Horizons

TEN

THE COURIER DROPPED HER AT THE SMALL DOCKING BAY where he had picked her up.

Ahni frowned as she exited the dock to find a glowing lavender arrow on the floor beneath her feet.

Damn. The hotel had managed to sneak a chip into her after all. Well, it didn’t really matter. She wasn’t trying to hide from anyone.

But it still annoyed her, because usually she was canny enough to avoid house-chips. She blinked up the schematic for this level, deciding to walk back to her hotel. The visit with Li Zhen had left her troubled.

He had not been lying the entire time, but he was connected to Xai for all his protest of innocence. The conversation made her think of an iceberg, the lethal mass invisible beneath the waves, only the white, picturesque tip gleaming in the sun. It had to do with the secession movement. She was sure of that.

What did Xai stand to gain here?

Gently she touched the fragile curve of the pot. And what was the subtext here?

One did not give away a priceless heirloom to a casual guest.

Before she had strolled more than a dozen meters from the dock, the tension in the air penetrated her awareness, banishing her contemplation of the pot. Ahni paused in front of a closet-sized shop front displaying microG manufactured personal electronics and offering right-now implantation. Casually she studied the passersby. The tourists were oblivious, but the business folk walked with shoullders slightly hunched, their steps hurried. They felt it, too, or maybe they were just noticing a change in attitude.

It hit her suddenly what she was noticing… staring. And crowding. Not all the natives, but enough that she noticed. And she also noticed that the natives who were not staring and crowding were noticing it, too, radiating dismay, or disapproval. Or approval and mimicking it. She saw quite a few people pass a crowder, notice, approve, and then crowd the next tourist they passed. Up and down the corridor tourists were walking a crooked path, taking unconscious little sidesteps as a native swerved too close.

One man marched down the hall, body language erect, pushy, radiating challenge, pushing every tourist coming toward him a half step off course. A native woman approaching him, a very dark afro-mix, noticed and her approval sparked bright in the air. As she passed, she aimed for a Korean businessman approaching. The poor man, clearly sensitive, took nearly a full step sideways and stumbled, obviously not adept in the less than normalG.

The tall pushy man’s response flared.

Score!

Ahni nearly turned to look at him, stilled her automatic reaction. He was doing this on purpose. Enticing others to do it, too. A memory prodded. Noah’s girlfriend–what was her name? Cleo. Ahni drifted on a few meters to watch a skinny boy getting his nails inlaid with gold. Cleo had reacted to something Noah had said about ghosts, about fake personae in the Con. And then she had said that it had nothing to do with the tension. But what if it was coupled with people like the alpha she had just seen? Start provoking downsiders and sooner or later someone would react.

A shape flung itself at Ahni. She pivoted, ready to defend herself, recognized the dark hair and oval face of Donya, the child on the climber, and wrenched her response under control.

“Ahni, Ahni, Ahni!” The girl leaped up against her chest, arm around Ahni’s neck, slender ankles locked behind her back.”I looked for you everywhere!”

Ahni smiled for her, shaky with aborted violence. The tension here was affecting her. “Donya!” She managed a cheerful tone. “You shouldn’t startle people like that. Are you enjoying your stay?”

“It’s boring.” Donya pouted. “Kelly is doing this intern proogram with some engineer or other and he’s being a butt. I’m just a little kid and he doesn’t have any time for me at all. And my nanny has to go with me everywhere and she’s not a native and Mama won’t hire a native because she’s convinced I’ll get kidnapped or raped or something. I want to go fly.” She gave Ahni a sly smile. “You know how to do that, right?”

”Yes, I do.” Ahni smiled. “But I think maybe… not this trip. Your parents are right. This isn’t a good time to wander around on the upper levels.”

“Ahni, that’s not fair!” Donya’s face took on a stony stubbornness.”You promised me.”

“I did not.” Ahni held her gaze until the girl looked away. “Well, okay, you didn’t promise. But… Oh, never mind.” She turned away, sulky.”You’re just like all the other grownups after all.”

”What would your parents do to your nanny if she let you do something they thought was dangerous?”

Ahni asked gently. She watched Donya think about that.

“Yeah, you win.” She gave Ahni a narrow look as the worried nanny charged up, frightened and scolding. Donya smiled. “See? 1 wasn’t lost. I was talking to Ahni. See you later!” she called, waving, as the frustrated nanny dragged her away.

