Farewell Horizontal

FIVE

“Forget about those assholes! They’re dead meat! Who needs ’em?”

He had never seen Brevis this worked up before. Axxter regarded the overexcited features of his agent, bright in his vision. “I thought we needed them. That’s why I’m looking for them.”

“Small potatoes, man – don’t you get what I’m saying?” Brevis’s hand chopped the air beside his face. “It came through. What I been tellin’ ya would. A really big deal. You don’t have to go scrabbling after some penny-ante start-up buncha clowns. This is the big one, Ny – I told you I’d come through for ya.”

Sitting cross-legged in the bivouac sling, Axxter rubbed sleep from the corners of his eyes. Hell of a way to be woken up, with Brevis – at least the agent had used his own nickel to put the call through, a small comfort – yammering away at him. Something about knocking off the search for the Rowdiness bunch that he’d spent solid days on already. Right when I’m about to catch up with them, too – can feel ’em, somewhere close by. “So what’s this big deal?”

Brevis’s face grew, as though he could lean closer and dive right through the building’s wires and out of the display. “Havoc wants you.”

A moment to sink in. “What?” He tapped at his ear; the voice inside must’ve been garbled. “Did you say Havoc? As in Havoc Mass?”

“Yeah, yeah – come on, who the hell else?” Brevis bounced up and down, his excitement increasing. “I told you it was a big deal.”

“Jeez.” Well, I’ll be dipped, as someone else had recently said. The numero two-o military tribe on the whole friggin’ building – soon to be number one, right at the toplevel, if Guyer and a whole bunch of other usually-know-what-they’re-talking-about people are correct. And even if they didn’t wind up swarming over the Grievous Amalgam’s gates, rowdy barbarians that they were, and just stayed locked in that tight balance of power, the mutual chokehold situation that endured on Cylinder for the last couple of decades; still – Axxter felt the digits of his heart’s greediest sector ticking over and mounting up – still, to be in with the Havoc Mass, with its massive bank accounts, controlled turf, overlapping stock ownership and directorate memberships with other, lesser – but nevertheless heavyweight – tribes; all the alliances, fidelities, intermarriages, tributes, outright extortion, all mirroring the Amalgam’s own Byzantine arrangements propping up its long-held power… Fuck it; Axxter had gotten dizzy just thinking about it. Who cares who wins? If anyone ever does. Just to get that close to all that sweet at the top, the heavy money, right at the source – instead of scrabbling around this far down on Cylinder’s surface, where precious fuck-all of the honey comes trickling past all the other greedy mouths open to lap it in. I wouldn’t be a dumb-shit freelancer, scrambling around looking for the big break. I’d have a major contract; major money for providing a service to a major tribe, like the other major contractors -

A darker thought struck him, pulling him back from the few seconds of pleasant reverie. “Hey.” Staring suspiciously at Brevis’s image. “What about DeathPix? What happened to them? I thought they did graffex for Havoc Mass.”

Brevis’s vibrating enthusiasm ebbed, replaced by a more familiar expression. The uplifted hand cautiously stroked the air. “Uh… you don’t have to worry about them, Ny. This doesn’t really have anything to do with DeathPix. You know?”

“Yeah, I know.” Thanks a lot. You asshole. The grand estimate of the Havoc Mass wealth, and his tiny but juicy sliver of it, dwindled away. This is your big deal? Cutting in on DeathPix’s action? He shook his head. “Great – you really earn your commission on this one, all right. When DeathPix sends over some of their pet thugs to cut off my nuts, I’ll tell ’em to just do it ninety percent, and the other ten percent’s for you. Okay?”

“Ny… come on.” The voice displayed its wounds. “You’re my client. Would I set you up for something like that?”

“No, I don’t think you’d set me up. You’re just a stupid dumb fucker who doesn’t know what he’s doing. Jesus.” He couldn’t believe this. Everybody knew what a stupid idea – stupid to the point of merrily embraced self-destruction – cutting in on DeathPix’s business was. It was common knowledge among freelance graffices, one of those little bits of info that the old-timers were happy to pass along to the new guys. Complete with grisly accounts of what had happened to those foolish enough to have succumbed to that temptation. Accounts that, even shorn of the embroidery years of retelling had given them, still contained a hard stone of truth: that DeathPix was nothing to screw around with. It had the true arrogance of power, blithely servicing the Havoc Mass and the Grievous Amalgam, and any other tribe that could afford its fees. DeathPix was an organization big and powerful enough, with more revenue than most B-list tribes, to be considered a tribe itself. Except not as much fun; its gray hierarchy had put Axxter off the idea of accepting the job he’d been offered with them. It wouldn’t have seemed like going vertical at all; just one dud prison in exchange for the other. Grubbing away in some little cubicle and maybe three whole steps up the corporate ladder before he died, or got pensioned off good as dead. When he’d turned down the job, handing the contract back to the DeathPix recruiter, he’d thought it’d be better to starve out on some wastewall sector than to sign up for a life like that. He’d had occasion to think about that decision since; not quite so sure, now.

