Metrophage

NINE

A light crusting of salt on his lips. The smell of damp cement and fish.

Los Angeles closed over him like the wing of a bird, distorted like the image of a diamond caught in the concave surface of a parabolic mirror. Distended, the city shattered; it could not hold. All the gleaming office towers and prisons, all the cars and guns, the junkies and the dealers, the dead and the dying came raining down on him from the back of a wounded sky. And everybody seemed to know his name but him.

It occurred to Jonny that for someone who basically just wanted to be left alone, he was spending an awful lot of time waking up in bandages.

That he was alive at all was less a surprise to him than a burden. He kept wondering if there was some reason for it, some purpose other than for other people's amusement. The back of his head felt as if it had been pried open with a can opener and filled with dry ice. He laughed at something (not entirely sure what), found the edge of the bed with his hand and sat up.

The smell of fish was stronger. There was a chittering, like the voices of dolphins, rooms away. No light, though. He felt bandages on his face, multiple layers of gauze and surgical tape. Scars on his cheeks. He had surgery. Below the line of the dressing, he touched his lips. They were swollen, his front teeth loose. His nose was probably broken, too. Still, it could have been worse, he thought. His eyes ached.

His eyes.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice was screaming. His own: like the roar of turbines, like metal twisting on metal.

Eyes.

The world tilted then, burdened by the weight of a single word.

"Blind," he said. It barely registered. He found he could hold it back, if he tried, could examine the word from a distance, scan the contours and convolusions of it, while never quite allowing it to take on conscious meaning. But the weight of it was such that he could not keep it away indefinitely; it fell, bringing memory crashing down on him like the windshield of the hovercar. He was blind.

I am blind.

"Jonny?" It was a man's voice. Amplified. "Stay there. Don't get up," it said.

Below his bare feet, the floor was cold. He felt damp concrete, limp strands of kelp and a few steps later, the rusted grillwork of a floor drain. He could hear the ocean, very close by. Something skittered across his right foot. A tiny crab. He felt others move away each time he brought his foot down. A wall. He needed a wall, something substantial to hold onto. He started back to where he thought the bed was, then stopped. Unsure. He turned in a circle, shouting, his head thrown back, his hands reflexive claws tearing at the gauze. When it was all gone he was still standing there, panting.

No light at all.

"Jonny, don't move."

He started at the sound, took a step- and was falling. A hand closed on his shoulder and right arm, pulling him back. He lay on the floor, his hands to his f ace, the dampness seeping through his pant legs.

I" told you to stay put. You almost walked into ten meters of empty air just then." The voice was familiar.

"Hey Groucho," Jonny said. "Guess what. I'm blind."

"I already knew. You didn't have to go to all this trouble to prove it to me," he said. The anarchist hauled him to his feet and walked him back to the bed, a distance Jonny judged to be no more than fifteen meters.

"Christ, I'm a fuckin' veg," said Jonny.

"Don't be stupid," said the anarchist. Jonny felt the distribution of weight on the bed change as Groucho sat down. "You have your hands; you have your mind. We sealed off what was left of your optic nerves. There wasn't much more we could do."

"Great," asked Jonny. "What about implants?"

"I don't know. We could probably rig something to give you some kind of vision. Eventually," Groucho said. "Splice some nerve cells from somewhere else in your body into your optic nerve tissue and see if we can generate something to rebuild with. I'm not sure. The trouble is, we're limited in what we can even attempt out here in the hinterlands. We lost a lot of our equipment when the Committee came down on us." Jonny felt him move. Some kind of gesture. "Sorry, man."

Jonny nodded. "Yeah. So where are we?"

"A fish farm. It's been out of business for years. That's what you almost fell into, one of the drained feeding tanks. Before it was a farm, the place used to be a marine mammal center. There are pens outside where the dolphins still come looking for a free lunch. I'm afraid we've been encouraging them," he said. "They're beautiful animals."

"Gee whiz, tell me all about it," said Jonny. He took a deep breath and swallowed. "Listen, I gotta know. Do I–I mean, what do I-?"

"Your face is fine," said Groucho. "You may even consider it an improvement. Although you have enough plastic and metal in your skull now to qualify as a small appliance."

Jonny shook his head. He tried to conjure up the image of Groucho sitting next to him on the bed. The bed itself was easy.

Running his fingers around the edge, he felt bare metal and soft rubberized bumpers, locked wheels beneath. A specimen cart, he thought, covered with a foam sleeping mat. However, Groucho's face eluded him. Jonny could never recall people's faces unless he was looking right at them. He tried to picture the room. Bare concrete, enameled tanks with chrome ladders leading to the bottom, drains in the floor Forget it.

It was a shopping list, not a picture. He could imagine himself (also faceless), Groucho and the bed, but beyond that was a void, terra incognita. Nothing existed that was farther away than the end of his arm. "Get used to it, asshole," he mumbled.

"What?"

"So what happens now?"

"We go back to plan one," said Groucho. "The Croakers have friends in Mexico. We should be able to get you down to Ensenada in a couple of days, then over to the mainland. It's going to be a while before we can do anything about your eyes."

"Don't shit me, okay?" said Jonny. "If my optic nerves are as gone as you say, then we're just blowing wind talking about nerve splices. Realistically, we're really talking about a skull-plug run through a digitizer and some kind of micro-video rig. You, or any of your people, got the chops to fix that up?"

"No. You've got to go to New Hope or some government clinic for that kind of work."

"Well, there you are," said Jonny flatly. The bed moved as Groucho got up. Jonny studied the overlapping echoes of the anarchist's footsteps as he moved around the room, counting the number of beats between each heel click, imagining that this might give him some sense of the room's layout or size. It did not. There were other sounds: the white noise of surf, dolphins, the clicking of crabs across the floor, all equally distant and unreal, as if, in the absence of any visual stimulus, his brain were busily manufacturing sensations for itself. "Maya, man. Sometimes I think this is all just smoke and mirrors."

"I thought that was acknowledged," said Groucho. The anarchist's voice came from across the room, a little off to his left.

"It used to make me crazy," Jonny said. "I roshis told me that this was all an illusion. Well man, if this is all illusion, it must be somebody else's, 'cause I wouldn't make up this shit." There was a scraping on the concrete, a rustling of paper. Jonny thought Groucho might be moving boxes.

"That's just avoiding the issue," said Groucho. "It also sounds like am elaborate excuse for suicide. Do you want to die?"

"I don't know." Jonny shrugged. "Sometimes. Yeah."

"It's hard," said Groucho. "We've become so numbed by the presence of death that we toy with it, use it like a drug, building it up in our minds as the great escape. The fallacy there, of course, is that death is an illusion, too."