What a handful. Ahni smiled absently, then focused on the issue at hand. Time to find a safe way to visit the axle. The hotel chip complicated matters. Thinking hard, Ahni returned to her hotel to dress in clothes that looked more like local garb and didn’t shout “tourist.” She rode the elevator up to Noah’s park, jumpy in the confined space as the tourists vanished. Not even the business travelers seemed willing to brave the upper levels. Ahni made her body language as unassuming and invisible as she could, but was aware of hostile attention as people got on and off.

Noah wasn’t at his plaza, so she took the elevator clear up to the axle park. A few tourists floundered around amongst the crisscrossed web of colorful cables and Ahni noticed uniformed Security lounging nearby, obviously watchful. She had seen no Security yesterday. As she pulled herself toward the scrum fields, a small dark girl kicked off and soared toward her.

Donya! Ahni recognized her this time, winced at the bright flare of her triumph.

“Catch me!” The girl flung out her hand as her trajectory took her past Ahni. Clutching the nearest cable, Ahni grabbed her wrist, swung her into a tight inward spiral.

Donya grabbed the cable and got herself stopped. “Now the nanny won’t get in trouble,” she crowed, grinning.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

The girl met her glare with an innocent smile. “You were right. Nanny couldn’t risk taking me places my folks don’t want me. So I gave her the slip.”

“So she’s still in trouble.”

“Well.” Donya lifted one shoulder in a perfect native shrug. “It was really easy to slip her, so maybe she deserves being fired. I mean… what if someone really had kidnapped me?”

Ahni rolled her eyes and Donya’s smile blossomed.

“So come on! Look!” She spun and pointed. “They’re playing ball. Have you done that?”

Sure enough, Noah and his friends were at it, zooming like misssiles across the open space between the cables. Without waiting for Ahni’s reply, the girl planted both feet against the cable and pushed off, hurtling through the maze of cables and smack into the center of the playing zone. “Look out, kid,” the red haired Paul yelled as he hurtled by. “Get off the field.”

Donya made a grab for the ball, missed and yelped as Noah shot past on an intersecting trajectory, one lean wiry forearm clamping around her waist. His trajectory wobbled and faltered, but still took him out of the play zone, the yelling Donya clamped firmly under one arm. Ignoring her shouts and pummeling fists, he snagged a cable, planted one bare foot, and shot straight over toAhni.

“Does this belong to you?” A smile glimmered beneath his severe tone. “You need to keep it on a leash.”

“I am not an ‘it’ and if you let me play, I bet I can do really well.” Released just out of reach of the cable, Donya floundered, glaring. “I saw other kids out here playing.”

”Yeah, but they live here. Sweetheart, you have the guts for it. Noah nudged himself lower, so that he faced her on eye level. “And you can sure play, but you need to practice first. It’s not fair to bust up our game and if you do something we don’t expect, you’ll get hit hard and we could both get hurt.”

”Yeah.” She looked down and away. “Sorry. I was rude. But I… just want to play so much and nobody will let me. I really am sorry.”

“S’right.” Noah gave Ahni a wan smile. “I was gonna take break anyway. I’ll give you a few pointers, okay?”

Ahni swallowed frustration. She needed to talk to Dane but she couldn’t leave this kid to wander around on her own. Noah had tugged Donya into motion, was instructing her on how to push off and regulate her speed, how to change her trajectory in flight and use the cables to increase or spill momentum. While she waited for him to finish his lesson, Ahni dropped briefly into Pause and called up demographics on NYUp reproduction. Donya had made her realize how few young children she had seen, even on the upper level she had visited.

Interesting. The birth rate was significantly lower than normal for the overall downside population.

Radiation? Less family orientation? She wondered how many pregnancies ended before term. Hacking medical information wasn’t easy, cheap, or safe. She emerged from Pause as Noah and Donya arrowed back to her, Donya radiating disappointment.

“Come down another time,” Noah was saying. “And I’ll giive you another lesson. You do really well for a downsider.” He gave Ahni a lopsided smile. “Your relative?”

“Not mine.” Ahni fished a cash card from her singlesuit, handed it to Donya.”You want to get yourself a squeeze of juice?”

“Thank you.” Donya took the card and made her way speedily if not quite accurately, to the refreshment kiosk. “I hope she doesn’t get beer.” Ahni sighed, and examined Noah from the corner of her eye.

Something was bothering him.

“Noah, I have a question for you.”