“Ny, believe me – I know what you’re thinking, and it’s not like that.” Brevis patiently worked his line. “I’m not trying to get you to go up there just to cut in on DeathPix’s business and get your butt kicked. It’s something different. And it’s something you’re gonna have to keep your mouth shut about, too, okay? You got me?”

Secrets, no less. “This better be good.”

“I promise you.” Brevis’s voice went lower, confidential. “There’s some big changes coming up. I mean really big. The Havoc Mass is thinking of dumping DeathPix altogether. I mean, boot them right out the flippin’ window.” He leaned back, eyeing Axxter’s reaction.

Genuinely impressed – Axxter bit his lip and drew in a hissing breath. Sweet Jesus – maybe Guyer is right, with all her talk of revolution in the air. Big changes, indeed. If not a complete inversion of Cylinder’s top power rankings – what Guyer’s messianic faith was given over to – it was still a fundamental change in the organizational fabric binding Mass and Amalgam. As if one of them had decided to switch over to some other atmospheric constituent for respiratory purposes; about on that level. Big changes; Axxter rolled them over in his mind. And big money. A great big wad of it, no longer handed over by the Mass straight to DeathPix’s accounts. It loomed in Axxter’s imagination, a great big, spinning golden sphere, shedding a warm radiance over the whole building’s uplifted faces, like some new, unsetting sun. When something that big came loose from the hands that had grasped it so tight, all sorts of little pieces came shooting off, to be snatched up by smaller, faster ones. That’s what big changes meant.

Still. You had to be careful. Nobody lets go that easy. “Why would the Havoc Mass want to dump DeathPix?” The logical question; DP had graffex resources unmatched by anyone else – designers, techs, terrorist shrinks up the butt. And all those years of accumulated expertise; hard to get that same level of service elsewhere. There were reasons why DeathPix charged so much.

Brevis shrugged. “You want my guess?”

“No, I don’t want your fucking guess. I want what you know.”

“Okay, Ny; but if you spill any of this, neither one of us will be worrying about our nuts, or anything else. Got me?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He shifted position in the sling. All this mysterioso talk had eaten up enough time to have given him cramps in his legs. “Just lay it on me.”

All the pitch machinery faded from Brevis’s voice. “This is the deal, Ny. The Havoc Mass is making its move. Finally. They’ve been building up to it for a long time, and now they’re finally gonna do it. Not today, not tomorrow, not next week or next month. Not this year, and probably not next year, either. But the gears are in motion, Ny. The process has been started; they think the time has come for them to go straight for the top. They’ve got the numbers; they’ve got the alliances – man, they’ve got secret alliances that nobody’s gonna be-lieve, until they see it all come down. Maybe they’re gonna be able to knock the Grievous Amalgam off the toplevel, or maybe they’ll go bust trying for it. But the time’s come. Simple as that.”

The time has come. That goddamned Guyer. Axxter had to shake his head in admiration. She knew. Something in the air that she could taste with all of her finely honed senses. She could just stick out her tongue and lick the insurrectionary molecules off the wind coursing down the building’s surface. Plus all the little rumors and whispers, the intimacies to which a person in her trade is privy. One way or another, she’d known something was up, and had told him so. Still -

“Well… that’s all fine. More power to ’em, I guess.” Axxter studied the other’s image for any further clues. “But what’s all this got to do with me?”

“Coming to that, man. This is the deal: the Mass wants to do two things in getting ready for the big push. They want to completely revamp their visuals – rank insignia, trophy decs, psych-outs, ikons – the whole schmazzola. Head-to-toe redesign. And they want to plug any possible leak of their plans to the Grievous Amalgam. When they roll, they want all their military imagery to take the Amalgam and any of its allies by surprise. Get the picture?”

