Mean Streets

"She talked her way in, yesterday," said Kopek. "Determined to see her husband. But when we brought her here, and showed her, she went berserk. Attacked the computer. Did some little damage, before the robots drove her off. We wouldn't let her hurt Frank, or herself, and after a while she left."

"And she blocked out the memories herself," I said. "Because they were unbearable."

"How could you?" Liza screamed at Frank. "How could you want this} It doesn't love you! It can't love you!"

Frank stirred for the first time, his one remaining eye slowly turning to look down at her. His face showed no emotion, no compassion for the woman he'd loved and married, not so long ago. When he spoke, his voice already contained a faint machine buzz.

"This is what I want. What I've always wanted. What I need… And what you could never give me. I've dreamed of this for years… of flesh and metal coming together, moving together. Thought it was just a fetish, never told anyone… Knew they could never understand. Until someone told me about the Night-side, the one place in the world where anything is possible; and I knew I had to come here. This is the place where dreams come true."

"Including all the bad ones," murmured Dead Boy.

"What about us, Frank?" said Liza, tears streaming down her face.

"What about us?" said Frank.

"You selfish piece of shit!"

Suddenly she was back on her feet again, heading for Frank with her hands stretched out like claws, moving so fast even the robots couldn't react fast enough to stop her. She jumped up and into the coffin, punched her fist into a hole in Frank's side, and thrust her hand deep inside him. His whole body convulsed, the machines going crazy, and then Liza laughed triumphantly as she jerked her hand back out again. She dropped back down onto the crystal floor, brandishing her prize in all our faces. Blood dripped thickly from the dark red muscle in her hand. I grabbed her arms from behind as she shouted hysterically at her husband.

"You see, Frank? I have your heart! I have your cheating heart!"

"Keep it," said Frank, growing still and content again, in the metal arms of his lover. "I don't need it anymore."

And already the machines were moving over him, mopping up the blood and sealing off his wound, working to replace the heart with something more efficient. While the computer heaved and groaned and sweated, Frank sighed and smiled.

It was too much for Liza. She sank to her knees again, sobbing violently. Her hand opened, and the crushed heart muscle fell to the crystal floor, smearing it with blood. She laughed as she cried, the horrid sound of a woman losing her mind, retreating deep inside herself because reality had become too awful to bear. I gave her something to breathe in, from my coat pocket, and in a moment she was asleep. I eased her down until she was lying full length on the floor. Her face was empty as a doll's.

"I don't get it," said Dead Boy, honestly puzzled. "It's just sex. I've seen worse."

"Not for her," I said. "She loved him, and he loved this. To be betrayed and abandoned by a husband for another woman or even a man is one thing, but for a machine? A thing? A computer that meant more to him than all her love, that could do things for him that she never could? Because for him, simple human flesh wasn't enough. He threw aside their love and their marriage and all their life together, to have sex with a computer."

"Can you do anything for her?" said Dead Boy. "We've got to do something, John. We can't leave her like this." "You always were a sentimental sort," I said. "I know a few things. I'm pretty sure I can find a way to put her back the way she was, when she came to us, and this time make sure the memories stay repressed. No memory at all, of the Nightside or Silicon Heaven. I'll take her back into London proper, wake her up, and leave her there. She'll never find her way back in on her own. And in time, she'll get over the mysterious loss of her husband, and move on. It's the kindest thing to do."

"And the metal messiah?" said Dead Boy, curling his colourless lip at Frank in the computer. "We just turn our back on it?"

"Why not?" I said. "There's never been any shortage of gods and monsters in the Nightside; what's one more would-be messiah? I doubt this one will do any better than the others. In the end, he's just a tech fetishist, and it's just a mucky machine with ideas above its station. Everything to do with sex, and nothing at all to do with love."

You can find absolutely anything in the Nightside; and every si

THE THIRD DEATH OF THE LITTLE CLAY DOG

by Kat Richardson

Team Seattle and the Denver Mob

Trouble radiated from the black figurine like some kind of dark neon at the Devil's own fairground. Not that I could actually see any such thing even in the Grey, but an electric prickling sensation zipped up my arms and down my spine when I touched it and that was close enough; I know human hair can't literally stand on end like a dog's, but I would have sworn mine was trying to.

Nanette Grover was still standing at the side of her desk, looking at me and the little statue. Her fanatically neat office flickered silver, smudged with red and orange and sad shades of green she would never see—the emotional and energetic leftovers of her clients still hanging in the Grey like smoke. A ghost or two lingered in the corners with sour, accusing faces and the odor of misery, muttering their cycles of frustration. They weren't interested in me, so I ignored them and put my attention back on Nan.

She was impeccable as always: her straightened, java-brown hair was smoothed into a perfect French twist, her stylish tweed skirt suit was unwrinkled even after she'd been behind her desk since five a.m., and her smooth, dark skin was highlighted by delicate makeup that didn't show a single crease. Even her energy corona was cool and constrained to a narrow bright line, except when she stepped onto the stage of the courtroom floor, where it alternated between hypnotic pall and legal scalpel. In spite of her beauty she had all the warmth of a copper pipe in the snow— which was part of her appeal as a litigator, but not as a human being. One of her opponents in court had referred to her as "the Queen of Nubia," and it wasn't hard imagining Nan on a war elephant chasing off Alexander the Great—even her allies found her intimidating. "Well?" she asked, the word leaving amber ripples in the air.

"Well what?" I responded, shrugging off the commanding effect of her voice.

"You're supposed to accept or reject the conditions." "What happens if I say no?"

Her energy closed back down to an icy line. "Then I have instructions regarding the disposition of the item." "What are those?"

"None of your business. Yes, or no, Harper." "What was it the client wants done with this, again?" Nan sat down on the other side of the desk, the mistiness of the settling Grey giving her a deceptively soft appearance, and blinked once, long and slow—like some kind of reset—and explained again, with no heat or change of inflection from the first time. "A colleague of mine in Mexico City forwarded this item to me upon the death of his client. His client, Maria-Luz Arbildo, left you a bequest in her will, with conditions. Namely, to personally hand-carry the statuette—this little dog figurine—to Oaxaca City in Oaxaca state in Mexico, and place it on the grave of Hector Purecete on the night of November first and attend the grave as local tradition dictates until daybreak of November second. Additional specific instructions for the preparation of the grave will be provided. All this to be done in the first occurrence of November first following his client's death. Ms. Arbildo died earlier this month."