"You're a three ring circus, man," said Jonny. "But it's all just words. The Catholics got half the city under their thumbs with cheap lighting effects and stained glass, the Muslims tell the hashishin that dying for Allah is a ticket to heaven and Buddha says life is suffering, which means I shouldn't bring anybody down by pointing out that being blind, that this whole situation is completely fucked."

"Don't you see, that's what illusion means? You're blind, you say? I say, there's no one seeing and nothing to be seen," Groucho replied. "How can you miss what never existed?"

"That is such bullshit."

"Ice told me you had a roshi once, that you used to sit. What happened?" Groucho's voice was close again. He pressed something into Jonny's hands. "Your boots. Sorry, somebody polished them. They're black, again."

Jonny leaned over the edge of the bed and started to pull on his right boot. He said, "Yeah, I used to sit. I was young and it was fashionable. Teeny-bopper Zen. Like lizard skin jackets or green eyes."

"You don't seem the type for that game."

"Sure I am."

"No, you like to think you are, because it's easy and it fits in with an image you have of yourself, but, I think, you're not nearly the cynic or fool you like to play at."

As Jonny pulled on his other boot, he said, "That was you guys tipped the cops to Nimble Virtue's warehouse, right?"

Groucho sighed. "Taking you from the cops was going to be a breeze. We never dreamed the idiots would call in the Committee," Groucho said. "Ice made the call, actually. She's safe, you know."

Jonny smiled. Thanks."

"Sumi, too."

"Jesus," he said, "is she here?"

"Yes. She practically rigged all the lighting out here single-handed. She's running the juice through the transit authority's power grid."

"That sounds like her," said Jonny. "Where is she? Take me to her." He stood, but Groucho pushed him back on the bed.

"You stay here. She and Ice are on a scavenging party to some of the old oil platforms nearby. When they get back, I'll let them know you've come around."

"Thanks, man," Jonny said. He touched the neat rows of tiny plastic staples they had used to close the incisions in his face. Tight meridians of pain. He felt very tired.

"The confidences of mad men. I would spend my life in provoking them," replied Groucho. "Take this." Jonny found a small cylinder of soft plastic pressed into his hand. "Auto-injector," said Groucho. "It's an endorphin analog. If the pain gets too bad, just remove the top to expose the syringe, and hit a vein."

When the anarchist left the room, Jonny popped the top of the injector with his thumb and pressed the needle into the crook of his left arm. A spring-loaded mechanism pumped home the drug.

Immediately, the pain was gone, replaced with a gentle disembodied warmth, as if his blood had been replaced with heated syrup. He lay down on the bed, feeling his muscles uncoil, and let the drug and the deeper darkness of sleep wash over him. He listened to the ocean and the dolphins, licked the salt from his lips, and hoped he would not dream.

Sleep did not stay long. The drug did its work well, holding the pain an arm's length away, but the analog left too much of his brain in working order. He was just aware enough to notice the ghosts as they floated high above his bed. Hot red and electric blue, moving fast, like falling rain or static on a video monitor. He swung at them open-handed, but missed. They were not there. They were inside.

Inside his head.

A trick of the surgery, he told himself. Random signals twitched from fried nerves, entering the visual center of his brain. Fireworks, he thought. Great timing. Thank you very-fucking-much.

When he fell asleep again, he dreamed of machinery, an underground refinery, like a buried city. Cooling towers and steam and choking clouds of synth-fuel fumes. He had run away from the state school again. Jonny, ten years old, fat and out of breath, ran on trembling legs and hid among the dull hills of cooling slag. A man came after him. He wore a cheap plastic poncho and carried a gun.

Silent as death, half his face was hidden behind a pair of mirror shades. When the man found him, all Jonny could do was raise his blistered hands to cover his ears. At the last moment, he saw his burned face reflected in the man's glasses. The refinery roared and spat smoke. He cried, hoping he would not be able to hear the shot.

"Wake up, Sleeping Beauty. Hey Jonny, come on, move your ass. Somebody made little railroad tracks all over your sweet face."

Startled, he awoke. He could still see the ghosts, but there were fewer of them now. His skull was full of cotton. "Ice?" he said.

"Who else, doll?"

He sat up in bed, reached out and touched wet leather, cool and smelling of the ocean. "Hiya, babe," she said, and kissed him with salted lips. "I got a present for you." She guided his hand to the right, until it touched something. Graceful planes of skin and bone defining cheeks, below that, a strong jaw and mouth. Something happened in his chest, a jolt, like pain, that instead was pure pleasure. Later, he thought if he had eyes, he probably would have made a fool of himself by blubbering. "Sumi," he said.

"Can't put anything over on you," she replied.

He held her, held on to her to keep from falling. If he let go, he knew the floor would open up and swallow him. But he felt Ice's arm join Sumi's across his back. They stayed that way for some time, huddled there together, Jonny's head on Sumi's shoulder. His drugged brain could hardly handle the input. It kept misfiring, triggering emotions and memories at random. Fear. Love. A melted circuit board. Desire. Mirror shades. A gun.

"Where the fuck have you been?" he asked, finally. They relaxed and moved apart on the bed, but remained touching.

"You know Vyctor Vector?"

"Sure," he said. "She's only el patron of the Naginata Sisters."

"Well, I was setting up power out at her place; she's got this squat in an old police station in Echo Park. The Sisters are using it as their new club house. Built in security system, a gym, working phones, you know? Anyway, when I finished up there, I went back to home, but when I got there, the place was crawling with Committee boys. I thought one of them might have spotted me, so I high-tailed it through some movie crew downstairs, and back to Vyctor's. The Sisters were cool. They put me up for awhile, then got in touch with some smugglers they muscle for, who put me on to the Croakers. And here I am."

"Here you are," said Jonny. "Christ, we probably missed you by maybe a couple of hours." He shook his head. "I thought you were dead."

"And we thought you were dead," said Ice. "'Course, before that Sumi thought I was dead, and I thought, oh shit-" She laughed. "Let's face it, everybody wrote off everybody these last few weeks. But we made it. We foxed 'em."

"We got lucky," Jonny said.

"Maybe it's the same thing," said Sumi.

"Maybe it doesn't fucking matter," Ice said.

"I'm so out of touch," said Jonny. "What's it like on the street? The Committee's push still on?"

"Yeah. We thought with so many people sick, they'd forget about it and back off," said Ice. "No such luck. They're just pumping the boys full of amantadine and sending 'em out on search and destroys, using the virus as an excuse to come down on anyone's ever looked cross-eyed at the Committee."

"That's why the Naginatas were moving," said Sumi. "Vyctor said the Committee closed the Iron Orchid, where they used to hang out."

"Public Assembly Laws they call them." Ice all but spat the words. "No gatherings of more than a certain number of people within a kilometer of Los Angeles. The Colonel must be going nuts," she said. "He's getting positively medieval."