Axxter scratched his face. “I don’t know… I don’t see why the Mass would want to dump DeathPix. I mean, if that’s what they want. DeathPix can do a complete redesign for them; Christ, they’ve done it three or four times already.” When he’d been working and saving up to go freelance, boning up on notable graffex achievements had been part of his preparation. You had to know what had gone down before, in order to come up with your own originals; plus it’d been cheap research, with nothing to pay but the Wire Syndicate access time to the toplevel copyright office. Some of the DeathPix redesigns for the Havoc Mass were considered classics, big conceptual advances in the graffex art – ten years ago, the “Bleeder/ Eater” ikon set had been the first to use optic phase-shift subliminals; that alone had been credited with bringing the pivotal Knives of God tribe into the Mass fold; the Grievous Amalgam had had to order up whole new graffex work to avoid any more defections. DeathPix had been the real winner of that little image skirmish, with big fees raked in from both sides and an even more solidly cemented reputation. So why would any tribe who could afford it want to bump a contractor like that? The absolute best – he couldn’t figure it.

Brevis shook his head. “They’ve gotten stale, Ny. What have they done lately? Nothing but the same old shit. The Havoc Mass wants fresh blood. They want something nobody’s ever seen before.”

“Yeah, well… maybe.” In spite of himself, he felt a little trickle of excitement wend past his skeptical defenses. It would be a wild thing… Some of the stuff he had in his design archives, the off-the-wall things he worked and reworked, getting every line and effect perfect, just waiting for the day… Some crazy things in there. Maybe the time had come. In more ways than one. “But what was that other bit? About the Havoc Mass not wanting any of this leaked to the Amalgam?”

“That’s right.” Brevis’s voice went up in pitch, feeding on the small interest detected in his client. “Top secret, Ny. Clamped down to the max.”

That was the part that tasted sour – and false – in his mouth. Producing unease. “I think somebody’s fed you one, Brev. That just doesn’t make sense. The Havoc Mass thinks that DeathPix has been playing doubles on them? Selling confidential info to the Amalgam? I don’t believe it. Why the hell would DP risk losing that big a contract? Let alone all the other shit the Mass could pay them back with. Those people love to make examples of people who screw with them. Plus, if they survived whatever payback came round, their big-money markets would be cut in half; without the Mass bidding against them, the Amalgam would be able to pick up DeathPix’s stuff for pennies. And they could scratch off any chance of lining up new clients, after getting caught out like that.” He shook his head. “I just don’t see it, man. DeathPix has got it set up too sweet to risk blowing it all with leak action.”

Brevis smiled, replete with craftiness and self-satisfaction. “True, true; DeathPix wouldn’t want to blow a nice, cozy setup like they got. But you’re forgetting something – DeathPix is a publicly traded company. They’re listed on the big board up here; Christ, I’ve got a few shares in ’em. They’re a solid blue-chip, though they might not be for long, once the shit starts to fly. But they’ve got to file quarterly reports with the trading commission, and anybody can read those; you just have to call up the commission and ask for a copy. They’re not secret info. And those reports include corporate earnings, Ny. There’s the giveaway. DeathPix may have done complete redesigns for the Havoc Mass in the past, but never the whole thing in one shot. And never in conjunction with the kind of big push they’re planning. If the money they’d have to pay DeathPix for a graffex project of this magnitude were to show up in those reports, then the Amalgam would flash on what was up, sure as shit. And that’d be the end of any surprise factor for the Mass. Get the picture, Ny?”

Got the picture. He looked away from the wall and the deadfilm, letting the bright morning light wash his agent’s image to a ghost. Out in the distance, a darker speck floated, as though it were an intangible particle of dirt caught against his eye; he blinked, and it was still there. He gave it no more thought, his brain filled with Brevis’s words. Get the picture? He supposed he did. Some crazy things in there… Just waiting for the opportunity to dig them out of his design archives and slap them into place, right onto the skin and armor of – the Havoc Mass? That’d be fine; my graffex for the Big Push, charging up and over the Amalgam. That’d be all right, indeed. Time has come. Maybe it has.

Brevis’s voice broke in, revved up to an even more excited pitch. “You see, that’s why the Havoc Mass wants to go with somebody small for this redesign project – they want a sole-proprietor operation, somebody who hasn’t issued stock that’s being traded on the board up here. Somebody who doesn’t have to file any reports with the trading commission. They need a freelancer.”

“Hmf.” The scary part was that it was all starting to make sense. That’s what the Mass would want. “Why me, though?”

“Je-zuss, Ny.” Brevis’s hands spread beside his face, as if to keep his head from exploding. “You drive me fuckin’ nuts. You got no goddamn confidence in yourself, man. They want you ’cause you’re hot. You got the kinda stuff they want.”

“What stuff of mine did they ever see?”

“Remember those insignia you did last year, for that little buncha thugs, they called themselves – what, uh… Gnash Boy Squad, something like that. Remember them?”