“Sure.” He drifted closer, his eyes warming as he looked after Donya who had landed safely at the kiosk. “Nice kid. What’s up?”

“In all honesty… how difficult would it be for someone to jack their way into the Con in a big way?

Maybe replicate a large number of ghosts? If money was no object?”

The hot slash of his response nearly made her flinch. Outwardly he didn’t move, merely stared at his hand, closed white-knuckled around the nearest cable.”What difference would it make it someone did?”

His tone was flat, even. His emotions were not. “Sure they could plant some misinformation, but you start talking to peoople, you find out the truth. It isn’t really going to do any harm.”

He was asking her.

Donya was on her way back, sucking on her juice squeeze, experimenting with motion and the cables.

“If there were enough ghosts,” Ahni said softly. “And they were… say… spreading anger…”

”You couldn’t do that. You can’t just make people… feel diffferently.” Noah kicked off and zoomed back into the rough game.

Thoughtfully, Ahni watched him collide hard with Jose, heard the security guard’s exclamation as he went tumbling off course. Too late to ask him if he’d told Dane she wanted to see him. Shook her head. “Okay kid.” She turned her attention back to Donya. “I’ve aided and abetted you enough here. Time to go back and face the parents before they call Security out to scour the whole can.”

”You know they’re never going to let me out of our hotel room after this.” The girl regarded her morosely.

“Probably not.”

“They think there are weird people up here. There are weird people everywhere. Well, at least I got to fly.” Donya shrugged, stoically. “And he said I was good.”

Ahni laughed in spite of herself and caught hold of Donya’s wrist. “Okay, kid, let’s go. If I get arrested for kidnapping, I hope you’ll set them straight before they throw me in jail.”

“I will,” Donya said cheerfully. “Don’t worry.”

“Now that the game is over, you might want to link and leave them a message that you’re alive,” Ahni suggested as they reached the elevator.

“I did that while I was waiting for the juice.” She rolled her eyes. “They didn’t even know I was gone yet.

Nanny’s probably still out looking, poor thing. I told Father that he should let her know it was okay to quit and that it wasn’t really her fault. I’m very clever. They know that.” She gave Ahni a sideways look.

“Father didn’t blame her too much. He says sometimes that if he believed in demons he would worry about me.” She smiled, warm with smug certainty. “He doesn’t really mean that, but he wasn’t too mad.”

“Your father is a wise man,” Ahni said dryly. She shrugged into the padded straps in the elevator. Only natives got on at the first few levels as the elevator dropped. Ahni pretended indifference and sorted through the emotional tone. How would it go? You hear a hot bit of gossip about a nasty little encounter, another heavyweight putting down a shopkeeper, harassing a cleaner, spitting on a clumsy aide, maybe even rape. And you get angry. And you talk about it with your neighbor, your coworker, your lover. Did you hear about…

Stones tossed into a pond, she thought. Toss enough stones and you have a choppy, stormy sea. You could buy stones. You could buy someone to toss ’em. Noah had run from her.

They exited on the skinside level, the harsh reek of hostility muted here. The scent of sizzling olive oil wafted from a little sitdown restaurant. Donya dragged her feet, sniffing like one of Tai Pei’s protected feral dogs, down on the docks. “I told Father that I wanted to stop and eat lunch.” She looked hopefully at Ahni. “He’s got my chip under surveillance, so he said it was okay. I’m really not making that up,” she said, without a whole lot of hope.

Ahni smiled at her. “I know you’re not.”

Donya got it instantly.”You’re E-rated. That’s so cool.” Her eyes widened. “Are you really high? A ten?

So what am I thinking right now?”

”You don’t know what people think.” Ahni steered her firmly into the little restaurant.”You’ve seen too many vids. But I know when people tell the truth. Or when they lie.” She hid a smile as she watched Donya cast back over their conversations. The place served a nice vegetarian menu. Grilled vegetables.

Tofu in various forms as well as a classic gardenburger with realmilk, upported cheese, acccording to the menu.

She ordered a salad with smoked tofu while Donya ordered the gardenburger and grumbled about the lack of meat. Father wouldn’t let her order it. Too expensive. Five little round tables crowded elbow to elbow in the tiny space, each with a vase of opalescent vacuum glass holding a single pink rose. Ahni hadn’t seen roses in Dane’s kingdom, but she bet they were there somewhere. They took their cycleware platters to an empty table, collecting utensils and drinks on the way. Donya had loaded her burger up with sauces and greens until it resembled a small urban tower and threatened to succumb to gravity in a soggy mound. Ahni forked up her salad noticing that the greens lacked any sort of onion and no garlic flavored the vinaigrette dressing. Odor?

