anyone who could afford to leave did, and those who couldn't

afford it were saving up. That was cutting into what little business I had-I

didn't have a single case going, and hadn't for two days. I was sick of

watching the vids, and with no income I couldn't afford to go out, not even to

Lui's.

So I sat there, watching the glitter and sparkle of the city try to drown out

that insidious coming dawn, and I wasn't any too happy about my life. Getting

out of the Trap was probably good for my soul-I suppose my ancestors would

know for sure; I can only guess-but it wasn't any good for my mood or my

credit line. The distance and the window fields kept the city's noise down to

a murmur, but I could still hear it, and I was listening to it so hard just

then that at first I thought the beep was coming from outside.

Then the com double-beeped, and I knew it wasn't outside. I hit the pad on the

desk-the place had had pressure switches when I moved in, and I couldn't

afford to convert to voice, so I roughed it. I guess an earlier tenant liked

his fingers better than his tongue-or maybe he was some kind of antiquarian

fetishist. It wasn't even a codefield, but an actual keypad. Before I took

that office I'd never seen one anywhere else except history vids, let alone

used one, but I got the hang of it after a while. It gave the place a certain

charm, an air of eccentricity that I almost liked. It was also a real pain in

the ass to use, no matter how much practice I got, but I couldn't afford to do

anything about it.

So when the com double-beeped I hit the ACCEPT key. My background music dimmed

away and someone asked, "Carlisle Hsing?"

The voice was young and male and belonged to nobody I knew. I could hear the

wind muttering behind him, so I knew he was outside, probably on my doorstep

from the sound of it. I didn't bother to check the desk's main screen yet.

"Yeah," I said. "I'm Hsing."

"I-uh, we want to hire you."

That sounded promising. I flicked on the screen.

He didn't look promising. He was a good three days overdue for a shave-either

that, or three days into growing a beard, with a long way to go. His hair

hadn't been washed recently, either. He was pale and round-eyed and wore a

battered port worksuit, one that hadn't been much when it was new-low-grade

issue, built, not grown, and all flat gray with no shift. A cheap com jack

under his right ear looked clogged with grease, and I wasn't sure about the

workmanship on his eyes. He wasn't anybody I'd seen before, not in my office

or in Lui's or on the streets, and sure as hell not in the Trap.

Judging by the view behind him, he was indeed on my doorstep. In my business I

do get callers in person, not just over the com.

At least, I got this one in person, and he said he wanted to hire me, so I let

his looks go for the moment.

"For what?" I asked.

"Ah . . . it's complicated. Can I come in and explain?"

Well, I wasn't doing much of anything. I'd just finished off the final details

on my last case, finding a missing kid who had holed up in Trap Under for a

week-long wire binge; the fee hadn't done much more than pay the bills. I

couldn't afford to turn down much, so I said, "Yeah," and buzzed the door. I

didn't turn on the privacy, though, so it logged in his face, voiceprint,

pheromone signature, and all the rest.

Any security door will do all that, but most people don't much care, they just

let the data slide; me, in my line of work, I'd cleared it with the landlord

and had everything tapped straight into my personal com system. The landlord

didn't mind-as I said, I generally paid my rent-so I always knew who I had in

my office. If this guy tried anything, I was pretty sure I'd be able to find

him.

A few minutes later he inched into the office as nervous as a kid going

through his first neuroscan and tried not to stare at me. He wasn't that much

more than a kid himself; I guessed him at eighteen, maybe twenty, no more.

Maybe twenty-one, if you want to use Terran years.

He looked okay-grubby, but not dangerous-and none of the scanners had beeped,

but just in case I had my right hand under the desk, holding my Sony-Remington

HG-2. The gun laws on Epimetheus were written by a committee, so they're a

mess, complicated as hell, and I never did figure out whether that gun of mine

was legal, but I liked it and kept it handy just the same. I'd had it brought

in, special, from out-system, as a favor from an old friend-an old friend who

somehow hadn't called since I left the Trap, but what the hell, I still had

the gun.

Owning it was probably good for a fat fine, but only if somebody made a point

of it, and I wasn't about to walk past the port watch with it out. I'd drawn

it in public a few times, in the Trap, but casino cops don't hassle anyone who

might be a player without a better reason than flashing an illegal weapon.

Casino cops can be very good at minding their own business.

"Sit down," I said, and the kid sat, very slowly. I had three chairs and a

couch; the chairs were floaters, and he took the couch, which had legs.

Cautious, very cautious. The cushions tried to adjust for him, but he kept

shifting, and one of the warping fields had burned out long ago, leaving a

band a few centimeters wide that stayed stiff and straight as a motherboard

and screwed up the whole system.

He didn't seem to be in any hurry to talk. He just looked around the place,

everywhere but at me. If his eyes were natural, he wasn't in great shape and

might have something eating at his nervous system; if they were replacements,

he got rooked. The com jack under his ear obviously hadn't been used in weeks.

His worksuit was so worn and patched that the circuitry was showing, and I

could see that some leads were cut; it was probably stolen.