"Does anybody have any ideas on how the virus is spreading?" Jonny asked.

"On a molecular level, the thing's just a lousy cold bug. A rhinovirus. Vanilla as you can get," Ice replied.

"What I saw on that micrograph at the clinic sure didn't look like a cold virus," said Jonny.

"Right," said Ice. "It's like one of those Chinese puzzle boxes. You know, open up one box and there's a little box inside, you open up the next box, there's a smaller one inside that, and on and on. On one level, this thing looks like a phage, on another level, it's just a cold bug. But the levels keep going. The molecular structure of this thing's dense. We know something else, too. At least, we're reasonably sure."

"Sure of what?" asked Jonny.

"It's man-made."

"How do you know?" Jonny wished he could see Ice's face as she talked. He could usually learn as much from her expressions as from what she said.

"Partly it's just a hunch" (She would be frowning now.)", but natural bonds just don't feel like this mess. It's like somebody tried to squeeze ten pounds of ugly into an eight pound box."

"Tell him about the war," said Sumi.

"What war?" asked Jonny.

"I'm coming to it," Ice said. "It looks like what we got here is an ultra-complex retrovirus, something back in the 'nineties they called a layered virus. A primary bug attacks a system, in our case, the bug is a viral analog of leprosy. It causes whatever damage it can, but eventually the system's defenses kill it. Here's the tricky part, though-"

"There's another virus," said Jonny.

"You got it, doll, " said Ice. "At some point, we don't know what triggers it, but a secondary virus is activated. It uses the damage caused by the first virus to attack the already weakened system. In our case, the secondary virus uses the peripheral nerve damage caused by the leprosy to travel backwards, on a substrate of nerve cell axons, up into the brain. Almost the exact reverse of neuroblast migration. We think it might be modeled on that."

"What's the pathology of the second virus?" Jonny asked.

"Silence. Syphilis," Sumi said.

"Jesus."

"Parenchymatous neurosyphilis, to be exact," said Ice. "A really hyped-up version. Years worth of nerve damage get compressed into a few days. Death occurs a week to two weeks after the symptoms manifest." She took a breath. "It's a motherfucker, too. Physical, mental and personality breakdown, epileptic attacks, lightning pains, tremors; the full whack. Patient's pupils get small and irregular."

"Argyll Robertson pupils," Jonny said.

"Right. Looks like they got bugs in their eyes." Ice'svoice trailed off, then it came back loud, full of frustration. "And the syphilis is an analog, too, of course. So none of our standard therapies are worth shit. Personally, I wouldn't go through it-"

"Who would?" asked Jonny.

"I mean I wouldn't want to die that way," said Ice. "I think if I found out I had the bug, I'd do myself before I'd go through all that."

"Yeah," whispered Sumi. He could feel the woman move, leaning toward Ice to comfort her.

Jonny thought that it was probably night outside. Even in the relative quiet of evening, the sounds and smells of the ocean lent a subtle sense of life to the old fish farm that Jonny appreciated. Raw sensory data, enough to keep from feeling completely disconnected with the world, poured through the seaward vents, sounds and scents changing radically with the passing of the day. There were no chittering dolphins sounds now, just the quiet lapping of water and the scratching of crabs in the empty pools. Farther away were human sounds. Occasional hammering, voices, the momentary roar of a car engine. It would not be unpleasant, thought Jonny, to spend the rest of his life here.

"Tell me about the war," he said.

"Down by the port, we liberated this warehouse of some guns and fuel, and ended up this case. Had some floppy discs full of declassified military documents. The war was that Arab and Jap thing back in the 'nineties," said Ice. "Seems NATO's bio-warfare arm was working on something a lot like the layered virus we're looking at now. Operation Sisyphus. Trouble was, back then, they couldn't always trigger either virus and when they did, they couldn't always protect their troops. A lot of people died. There's apparently still a zone in northern France that's off limits to civvies. After all that, the project got a bad name; the research was considered too expensive and too dangerous, so when the war-talk cooled down, the project died. And the techs went back to making the world safe for conventional warfare."

"You think our virus could be the same one they were working on back then?" asked Jonny.

"A much more refined version, yeah. I'd be real surprised if in the last seventy years, some of that original data didn't get walked out of there from time to time," Ice replied. "I mean, we weren't even looking for it."

Jonny nodded and his chin momentarily brushed Sumi's hand, which rested his shoulder. "It fits," he said. "There's a New Palestine cell operating in the city. They've been beaming leper videos to the folks back home. Zamora told me they were just a propaganda unit, but he was lying."

"Hell, could be Aoki Vega or the goddamn Alpha Rats, for all the difference it makes," said Ice.

"She's right," said Sumi. "If this is some germ warfare thing, we're probably not going to find any easy treatments for it."

"Fuck it, if the Arabs want this city, they can have it," said Jonny. "Groucho already talked to me about Mexico. He says we can be down there in a couple of days."

"I'm not going," said Ice. "Sumi'll take you, and I'll come later."

"You still playing the artistic anarquista?" Jonny asked.

"Fuck you," snapped Ice. "I've got commitments here. I'm a Croaker and that means I'm part of this revolution, no matter what you think of it."

Jonny turned to her voice. "Excuse me, but wasn't that you a little while ago saying me how much you wanted us to be together again? Well, here we are." He waited for her to say something and when she did not he said, "What's the matter? You bored already?"

He felt her get up and leave the bed; an emptiness developed in her wake, a sense of loss that was more profound than the simple lack of her physical presence. He put out his arm, but she was not there and he could not find her. Ice's practiced steps were light and almost silent from months of guerrilla raids and street warfare. Her sudden absence reminded of his helplessness. "Ice?" he said.

"I'm doing this." Her voice was firm and low, the tone she always used when she wanted to project assurance, but was afraid her voice might crack. "You can help me or not, make this easy or hard, but I'm in the for the duration."

"Why are you being such a shithead, Jonny?" asked Sumi. She shook his sleeve gently. "What's the matter?"

"Shit. I'm afraid," he said. "I'm afraid for her and you. And I'm afraid for me. I don't want to end up alone."

"You won't be alone," said Sumi. "I'm going with you. Ice will come."

"He's afraid I'm going to take a walk again," came Ice's voice.

"Shouldn't I be?" he asked.

"No."

He breathed deeply. His fingers picked idly at a paint blister on the bed's molded metal handle. "I hate politics. It's the lowest act a human being can sink to."

"Yeah," said Ice, drawing the word out to the length of a breath.

"Why don't you come here?" Jonny said.

She came back to the bed and he kissed her for a long time.

Then he leaned back and kissed Sumi, and when he moved away, found himself pressed in the warmth of two bodies as the women's mouths met over his shoulder.