At the next table a young couple held hands, natural Mediterraneans both of them, newlyweds or new lovers to be sure. She smiled at the drift of pheromones slowly filling the small space. He leaned forward to caress her hand, his skin the color of honey, his dark eyes sparkling as he lifted her hand, turned it palm up and lowered his head to kiss her wrist. Her long fingers with their lacquered and inlaid nails curved to caress his cheekbone, the dark fringe of her lashes brushing her tawny cheek. Every person in the restaurant shifted and sighed and Ahni smiled into her salad. Only Donya seemed oblivious.

He pulled her to her feet. She wore her hair long, parted in the middle and swept back to an intricate knot at the base of her skull. A tiny pale lizard perched on it, ruby eyes blinking slowly, throat pulsating, its scales like slices of pearl.

“Oh, look, she has one of those jewel lizards.” Donya bounced in her seat, the sloppy ruins of her burger abandoned. “They’re illegal in North America. I wonder if she got it up here.”

At that moment, a narrow-faced native in a grimy singlet pushed past the couple, bumping into the woman hard enough to press himself briefly and quite explicitly against her. She recoiled with a gasp of shock. The native quite openly grabbed her breast through the gauzy fabric of her shift. She squeaked.

Her husband thrust himself forward, trembling between action and inaction.

The native said something to him in a low voice.

The Mediterranean threw an awkward, looping punch. It was a joke, Donya could have ducked it…

but the native went down, knocking over the nearest table. Dishes flew, splashing two native women at a nearby table who shrieked and scrambled out of the way. On the floor, splattered with food, he groaned.

Crimson blood blossomed on his face and this time, the Mediterranean woman screamed, a shrill nail-rake of sound in the tight space. Diners were on their feet now, mostly natives, Ahni noticed suddenly. Only she, and Donya, and the honeymoon couple were tourists.

“Wow.” Donya pushed forward. “He didn’t hit him that hard.”

“Keep your damn fists to yourself, heavyweight.” A broad native with a lot of lanky muscle shoved forward. “Who the hell do you think you are, coming up here, pushing us around, eh?”

“He… he assaulted my wife.” The man had gone pale, took a half step back from the native’s out thrust face and hunched, threatening shoulders. “I didn’t hit him that hard.”

“Someone call Emergency,” a petite woman at a nearby table shrieked. “He’s bleeding to death!”

Faces gathered at the door, the news got yelled back, out into the corridor. Ahni peered through tlle small window, her gut cold. Where the hell had the crowd come from, and so quickly? Ahni grabbed Donya’s arm as the girl pushed toward the fallen man and the tourist who was now the center of a shouting knot of diners.

“He’s dead,” someone screamed. “Oh my God, he killed him.”

Which was patently false. Ahni could see the heave of his chest from here. She quick-blinked into Pause, scanned the local schematics, blinked out.”We’re out of here,” she hissed in Donya’s ear. “Right now.”

“But-” Donya tried to pull away, but Ahni twisted her arm just enough to wring a gasp and compliance from her, aimed her at the narrow door to the kitchen. Back door, service alley, fast way out before this blew up. Behind her the woman screamed again, long and loud this time, fear piercing the air. “That way.

Go!” She shoved the uncooperative Donya summarily toward the kitchen.

And felt Xai.

He was out there. Behind her. In the corridor. She hesitated, allmost turned back. But to get out there meant going straight through the knot of seething violence in the center of the restaurant. The woman was screaming wildly now and red violence fogged the air. Where the hell was Security? “Go!” She shoved the girl so hard she stumbled, burst with her through into a flash-image of crowded space, heat, steam, food smells, blank, stunned faces and wide eyes, shock, surprise, and fear. Pushed on through, leading with her shoulder, dragging Donya now, who kept trying to turn and look back.

Back door, service alley. Ahni erupted into it, looked both ways. Delivery pods, sealed recycle bins coded for processing.

“Did you see that? Did you see what was going on? People were bleeding!” Donya trotted with her down the corridor, breathless with excitement. “How did you know that this was back here. Are you a spy? This is so cool.”

“You want to go back and join the fun?” Anhi snapped as they approached the intersecting corridor that would take them to an unmarked door into the man promenade not far from the riot.”You can bleed, too.”