I felt sorry for any poor symbiote that had to live in the guy-assuming there

was one, which I did not consider certain.

But then, my own symbiote wasn't exactly in an ideal environment for the long

term.

"So," I said. "Who are you?"

He gave me a sharp look.

"Why?" he asked.

This was looking worse all the time; I hit some keys I knew he couldn't

see-with my left hand, because my right had the gun-and started running the

door data through the city's ID bank. "I like to know who I'm working for," I

said.

He didn't like that. He gave me a look and a silence.

"If you don't tell me who you are, I don't work," I said.

He hesitated, then gave in. "All right," he said. "My name is Wang. Joe Wang."

I nodded and glanced down at one of the desk's pull-out screens. His name was

Zarathustra Pickens. He was about a month short of nineteen years old, Terran

time. Born on Prometheus, came in-system to the nightside at sixteen- probably

looking for casino work, but it didn't say-and did a few short pieces here and

there. Last job, cleaning pseudoplankton out of the city water filters. Got

laid off a week earlier when the city brought in a machine that was supposed

to do the job. Again. They'd been trying machines on that since I was a girl,

and they never worked right-sooner or later the pseudoplankton got into the

cleaning machines, same as it got into everything else anywhere near water,

and screwed them up. Machines that didn't screw up would cost more than

people. An organism that could deal with the situation would probably cost

even more and might be dangerous if it got out, since the whole planet lives

and breathes off pseudoplankton; it's the only significant source of oxygen on

Epimetheus.

It's also mean stuff, meaner than any microorganism that ever evolved on

Earth; building a bug that could handle it might take one hell of a lot of

doing.

I figured Zar Pickens could probably get his job back in a couple of days, so

I didn't hold his unemployment against him.

"All right, Mis' Wang," I said. "What can I do for you?"

He got nervous again. "It's not me," he said. "I mean, it's not just me."

I'd had about enough of his delays. I wasn't inclined to pry the details out

one by one. "Okay," I said. "You tell it your way, whatever it is you have to

tell, but let's get on with it, shall we?"

He hesitated a bit, then started telling it.

"I live out by the crater wall," he said, "right out in the West End. It's

cheap, y'know?"

Cheap, hell, I guessed it was probably free; at least a dozen big buildings

out that way were already abandoned. Even a couple on Juarez were abandoned.

The owners didn't figure it was worth the repairs and maintenance when the

sun's on the horizon, or maybe even already hitting the top floors, so when a

building dropped below code, or the complaints started piling up, they would

just ditch it. Good, sound business practice, at least by Epimethean

standards.

And whether Pickens had had other reasons or not, that explained why he'd come

in person; the com lines in the West End are, shall we politely say,

unreliable.

I didn't say anything. I just nodded.

Pickens nodded back. "Right, so I don't bother anybody. None of us do; there's

a bunch of us out that way, living cheap, not hurting a damn thing. You

understand?"

I nodded again. Squatters were nothing new. When I was a girl they'd had to

make do with doorways or alleys in the outer burbs, or caves in the crater

wall, but they'd been moving inward for years. Especially in the west.

"Okay, fine," Pickens said. "But then about two weeks back some slick-hair

shows up, with this big slab of muscle backing him, and says that he works for

the new owner, and the rent's gone up, and we pay it or we get out."

I sat back a little and let the HG-2 drop back in the holster; this was

beginning to sound interesting. Interesting, or maybe just dumb. It had to be

a con of some kind, but that was so obvious even squatters would see it. I put

my hands behind my head and leaned back. "New owner?" I asked.

"That's what he said."

I nodded. "Go on."

Pickens shrugged. "That's about it."

"So what do you want me to do?" I asked.

He looked baffled for a minute. "Come on, Hsing," he said. "What do you think?

We want you to get rid of the guy, of course!" His voice rose and got ugly. "I

mean, what's this new owner crap? Who's buying in the West End? The sun is

rising, lady! Nobody's gonna buy land in the West End, so what's this new

owner stuff? It's gotta be a rook, but when we called the city, they said he

was legit, so we can't call the cops, and we can't just take him out

ourselves, because this goddamn new owner would send someone else. We need

someone who can get it straight; I mean, we don't have anywhere else to go,

and we can't pay this fucker's rent!" He was getting pretty excited, like he

was about to jump out of the couch; I straightened up and put my hands back

down.

"Then how are you planning to pay my fee?" I asked, and the Sony-Remington was

back in my hand but still out of sight.

The question stopped him for a moment, even without the gun showing. He

shifted again, settling back down, and the couch rippled as it tried to

adjust.

"We took up a collection," he said. "Did it by shares, sort of, and we came up

with some bucks. They say you work cheap if you like the job, and I sure hope

you like this one, because we couldn't come up with much."

"How much?" I asked.

'Two hundred and five credits," he said. "Maybe a little more, but we can't

promise."

Well, that sure as hell wasn't much, but I was interested anyway. As the kid

Lawrence Watt-Evans - Nightside City.pdf

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