The undressing was a haphazard affair. Jonny yanked at the boots he had just put on and tried to help each woman out of her clothes. Without his eyes, though, he just succeeded in tangling them in their shirts. Sumi pushed him down on the bed and held him there, reminding him that a couple of days was not a very long time, and that maybe he should not help them.

Eventually, they bent together, in one three-way kiss. Hands moved in phantom caresses and scratches over Jonny's body. The women pressed him to the bed, embracing each other on top of him, exciting each other while moving in slow undulations over his body.

Occasionally their rhythm would change and he would feel a tongue or hand would sweep over his belly or up his thigh. They were teasing him, he realized. Making his blindness a part of their lovemaking. He loved it.

The women changed places, moving back and forth across his body. He lost track of them, could no longer tell one from the other.

One bent to his penis and he leaned back, shuddering pleasurably against the other's breasts. The smell of their bodies overwhelmed him.

While the one remained on his cock, he tilted his head back into the sweet-sour folds between the other's legs. He and the one he was tonguing (he thought it might be Sumi) came together- in that instant he felt his life drain out into both of them, as theirs' drained into him.

The one on his cock stayed there until he was hard again and mounted him from the top. The other woman moved between them biting, scratching, caressing the two of them as they moved together. Then the women switched places and a new warmth enveloped him. He felt one riding him (Sumi, he was sure.) lean across his chest and brush her lips across the other's labia. Ice trembled to a climax as he kissed her and the life moved between the three. The smells of concrete and rust, sweat and sex flared and merged with his own orgasm, lighting, for a moment, the vast and eyeless darkness in a small act of binding.

And then the light was gone and he was blind again, but this time he did not feel so alone.

"Big trouble." It was Groucho's voice.

Jonny sat up in bed and fumbled for a light switch, then remembered where he was. He felt Ice and Sumi stirring on either side of him. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"Zamora," said Groucho. "He's got the city sealed off. There are goddamn jetfoils patrolling not a hundred yards out from here. Road blocks on the freeways and secondary roads. Aerial recon on the desert. Nobody's going anywhere."

"How'd you hear about this?" asked Ice. Both women were up now. Fabric rustled softly as they pulled on their clothes. Jonny waited for someone to hand him his.

"A rescue team just brought in a driver from up north," said the anarchist. His voice was tired, hoarse. "She was riding point for a camel train moving down the coast from San Francisco, bringing in antibiotics and amantadine. Seems that everything was clean and clear until they hit Ventura. Some of Pere Ubu's boys were waiting and all hell broke loose."

"She going to make it?" asked Jonny. Someone dropped his clothes in his lap and he started to dress.

"I doubt it," said Groucho. "She's shot up pretty badly. Gato just shot her up with the last of our endorphins. I've been on the radio all night. Ubu's got the town sealed up tight."

"Think he's ready to move on the lords?" asked Ice.

"No question about it," Groucho said. "This driver said they made a run on New Hope, hoping they could pick off a warehouse. The place is deserted."

"Then we're fucked," said Jonny. "They've moved the heavy money out of the way of war."

"We're still safe out here, aren't we?" asked Sumi.

"Not any more," said Jonny, pulling on his boots. "It's standard Committee procedure to let a few people get away from any raid, just to see where they run. They probably had that driver tagged all the way out here."

"Which is why we're going back to the city," Groucho said. "I have people packing up anything we can use. The rest gets dumped. We've got a few kilos of C-4 wired to pressure points all along the superstructure of this building. When Ubu's boys get here, it will be waiting for them."

"What happens to Jonny?" Sumi asked.

"Funny, that was my next question," Jonny said.

Groucho sighed. "What can I say? We're pretty good for weapons, but we have to coordinate with the other gangs before we can hit the Committee. We can find something for you to do once we get set up."

"Like rolling bandages and hiding under beds when the shooting starts? No thanks. I got other plans."

"What?" asked Groucho.

"Well, I don't mind telling you, Mister Conover was pretty choked up when I took off from his place. He'll be glad to see me."

"You sure you can trust him?"

"Absolutamente," said Jonny. "He always been right by me and, besides, if there's any way to move stuff out of town, he'll know about it." He stood up from the bed and pulled on his shirt. The sounds of movement, clattering tools and footsteps, things being dragged across concrete, echoed through the complex; there was tension in the voices Jonny heard, a frenetic buzz that he recognized as the prelude to combat. At that moment, he no longer had any desire to remain at the farm, thinking, The Colonel's taken that away, too.

"I'll need a driver," he said.

"That's me," said Sumi.

Jonny reached toward her voice and felt a hand close over his.

"You should go with them," he said. "They can use your help. If Conover can't move me, it could mean sitting on our asses for a long time."

"We had a deal," said Sumi firmly. "I don't see where this changes anything but the location. I go with you now and Ice joins us later."

"When the girl's right, she's right," said Ice.

"You sure?" asked Jonny.

"Completely," Sumi replied. "What about a car?"

"No problem." Groucho's voice was farther away, near the noise from the door. "Be ready to go in thirty minutes," he said.

As the anarchist left, Jonny said, "He says that like we got to pack or something. He just wants to give us time to say good-bye," said Ice.

Jonny laughed. "I don't think a half-hour is going to be enough," he said.

Sumi took his hand, pulling Jonny through long and curving corridors that buzzed with the staccato beat of voices (too many languages at once, he could not understand any of it) and hurrying feet. The smell of nervous sweat hung in the air, an undercurrent, like a faint static charge.

Outside, a cool salt breeze lapped at his face. The sun warmed him. Sumi took him down two switchbacks and then out over hard sand that crunched like broken glass under their feet. It was a sound from his childhood. Fused silicon. He knew where they were now, could picture the scene in his head. The smell of burning fossil fuels came from his right, along with the growling of primitive combustion engines. The sun was dead ahead. Yes, he could see it. The vehicles that had been hidden under the pylons of the fish farm, were being rolled out onto the blackened beach, leaving feathery webs of cracks in the dead glass of the Pacific Palisades shore. Jonny had visited the beach before.

The summer of his twelfth birthday. He and a boy named Paolo went over the wall from the Junipero Serra state school. In Santa Monica they stole a small launch. Paolo piloted it up to the Palisades and they weighed anchor at the sight of a wrecked Venezuelan freighter. "Liquid natural gas explosion," Paolo had said. "Wiped out the whole town." Jonny nodded, trying to look cool, but he could barely keep his lunch down.

There was not much of the freighter left above the surface. In the leaking wet suits and respirators they found on the launch, swimming through the wreckage of the ship's engine room. It had been blown, nearly intact, onto an outcropping of rock a few dozen meters below the water level. The big furnaces were crusted with bright streamers of coral and undersea plants, like some weird ice castle. On their way back to the surface, Jonny spotted something. An odd shape below the big mussel-studded steam pipes. He swam closer. A skeleton, blackened with the sea and time. The back of the skull and ribs had melted when the ship burned, flowing in the same pattern as the bulkhead walls, fusing with them. Hermit crabs and barnacles had claimed the skull.