Vividly, and with some regret. He’d really uncorked one for those guys; time and effort. There had been twelve of them in all, each wanting some distinct and grandiose rank, all meaningless given their slobbering berserker operational methods. But he’d been happy to oblige, on a standard cut-of-swag royalties rate: they’d gone wild for the corny taloned eagles and fanged serpents he did for them, not noticing the subtler matte black against glossy, details of teeth inside corneas… tiny pinpoints sliding a millimeter in and out of the glistening sockets at a tempo tagged to the bearer’s pulse. He’d had to run sensor nodes from the biofoil implantations to the jugular vein and set up feedback loops to modify the animating signals. That had been fine work; he could call the images up from his own archive, plain as ink. Too good for those slobs. Pearls before swine. Plus he’d never seen any more goddamn money from them. “Whatever happened to those guys, anyway?” He’d finally had to cancel the relay order with the Small Moon Consortium, killing the coded signals that brought the images up and into motion.

Brevis shrugged. “Yeah, well… they started out strong, but they didn’t pan out. They got absorbed by the Havoc Mass, and -”

“Yeah? Where’s my cut of the recruitment bonus? That was in the contract!”

Neck tendons made a harp as Brevis grimaced. “It wasn’t like that, Ny. It was more like they got… eaten by the Mass. You know?”

He sighed, rolling his eyes upward. He knew. Goddamn wimps.

“Anyway,” Brevis went on, “that’s how the Havoc Mass saw your stuff. And they liked what they saw – I’m not sure, but they might even have… you know… peeled it off and kept it, at least until the animating signal was canceled. Your signature and copyright mark were right there; so they found out I was your agent, and they called me up. Strictly on the hush-hush. If we don’t pick up on this deal – and I hope you’re not going to be that big an idiot, Ny – it’s going to behoove us to keep our lips zipped about it. Know what I’m saying?”

“Yeah… yeah; sure.” Axxter nodded, lost in thought. If all this were true, it would be a big change, on the order of the difference between horizontal and vertical. Inside or out. Or, more accurately, between having money and not having it. And a lot of other changes would follow from that one. A snap memory of a door slamming in the face of his hollow-time image; that would be different, for one thing. Money does that.

“Ny… Ny, what’s it gonna be?”

The voice pleaded in his ear. From far away; easy to ignore. Other things louder: Time has come.

“All right.” He pulled in his breath, spine against the curve of the sling. “You got it; let’s do it. Just tell me where I’m supposed to go for all this.” He flicked on transcript mode with a quick glance to one corner of his vision – just to make sure he had a record of whatever instructions his agent would give him. His brain was still too full of everything that had been said to trust it with any more.

“I knew I could count on ya, Ny. Believe me, you’re not gonna regret this.” Brevis smiled and winked. “Here’s the deal. The Havoc Mass wants to see what you can come up with, on a commission specifically for them. Just a little taste, to make sure they’ve made the right decision, before they give you the whole job. ’Cause the job’s gonna be so big, total redesign for the whole tribe, all the alliances, everything, they’re probably gonna have to pull in several more freelancers, set up a team. But you’ll be the guy at the top, calling the shots, farming out the designs. That cool with you?”

Axxter nodded, letting the voice slide past his awareness. Until Brevis signed off, with an even more radiant smile and cheerleader jazz. The terminal went blank; he gazed at the empty deadfilm for another minute before he shifted position.

The Norton had stationed itself next to the bivouac sling; its nightly grazing over, its fuel conversion tank now gurgled with mechanical contentment. The sling’s anchoring pithons creaked as Axxter stood up and began loading the wadded-up blankets and other gear into the sidecar.

Goodbye to all this; thank Christ for that. With everything stowed away, he straddled the Norton’s seat, pushing himself up and back from the handlebars to look around. No more scrabbling around these friggin’ waste-wall sectors looking for business; that’s something I won’t miss. Even if this last little expedition had been something of a season of wonders, both grim and bright. The ruin zone, the black twisted metal of the torn wall, and the smell of burned things inside – all that came sliding out of memory with no effort on his part. And another burned thing… more pleasant to think of that. If you had to go out into the wilderness to encounter angels, then maybe it was worth it. For a little while, at least.

He looked out across the sky, and saw the little speck again. Larger this time; he could almost recognize it. He dug the camera out of the sidecar and zoomed the object into close focus.

The angel Lahft drifted in the sky. He knew it was her even before he tilted the camera up to see her face; the biofoil with which he’d healed her flight membrane flashed silver into the lens, brighter than even her radiant skin.

He stowed the camera away and gunned the Norton’s engine. Turned the machine around in a tight circle, the wheels’ pithons snapping from hold to hold, and headed upwall. Making the effort not to look anywhere but toward his destination.