“I’m a kid.” Donya sniffed.”Nobody hurts kids. Wow, cool.” She peered into the distance as they exited into the promenade beetween a massage station and a small luxurious food store. “We can go back and see what’s going on.”

”No way.”

“Look, there’s Security.” She pointed at a narrow wedge of uniformed people penetrating the mob around the restaurant.

Good. Ahni paused, one hand clamped around Donya’s arm, stretching her senses for Xai. Yeah, that way. Right through the middle of the riot and out the other side. And he was moving away from them.

She cursed softly, voicelessly. “Hey!” She spotted annother trio of Security headed in the direction of the riot. Waved.”We need help!”

The threesome, intent on the violence ahead, nearly didn’t stop.

She was dressed like a native, not like an Elite.”This tourist girl nearly got hurt in the riot. She’s lost.”

“I am—”

“Shut up,” Ahni hissed. “This is bigger than you. Help me.”

One of the threesome peeled off, reluctantly, giving her distracted attention. He was young, like Jose, the scrum player. “She got separated from her nanny,” Ahni said breathlessly, helplessly “Her folks are up here doing consulting work for NYUp. She’s scared!” Pinched Donya’s arm. Hard.

“I don’t know where Nanny went!” The girl, bless her, did wonderful sniffle and scared-little-girl voice. “I don’t know where she’s staying.”

The Security guy had whipped out a scanner. Blinked at”You’re not chipped?”

“Huang, Taiwan Families,” Ahni said impatiently. Only up here would someone even ask. “Will you take charge of her? It would be ugly if something happened to her, I’m sure.”

He cast an anxious glance toward the riot. The crowd was already thinning, the action clearly over.

”Yeah, I’d better.” He reach for Donya’s hand. “Come on, little girl, let’s go see if we can get you safely back to Mom and Dad, okay?”

“Thank you,” Donya murmured demurely, giving Ahni a “you owe me” look.

Ahni winked. “Thanks so much, I was so worried.” Then she turned and hurried off, ignoring the Security’s call for her to wait.

Focusing, she reached for her brother, found a trace of him faint, fading rapidly. Damn. The crowd was dispersing, most people hurrying away, others standing around in small, huddled groups, talking or speaking into personal links. Con will be buzzing, she thought. The emotional fog in the corridor was bad enough. She spied a media cam, his forehead camera eye fixed on the door of the restaurant. Oh great.

She pushed past two women in business suits who barely glanced at her, their conversation intense and threaded with worry. The corridor was clearer here, and she broke into a trot, ignoring the startled and disapproving looks she got. Straining, she groped for her brother, touched the merest whisper of his presence, halted as she reached an intersecting corridor. Which way? Stretching her senses to the limit, trying to pinpoint the origin of that faint tickle, she took a few hesitant steps down the corridor.

Gone. He had moved out of her range of perception.

She turned to go back to the main corridor when a shadow moved at the edge of her vision, someone hiding in a shallow serrice bay. Ahni spun, ready to strike.

“Dane!” She halted, trembling. Twice in one day. If she wanted a barometer of the mood in this place, this was it. “Oh, I am so glad to see you. I’ve been looking for you. Did Noah tell you?”

“Noah finally remembered to tell me. We need to talk, Ahni.”

“Where?” she said. “My hotel room is on this level.”

”Up at the axle. That’s safer.”

“I’m carrying a hotel chip. That’s why I didn’t come up there.”

“Not a problem.” He smiled faintly. “I can deal with that.”

“How’s Koi?”

“He misses you.” Dane searched her face.”Why did you come back up here, Ahni?”

”To stop whatever my brother is doing.” She held his pewter gaze.

Dane’s eyes softened. “I’m glad you came back.” He leaned forward suddenly and kissed her lightly on the mouth. She caught her breath, mouth opening, heat flushing through her, tasting him, the corridor, the riot, fading in an instant.

Reluctantly, he pushed her away. “I’ll see you at the axle,” he said, his voice husky. Then he stepped into the corridor and vanished into the thinning crowd.

Dizzy, Ahni searched for any hint of Xai, found nothing but the crackling static of a lot of upset people.

Her blood pulsed with the aftermath of that kiss as she plotted her way to the nearest elevator. As she entered the main corridor, she found a cordon of Security keeping people back, their emotional signature jagged.

Two members trotted a lightweight gurney down the corridor. A sheet covered the body on it.