Altered Carbon

“Ray,” I said, in Amanglic. “I should have fucking seen this one on the launch pad.”

Reileen Kawahara stepped from a doorway to one side of the circular chamber where the basilica ended and made an ironic bow. She followed me into Amanglic flawlessly.

“Perhaps you should have seen it coming, yes,” she mused. ”But if there’s a single thing that I like about you, Kovacs, it is your endless capacity to be surprised. For all your war veteran posturing, you remain at core an i

“Trade secret. You’d have to be a human being to understand it.”

The insult fell unregarded. Kawahara looked down at the marbled floor as if she could see it lying there.

“Yes, well, I believe we’ve been over this ground before.”

My mind fled back to New Beijing and the cancerous power structures that Kawahara’s interests had created there, the discordant screams of the tortured that I had come to associate with her name.

I stepped closer to one of the grey envelopes and slapped it. The coarse surface gave under my hand and the thing swung a little on its cables. Something shifted sluggishly within.

“Bullet-proof, right?”

“Mmm.” Kawahara tipped her head to one side. “Depends on the bullet, I would say. But impact resistant, certainly.”

I manufactured a laugh from somewhere. “Bullet-proof womb lining! Only you, Kawahara. Only you would need to bullet-proof your clones, and then bury them under a mountain.”

She stepped forward into the light then, and the force of my hate came up and hit me in the pit of the stomach as I looked at her. Reileen Kawahara claimed upbringing among the contaminated slums of Fission City, Western Australia, but if it was true, she had long ago left behind any trace of her origins. The figure opposite me had the poise of a dancer, a balance of body that was subtly attractive without calling forth any immediate hormonal response, and the face above was elfin and intelligent. It was the sleeve she had worn on New Beijing, custom cultured and untouched by implants of any kind. Pure organism, elevated to the level of art. Kawahara had garbed it in black, stiff tulip-petalled skirts cupping her lower body to mid-calf and a soft silk blouse settling over her torso like dark water. The shoes on her feet were modelled on spacedeck slippers but with a modest heel, and her auburn hair was short and winged back from the clean-boned face. She looked like the inhabitant of a screen ad for some slightly sexy investment fund.

“Power is habitually buried,” she said. “Think of the Protectorate bunkers on Harlan’s World. Or the caverns the Envoy Corps hid you in while you were made over in their image. The essence of control is to remain hidden from view, is it not?”

“Judging by the way I’ve been led around the last week, I’d say yes. Now do you want to get on with this pitch?”

“Very well.” Kawahara glanced aside at Trepp, who wandered away into the gloom, neck craned up at the ceiling like a tourist. I looked around for a seat and found none. “You are aware, no doubt, that I recommended you to Laurens Bancroft.”

“He mentioned it.”

“Yes, and had your hotel proved slightly less psychotic, matters would never have got as far out of hand as they have. We could have had this conversation a week ago, and saved everyone a lot of u

“There’s been a change of programme,” I said, walking along the curve of the end chamber. “Kadmin’s not following his instructions. He tried to kill me this morning.”

Kawahara made a gesture of irritation. “I know that. That’s why you’ve been brought here.”

“Did you spring him?”

“Yes, of course.”

“He was going to roll over on you?”

“He told Keith Rutherford that he felt he was not deployed to his best advantage in holding. That it would be hard to honour his contract with me in such a position.”

“Subtle.”

“Wasn’t it. I never can resist sophisticated negotiation. I feel he earnt the re-investment.”

“So you beaconed in on me, hooked him out and beamed him over to Carnage for re-sleeving, right?” I felt in my pockets and found Ortega’s cigarettes. In the grim twilight of the basilica, the familiar packet was like a postcard from another place. “No wonder the Panama Rose didn’t have his second fighter decanted when we got there. He’d probably only just finished sleeving Kadmin. That motherfucker walked out of there in a Right Hand of God martyr.”

“About the same time you were coming aboard,” agreed Kawahara. ”In fact, I understand he was posing as a menial and you walked right past him. I’d rather you didn’t smoke in here.”

“Kawahara, I’d rather you died of an internal haemorrhage, but I don’t suppose you’ll oblige me.” I touched my cigarette to the ignition patch and drew it to life, remembering. The man knelt in the ring. I played it back slowly. On the deck of the fightdrome ship, peering down at the design being painted onto the killing floor. The upturned face as we passed. Yes, he’d even smiled. I grimaced at the memory.

“You’re being a lot less courteous than befits a man in your situation.” I thought that, underneath the cool, I could detect a ragged edge in her voice. Despite her much vaunted self-control, Reileen Kawahara wasn’t much better at coping with disrespect than Bancroft, General Maclntyre or any other creature of power I’d had dealings with. “Your life is in danger and I am in a position to safeguard it.”

“My life’s been in danger before,” I told her. “Usually as a result of some piece of shit like you making large-scale decisions about how reality ought to be run. You’ve already let Kadmin get too close for my comfort. In fact, he probably used your fucking virtual locater to do it.”

“I sent him,” Kawahara gritted, “to collect you. Again he disobeyed me.”

“Didn’t he just.” I rubbed reflexively at the bruise on my shoulder. “So why should I believe you can do any better next time?”

“Because you know I can.” Kawahara came across the centre of the chamber, ducking her head to avoid the leathery grey clone sacs, and intercepting my path around the perimeter. Her face was taut with anger. “I am one of the seven most powerful human beings in this solar system. I have access to powers that the UN Field Commander General would kill for.”

“This architecture’s going to your head, Reileen. You wouldn’t even have found me if you hadn’t been keeping tabs on Sullivan. How the fuck are you going to find Kadmin?”

“Kovacs, Kovacs.” There was a definite trembling in her laugh, as if she was fighting an urge to put her thumbs through my eye sockets. “Do you have any idea what happens on the streets of any given city on Earth, if I put out a search on someone? Do you have any idea how easy it would be to snuff you out here and now?”

I drew deliberately on the cigarette and plumed the smoke out at her. “As your faithful retainer Trepp said, not ten minutes ago, why bring me here just to snuff me out? You want something from me. Now what is it?”

She breathed in through her nose, hard. A measure of calm seeped onto her face and she stepped back a couple of paces, turned away from the confrontation.

“You’re right, Kovacs. I want you alive. If you disappear now, Bancroft’s going to get the wrong message.”

“Or the right message.” I scuffed absently at engraved lettering on the stone beneath my feet. “Did you torch him?”

“No.” Kawahara looked almost amused. “He killed himself.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Whether you believe it or not is immaterial to me, Kovacs. What I want from you is an end to the investigation. A tidy end.”

“And how do you suggest I achieve that?”

“I don’t care. Make something up. You’re an Envoy, after all. Convince him. Tell him you think the police verdict was correct. Produce a culprit, if you must.” A thin smile. “I do not include myself in that category.”