Standing on the beach now, Jonny wondered if the sailor was still out there, washed by the Pacific tides. He was the first dead man Jonny had ever seen.

Sumi took his hand and placed it on the warm metal roof of a car. Jonny felt his way along the smooth finish until he came to a seam where the roof met the door. He pulled the door open (it swung up, not out) as an arm slid around his midsection. "You take care, killer," Ice whispered. She pecked him below the ear.

Jonny nodded. "You, too," he said. The sun was making the scars on his face itch. He heard the women up by the headlights, speaking in low tones. A rustle of fabric as they embraced. Then footsteps as someone crunched away quickly across the sand. A hand touched his arm. "You have to step up to get in," said Sumi. Trying hard not to let her voice crack.

Jonny put a leg up over the side of the low-slung car, and settled onto rotten leather upholstery. When he touched the dashboard, he felt weathered wood. His fingers smelled lightly of varnish and mildew. As Sumi got in, he ran his hands over the stick shift and instrument panel, felt an embossed logo. It reminded him of another car he had been in. "Something Italian. Lamborghini?" he wondered.

"There's a shoulder harness to your right," said Sumi quietly.

Buckling in, Jonny said, "She's going to be all right."

"Right."

Someone came running up to the car. "Here, take this." It was Ice, breathless. She put something in Jonny's hands. Half a meter long and heavy, it smelled of cordite and machine oil, had two chopped-off cylinders mounted on a short wooden stock. A sawed-off shotgun.

"Figure you can't use a pistol right now, but if someone gets close enough, this'll modify their opinion."

Jonny weighed the gun in his hands. "I love you, too," he said.

"Need any amantadine?"

"No, Conover'll be holding," said Jonny.

"Right." Ice touched his shoulder. "Gotta go," she said. And she was running away again, off to where he could hear the other cars warming up their engines.

Sumi gunned the Lamborghini and slipped the car into gear.

"She's not coming back," Sumi said.

"Just drive," said Jonny.

It began to rain as they entered the city. They were driving along Wilshire Boulevard, right through the withered heart of the financial district. Jonny imagined he could feel the heat of the lights as they passed Lockheed's brilliant torus and the flat black sphere of Sony International, Sumi trying to blend the old Lamborghini into the hesitant flow of rush hour traffic. Groups of Croakers had preceded them, heading north and south from the beach, hoping to pull away any surveillance teams that had followed the camel train driver.

Rain needled across the asphalt as they cruised through Beverly Hills. Jonny thought it sounded like frying eggs. For the last hour, a spring had been steadily working its way through the ruined seat and into Jonny's back. He listened to thunder roll in the distance, like a collapsing mountain, growing faint, until it faded completely somewhere to the south. When they were in Hollywood, Jonny told Sumi to head up into the hills.

"Exactly, where are we going?" she asked.

"Up high," said Jonny. "We want to rattle Conover's cage so his security'll come and check us out."

"Great," said Sumi. "How do you know they won't just blow us away and ask questions later?"

"They won't."

"How do you know?"

"I know."

"How?"

Actually, I don't. But I've still got this," he said. From his jacket pocket, he pulled the black card with the gold bar code. "Cops must have left it when they decided I was still Committee meat. The card transmits an identification code. They won't kill us if they scan us for I.D."

"If they scan us."

"Right. If."

He told her to park the car in the driveway of one of the derelict houses in the Hollywoodland development. They waited there in the rain. Jonny popped the door on his side to let in a little of the breeze the swept down through the hills. The air smelled of sage and manzanita. The staples on his face alternately itched and stung him. He thought about the endorphins Groucho had given him back at the fish farm, wished he had some now. He consoled himself with the thought that Conover would have all the drugs he needed to feel better. Better than better, Jonny thought, remembering the stash of Mad Love. Quite a mixed blessing, that. It would be a bad time to bliss-out again, with Ice in trouble and Zamora's push so near. They might have to move on a moment's notice. And he knew that Sumi hated to see him wasted. It brought back bad memories for them both. The Committee. Ice running away. Sumi doesn't need that crap, he thought, not now. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Tired," said Sumi. "My head hurts. Stomach, too. I wish we'd had a chance to eat something today."

He wanted to tell her about the Mad Love, ask her to help him keep clean. "Conover's got these great cooks," he said. "They really lay it on. You'll feel better once you've eaten." He started to mention the drugs. His lips moved, but the words would not come.

Folly, he thought. Greed and folly.

An hour passed. No contact with Conover or his people. Jonny heard Sumi yawn. Her head settled on his shoulder, soft hair against his cheek. He wondered if it was night yet. He was unaccustomed to the sounds of the hills. Each gust of wind, each snap of a twig make him jump. A part of him wished his hearing had gone with his sight.

Living by half-measures was getting to him. Sumi jerked her head up.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Shh," she whispered. Something's moving."

"Conover's men?" he asked.

"No. An animal."

"What kind-?"

Sumi screamed and something slammed into the front of the Lamborghini like a truck. Then it was on the roof, clawing and pounding on the canopy, trying to force it's way in through Jonny's half-open door. He grabbed the handle and held on. "What the hell is it?" he yelled.

"A tiger!" screamed Sumi. She pounded on the glass. "Get off, fucker! Demasu! Demasu!"

The cat growled like rolling thunder. Jonny's door lifted a few centimeters and something slid in. He felt wind on his face, heard claws tearing up the dashboard. "Shoot it!" he yelled. Something cut the air before his face. In his mind's eye he saw mad knives, bent silver blades that smelled of musk and sweat coming for his scarred face. "Shoot it, goddamnit!" He pulled harder on the door, but could not budge it.

"Where's the gun?" yelled Sumi.

Jonny twisted in his seat, trying to keep his shoulder from the ripping claws. He had slid the gun down between his seat and the car wall. He felt along the rotten leather, coming up with spiderwebs and dust. Then his hand fell on a wedge of polished wood. Something sharp tore at his shoulder, scraped bone. He cursed once and fell back against his seat, pulling the gun and letting off both barrels through the window.

At first there was nothing. When the roaring in his ears died down, he was aware of a gentle, but persistent hissing beneath the sound of the rain. There was a peculiar chemical smell in the air.

Almost metallic.

"Christ," said Sumi. "It's a robot." Jonny heard her release the latch and lift her door open. A creaking of springs as she stood in her seat. "Looks like you got it in the neck. Took it's head clean off. Jesus, you ought to see this. Steam, fiber optics and circuit boards all over the place. Some kind of super-cooled liquid. It's bubbling the paint right off the car."

"Get back in," said Jonny. "They'll be coming soon."

"I think they're here," said Sumi. Jonny heard he slide back into her seat.

Footsteps ground on stone off to the left. They came right for the car; it sounded like three of them, making no attempt to mask their approach. They would be armed, Jonny knew. And nervous when they saw the ruined cat. Conover's rail guns could turn the Lamborghini to slag in a few seconds… A man barked harsh Spanish near the front of the vehicle. "Fuera! Fuera! Vamanos!"

Jonny held up his hands. "Ricos! That you, man?"

Someone came around the car and raised the shattered door over Jonny's head. A low laugh. "Hey, maricon. I was all planned to kick your ass, but I see somebody do it for me, no? Lucky for you."

"Yeah, I must be about the luckiest guy in Last Ass," said Jonny.

"Senor Conover es muy enojado, you take off like that," said Ricos. "He be happy to see you." The man moved closer. "Quien es?"

"That's Sumi," said Jonny. "She's a Watt Snatcher. Friend of mine."

"Not bad, maricon," said Ricos.

"You keep staring, ass-eyes, you're gonna find out how bad I am," Sumi said. Jonny smiled.

Ricos tapped Jonny's shoulder. "Come on," he said. Then, "Hey maricon, you bleeding."

Jonny put his legs over the side of the car and slid to the ground. Sumi came around the front and took his arm. "It's the story of my life," he said.

"We fix you up good," said Ricos, pushing Jonny toward the trees. "Watch your step."

"Very funny," Jonny said.

"A nasty piece of work, son," said Mister Conover, turning Jonny's face in his hands. "You're never going to have to learn to take care of yourself, are you? The plastic surgery looks first-rate, though. Tell me, what condition are the optic nerves in?"

"Shot," said Jonny. Sumi sat next to him on the plush sofa in the Victorian wing of Conover's mansion. The room was warm ad the air smelled of aged wood and patchouli. The smuggler lord had given them Earl Grey tea spiked with Napoleon brandy. Jonny was working on his third cup, rolling with the buzz, letting it build up slowly. He was warm and despite everything, was feeling pretty good. Conover was having one of his twice-weekly blood changes. Jonny could hear the medical techs moving quietly around the room, mumbling to each other, adjusting tubes and compressors. The optic nerves are sealed, but they're pretty useless.

"Interesting," said the smuggler lord. "I'm sorry my tiger mauled you tonight."

"That's okay," said Jonny. He moved his shoulder, feeling the tight weave of gauze where the techs had dressed his wound. "Sorry I had to blow its head off."

"Completely understandable, given the circumstances," said Conover. "I'm sorry, too, in a larger sense, that any of this had to happen. All this was avoidable, if you had just stayed put. But you're still young and sometimes your energy outstrips your sense. Considering what you've been through, I think could forgo the I-told-you-so's."

"I'd appreciate that," said Jonny.

The blood change took another hour. After that, Conover announced that he was going to bed. On his way out, the smuggler lord paused by the sofa and said, "Nice to have you back, son," and, "Thank you for not hurting Ricos that night in the garage."

Jonny smiled toward Conover's voice. "All I wanted was the car. Did you get it back?"

"Of course," said Conover. "I took the fact you didn't do Ricos any real damage as a sign of your goodwill. That you were not Zamora's man, after all. But please-"

"I know-"

"Don't run off like that, again." Conover's tone was friendly enough, but there was something underlying it that chilled Jonny. He nodded at the lord.

"No problem," he said.

"Good," said Conover. "Fela, here, will take you to your room when you're ready. I'm putting you in the same one you had last time, Jonny. Since you're already somewhat familiar with the layout, I thought you might be more comfortable there."

"Yeah, thanks."

"'Night all."

"Good night," said Sumi.

After Conover left, they finished their tea in silence. At three, dozens of clocks, porcelain and grandfather, cuckoo, music box and free standing chimed, rang and called the hour, slightly out of sync, so that the sound had the effect of a musical waterfall. When the sound died down, Jonny asked Fela, a member of Conover's African house staff, to take them to their room.

To his surprise, Jonny found that without his eyes to trick him, the mansion was much less confusing than the last time he had been there. He was learning the place by touch, sound and smell, not sight, so the false doors and back-lit windows, the peculiar angles of the floor and wall joints could not throw him off. He memorized as much of their trip through the house as he could, mentally comparing what he was touching to what he had remembered seeing in the mansion.

He knew when they reached the corridor where their room lay.

Inside, he was greeted with the familiar feel of filigreed wood on the French antiques. He felt a kind of elation, a childish sort of pride, completely out of proportion to what he had accomplished. He smiled and staples stung him.

Fela left them (silently, as always) and Jonny took Sumi out into the hall, walking her past the paintings, describing each he could remember.

"That's a Goya, picture of a nude woman lying on a couch."

"This is a Rembrandt, right? Dark portrait of an old man with no teeth."

"On that table's a sculpture. I forget who did it. Bronze of ballerina."

Sumi made appreciative noises as they walked along. He could not tell if she was admiring the art or his memory or neither. He did not really care, either way. He had a surprise for her.

When Jonny felt the edge of a heavy gothic table, he stopped and pointed to the wall above it. "What do you see?" he asked.

"A painting of some kid dressed all in blue. He's holding a big feathered hat," Sumi said. "Am I supposed to like this guy or something? He's not my type."

"It's 'Blue Boy' by Thomas Gainsborough. And it's a fake," Jonny said. "The only one in the hall." He nodded back the way they had come. "Touch it. The texture's just a holographic trick." He waited a moment. "Well?"

"Well what? What's supposed to happen?" asked Sumi.

"It's plastic. Didn't you notice?"

She grunted. "I don't think it's plastic."

"Of course it is," insisted Jonny. "I found the real one in a storage room-" His fingers brushed wormed wood, but where he was expecting thin, ridged optical plastic, he felt fleshy mounds of oil paint. "Is this the right painting?" he asked.

"It's a young boy dressed in blue," said Sumi.

Jonny shoved his hands in his pockets. He turned around in the hall, confused, suddenly unsure in which direction their room lay. He touched the painting again. Sumi took his arm and walked him back to the room. He sat up the rest of the night brooding, wondering who had changed the painting. Sumi tossed in her sleep. The brandy had upset her stomach and she sweat with a low-grade fever. By dawn (He could tell the sun was up by the warmth that came streaming through the lace curtains. It made his face itch.), her fever had broken. He lay down beside her on the damp sheets and fell asleep.

He dreamed, but there were no images, just darkness. Endless, unbroken night.

"It's the nineties all over again," Conover told Jonny and Sumi.

Silent waiters set bowls of what smelled like miso soup before them on the low lacquered table. They were in the Japanese wing. Conover had gone all out for the dinner, the third the three had shared. Silk kimonos had arrived at Jonny and Sumi's room earlier that evening, along with split-toe socks and wooden sandals. The scent of sandalwood incense filled the house, along with koto music, fragile, ancient, quarter-tone melodies, coming from the halls and every room, flowing from speakers hidden in the walls. The three of them sat cross-legged on tatami mats, firm, pumpkin-sized pillows resting against their backs.

"It was an exciting time. There was blood in the air then, too," the smuggler lord continued. Jonny thought he sounded a little drunk. He had been celebrating by himself the completion of some big business deal. It amazed Jonny how, in the midst of what seemed to him to be absolute bug-fuck madness, Conover could calmly carry on with business as usual. Earlier that evening he had mentioned this to Conover and the smuggler lord had explained that it had mostly to do with his age. "Nothing much surprises me anymore. Or frightens me, for that matter," he had said. "It's all re-runs now. Has been for years."

"Now," Conover said, "Nineteen ninety six was the year of reckoning. How good is your history, Jonny?"

"'Bout as good as my math," he said between sips of hot soybean soup.

"How about you, my dear?" Conover said to Sumi.

"Ninety six? That's the year of the Saudi revolution. When the oil ran out, right?"

Conover, laughed and slapped the tabletop. "An educated young woman, how delightful," said the smuggler lord. "Yes, indeed, in ninety six the oil ran out. For us. The west. Of course, it was still there- in the ground, but there was so little left that the New Palestine Federation wanted to freeze all exports. That's what brought down the House of Saudi. They opposed the embargo and down they came, like a house of cards."

"That's it?" asked Jonny. Someone took away his empty soup bowl and set a plate before him. He sniffed. Pickled cabbage. "That's what that whole stupid non-war was about? They wouldn't sell us their oil?"

"No, no, no," Conover said. "That was part of it, to be sure. But it goes much deeper than that, back years and years. If you read histories of that period, they'll tell you the shooting started when somebody blew-up the Malaga fusion reactor in southern Spain. The CIA claimed the Arabs took it out with a surface to surface missile from Tangier. For their part, the Arabs claimed that radical members of the Green Party or some other environmental group did it without knowing the damned thing was on-line."

"Did they really blow up the reactor?" Sumi asked.

"Yes indeed. Wiped out a hundred square kilometers of prime Spanish real estate, too. But as to starting the war… It's like saying the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand started World War One. The event is true, the ultimate outcome is accurate, but the event becomes meaningless when you remove it from its context."

"Who's Archbishop Ferdinand?" asked Jonny.

I" t was Islam itself we had to kill," said Conover. Jonny heard the smuggler lord sipping tea. He picked at his pickled cabbage, waiting for Conover to continue. Even drunk, the man was interesting.

"This goes back to the nineteen seventies and the early oil embargoes. When the Arabs first let the world know they were aware of their own power. You have to understand, that world communication was still at a very primitive stage. There was no World Link, no skull-plugs. Your average westerner knew nothing of the middle east. Muslims scared the hell out of middle America. All most people knew of Islam came from the twentieth-century equivalents of the World Link. Videos of hostage taking, flag burnings, young men driving trucks full of explosives into the sides of buildings. Utterly alien images. How were we frighten these people? Intimidate them? We couldn't. There we were, the most powerful country on earth and we were powerless to stop a handful of radicals. 'Fanatics' we called them. 'Muslim extremists'."

"Terrorists," said Jonny.

"Oh yes. A very flexible word," Conover replied. "Generally used to describe anybody we don't like. But the Arabs- after all the years we had been shitting on these people, they were starting to shit back, and that was unacceptable. It was bad for morale and, more importantly, it was bad for business. We had to squash them. It was going to be Central America all over again. Boom!" Conover yelled. "Flat as a pancake."

Jonny set down his chop sticks and, not finding a napkin, licked his fingertips. He had picked-up the habit of keeping one or two fingers on his plate at all times. It was the only way he could find his food.

"You really think that old mess is heating up again?" he asked.

"I was speaking metaphorically," Conover explained. "I simply meant to draw an analogy between that old war and our current situation in L.A."

"Who's the Arabs and who's the U.S.?" asked Jonny. "I suppose we'll figure that out when he see who wins."

"The war in ninety-six died down in a few days, right?" asked Sumi.

"Nobody really wanted to start World War Three. The war plans died, yes, but it was more like a few years," said Conover. "Don't forget that's where our economy went, right down the black holes of all those oil fields we didn't own. The moment they signed the Reykjavik treaty, we were dead. All those booming war-time industries collapsed overnight. Then, when the Depression was at its worst, the Alpha Rats landed on the moon, cut off the mines and our lunar research labs and finished us off. We're probably the first country on record to ever go into receivership. The Japanese picked us up for a song. The smuggler lord was silent, as if remembering. Some people think it comes down to accumulated bad karma. My dear"- Conover said suddenly- "are you all right?"

Jonny reached out and found Sumi's hand. It was hot and moist with sweat. "I'm fine," she said irritably, pulling from his grip. "The food up here's too rich for me. I can't keep it down."

"She's been running a fever on and off for a couple of days," said Jonny. He touched her face. She was burning up.

"Don't do that," she said.

Jonny heard Conover get up and move around to their side of the table. "Please," the smuggler lord said quietly. He was quiet for a moment. Jonny knew the lord was checking Sumi's eyes. Hepatitis was still common in the city, and the D strain was a killer.

"Why, didn't you tell me about the fever sooner?" Conover asked.

Jonny shrugged. "We were out at that fish farm. It was wet. I thought maybe she got a cold. It just didn't seem important," he said, and saying it, he knew he was lying. He and Sumi had both been afraid of the same thing when she became ill, and at moments of stress it was easy to fall back on old habits. A year before they had avoided talking openly about Ice's leaving and the daily knowledge of it had eaten them up. Now they could not discuss Sumi's illness, could not take the simplest measures to treat it because to treat it would be to acknowledge its presence, and that was impossible. Sumi could not be ill, not with what they both knew was loose in the city.

"I'm going to have my techs check you out, Sumi," Conover said.

His heavy footsteps moved across the straw mat. A light door slid back.

"Please don't… Mister Conover?… Please… Jonny, make him stop. I don't… want to know…"

Jonny pulled her to him and she put her arms around his neck. She shook with fever and wept quietly. Jonny found himself supporting more and more of her weight. "Hurry!" he yelled.

It was like waking up blind all over again. His mind was working, racing, in fact, like an overheated engine, but nothing was getting through. The information, the possibility that Sumi might be fatally ill was utterly unacceptable. Bad dreams, bad data.

"It's all right, babe," he whispered. "Everything's gonna be all right."

Medical techs were coming down the hall, preceded by the smell of antiseptic. Something followed them. Jonny heard it brushing against the rice paper walls, something that floated forward steadily on an induction cushion. The techs pushed it up to sliding doors and left it there, humming quietly. He felt Sumi being gently lifted from him. Opening his arms, she slipped away, into a space occupied by smooth, reassuring voices, the smell of scrubbed skin and Betadine.

"Jonny?" He heard her as they set her on whatever they had brought with them. "Don't let them take me, please. Jonny? They're wearing masks. I can't see their faces." He sat there at the table as they took her away. "Jonny? I'm scared. Jonny?" Footsteps. The buzzing of induction coils.

He cradled his head in his hands. "Jesus-fucking-Christ." He took deep breaths, pressed his fists to his temples. And hit himself.

And again. And again.

"Stop it." Conover held Jonny's fists. "You're not helping her with that. We have to wait for the lab results."

"You know what it's going to say," Jonny said.

"No, I don't," said Conover. "And neither do you, unless you've developed some special sense you haven't told me about."

"It's the virus," Jonny said. "She's got the fucking leprosy."

"This is a good med team. Russians," said the smuggler lord. "I'm moving them for a private clinic in Kyoto. Now they can earn their keep."

"She's been all over the city," Jonny said. "It was her job. Watt Snatcher goes anywhere people need power. She's been all over. Probably been exposed to it a hundred times."

Conover sat down next to him. "We'll know soon enough."

Jonny stretched his legs out on the tatami mat, running his fingers over the scars on his face. He thought of the micrograph of the virus he had seen at the Croakers' black clinic: the pseudo-phage's distorted head, its thin, insect legs holding it in place while it pumped out its genetic material. Then the cloning of the plague. The cell exploding. Poison in the bloodstream.

"Mister Conover," Jonny began quietly, "if I asked you a couple of personal questions, would you be straight with me?"

"If I can." The smuggler lord's voice was deep, guarded, rumbling from the depths of his belly.

"I can't help thinking that you more about this leprosy analog than you've been letting on. Let me ask you, that stuff Easy Money took off you, was that connected with the virus? Maybe a specimen?"

At first, Jonny did not think the lord would answer, but as he was putting together another question he heard, "Yes."

"I've moved a few disease cultures and infected organs myself," said Jonny, "to gangs into research. But this virus is something else. It's like something a government lab or a multinational would come up with."

"I just move merchandise," said Conover. "I have no idea who the original owner is. The deal was conducted through a third party."

"Any chance that original owner is Arab?" asked Jonny.

"I have no idea," Conover replied.

"Do you know if Easy Money has any Arab connections?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"But it is possible."

"Easy Money would work for Colonel Zamora, the Arabs or Mother Goose if she had cash," said Conover.

"Right. And if Easy was moonlighting for the Arabs, what better place to work than with you, using your connections and your protection?" Jonny said. "If he knew about that virus shipment and was waiting for it, he could have been tipped by a go-between that you had it, snatched it and taken off."

Conover dragged something across the table. The sound of liquid being poured. Jonny felt a small cup was pressed into his hand.

He sniffed the liquid. Sake. He gulped the whole thing down. "Easy says he has a second vial from the shipment and he's willing to sell it. Is it unreasonable to assume that if there are two vials involved, one might be the virus and the other, something to kill it?"

"No. That's not unreasonable at all," said Conover. "Do you know where Easy is?"

"Maybe," said Jonny. "What I can't figure, though, is that if Easy is working for the Arabs, why he's willing to sell us the second vial?"

"Easy is greedy," said Conover. "Why should he turn a single profit when he can double his money by splitting the vials and selling them individually?"

"Yeah. That's just the way he'd do it."

"So what are we going to do about this?" asked the smuggler lord. "It's obvious you know where Easy is hiding, but you won't tell me."

"I didn't say I wouldn't tell you. I just want to make a deal first."

Conover laughed. "Why didn't I see this coming?" he said. Jonny heard him pour out more sake. A cup was pushed into his hand.

"Your terms?" Conover asked.

"If Sumi has the new leprosy," Jonny said, "when I get this stuff from Easy, she's the first one to get a shot."

"I have no problem with that."

"There's more," said Jonny.

"My," said Conover appreciatively, "you're growing up, son. You're finally beginning to think like a business man."

"The second part is that I'm in on the pick-up. I want to be right there when the deal goes down. I want to hold the vial in my hand and know it's safe."

"You of all people should know how stupid an idea that is," Conover said. "The last time you left here you were healthy. Now you have a face that's half plastic and no eyes at all."

"It's a yes or no proposition," said Jonny. "No go, no show."

Jonny could sense the smuggler lord thinking. He sipped his sake and waited, confident that he knew what the lord's answer would be. He felt an odd, distant amusement at having bested Conover in a business deal. Below them, behind re-inforced concrete doors, layers of steel and EMP shielding was Conover's underground clinic. Jonny knew that the techs were down there studying Sumi's blood, running tubes into her arms, down her throat, taking tissue samples and watching her on video monitors from distant rooms, manipulating diagnostic devices with nursing-drones, checking her for signs of infection, but keeping well away from her. There was a ball of acid burning in the pit of his stomach.

"I'll accept your deal," Conover said, finally. "But before we can proceed, I have a deal of my own that you must accept. "

"What is it?" Jonny asked.

"It's simple, really, and not terribly unpleasant. I just want your word that you and Sumi, when she is well, will remain here as my guests, with complete run of the house and grounds, for as long as I deem necessary."

"That's it?" asked Jonny.

"That's it," Conover replied.

There were footsteps coming down the corridor. Jonny picked at a loose piece of tatami as Conover went to the sliding door. Low voices. "Thank you," Conover said, and sat down again next to Jonny.

"It's the test results."

"I don't want to hear it. If it was good news you'd have said so from the door," Jonny said. "Shit. People like me, we spend our whole lives tripping over our feet. But Sumi, she doesn't deserve this." He tried to conjure her face, but he could not find it. The inside of his head felt hollow, as if someone had scooped his brains out and chromed the inside of his skull. "You've got a deal, " Jonny said.

"Excellent," said Conover. He poured them each another cup of sake. "A drink to seal the deal, and off to bed for you. You're going to need strength tomorrow."

"Yeah, dealing with Easy's a real drain."

"You won't be cutting any deals tomorrow, I'm afraid. Tomorrow, you're going under the knife."

"What do you mean?"

I mean," said the smuggler lord, draining his cup and smacking his lips in satisfaction, "that at this time tomorrow, you'll be in surgery. If you're going back down into that madhouse, it seems to me the best way to make sure you find your way back up here is to fix you up with a new pair of eyes."