Altered Carbon

My thoughts skipped aimlessly, cushioned on the vague sense of acceptance and well-being. I saw Bancroft’s antique telescope, trained on the heavens and the tiny motes of light that were Earth’s first hesitant steps beyond the limits of the solar system. Fragile arks carrying the recorded selves of a million pioneers and the deep-frozen embryo banks that might someday re-sleeve them on distant worlds, if the promise of the vaguely understood Martian astrogation charts bore fruit. If not they would drift forever, because the universe is mostly night and darkened ocean.

Raising an eyebrow at my own introspection, I heaved myself off the rail and glanced up at the holographic face above my head. Anchana Salomao had the night to herself. Her ghostly countenance gazed down at repeated intervals along the promenade, compassionate but uninvolved. Looking at the composed features, it was easy to see why Elizabeth Elliott had wanted so badly to attain those heights. I would have given a lot for that same detached composure. I shifted my attention to the windows above Elliott’s. The lights were on there, and as I watched a female form moved across one of them in naked silhouette. I sighed, spun the stub of my cigarette into the gutter and took refuge in the limo. Let Anchana keep the vigil. I called up cha

A sharp rapping on the window beside my head shook me awake. I jerked round from the position I’d slumped into and saw Trepp standing patiently outside. She gestured at me to wind down the window, then leaned in with a grin.

“Kawahara was right about you. Sleeping in the car so this Dipper can get laid. You’ve got delusions of priesthood, Kovacs.”

“Shut up, Trepp,” I said irritably. “What time is it?”

“About five.” Her eyes swivelled up and left to consult the chip. “Five-sixteen. Be getting light soon.”

I struggled into a more upright position, tasting the residue of the single cigarette on my tongue. “What are you doing here?”

“Watching your back. We don’t want Kadmin taking you out before you can sell the goods to Bancroft, do we? Hey, is that the Wreckers?”

I followed her gaze forward to the entertainment deck, which was still screening some kind of sports coverage. Minuscule figures rushed backwards and forwards on a cross-hatched field, accompanied by a barely audible commentary. A brief collision between two players occasioned an insectile roar of cheering. I must have lowered the volume before I fell asleep. Switching the deck off, I saw in the ensuing dimness that Trepp had been right. The night had washed out to a soft blue gloom that was creeping over the buildings beside us like a bleach stain on the darkness.

“Not a fan, then?” Trepp nodded at the screen. “I didn’t use to be, but you live in New York long enough, you get the habit.”

“Trepp, how the fuck are you supposed to watch my back if your head is jammed in here watching screen?”

Trepp gave me a hurt look and withdrew her head. I climbed out of the limo and stretched in the chilly air. Overhead, Anchana Salomao was still resplendent, but the lights above Elliott’s were out.

“They stayed up until a couple of hours ago,” said Trepp helpfully. “I thought they might be ru

I gazed up at the darkened windows. “Why are they going to run out on me? She hasn’t even heard what the terms of the deal are.”

“Well, involvement in an erasure offence tends to make most people nervous.”

“Not this woman,” I said, and wondered how much I believed myself.

Trepp shrugged. “Suit yourself. I still think you’re crazy, though. Kawahara’s got Dippers could do this stuff standing on their heads.”

Since my own reasons for not accepting Kawahara’s offer of technical support were almost entirely instinctive, I said nothing. The icy certainty of my revelations about Bancroft, Kawahara and Resolution 653 had faded with the previous day’s rush of set-up details for the run, and any sense of interlocking well-being had gone when Ortega left. All I had now was the gravity pull of mission time, the cold dawn and the sound of the waves on the shore. The taste of Ortega in my mouth and the warmth of her long-limbed body curled into mine was a tropical island in the chill, receding in my wake.

“You reckon there’s somewhere open this early that serves coffee,” I asked.

“Town this size?” Trepp drew breath in through her teeth. “Doubt it. But I saw a bank of dispensers on the way in. Got to be one that does coffee.”

“Machine coffee?” I curled my lip.

“Hey, what are you, a fucking co

“You got a point. How far is it?”

“Couple of klicks. We’ll take my car, that way if Little Miss Homecoming wakes up, she won’t look out the window and panic.”

“Sold.”

I followed Trepp across the street to a low-slung black vehicle that looked as if it might be radar invisible, and climbed into a snug interior that smelled faintly of incense.

“This yours?”

“No, rented. Picked it up when we flew back in from Europe. Why?”

I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter.”

Trepp started up and we ghosted silently along the promenade. I looked out of the seaward window and wrestled with an insubstantial sense of frustration. The scant hours of sleep in the limo had left me itchy. Everything about the situation was suddenly chafing at me again, from the lack of solution to Bancroft’s death to my relapse into smoking. I had a feeling that it was going to be a bad day, and the sun wasn’t even up yet.

“You thought about what you’re going to do when this is over?”

“No,” I said morosely.

We found the dispensers on a frontage that sloped down to the shore at one end of the town. Clearly they had been installed with beach clientele in mind, but the dilapidated state of the shelters that housed them suggested that trade was no better here than for Elliott’s Data Linkage. Trepp parked the car pointing at the sea and went to get the coffees. Through the window I watched her kick and slam the machine until it finally relinquished two plastic cups. She carried them back to the car and handed me mine.

“Want to drink it here?”

“Yeah, why not?”

We pulled the tabs on the cups and listened to them sizzle. The mechanism didn’t heat especially well, but the coffee tasted reasonable and it had a definite chemical effect. I could feel my weariness sliding away. We drank slowly and watched the sea through the windscreen, immersed in a silence that was almost companionable.

“I tried for the Envoys once,” said Trepp suddenly.

I glanced sideways at her, curious. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, long time ago. They rejected me on profile. No capacity for allegiance, they said. ”

I grunted. “Figures. You were never in the military, were you?”

“What do you think?” She was looking at me as if I’d just suggested she might have a history of child-molesting. I chuckled tiredly.

“Thought not. See, the thing is, they’re looking for borderline psychopathic tendencies. That’s why they do most of their recruiting from the military in the first place.”

Trepp looked put out. “I’ve got borderline psychopathic tendencies.”

“Yeah, I don’t doubt it, but the point is, the number of civilians with those tendencies and a sense of team spirit is pretty limited. They’re opposing values. The chances of them both arising naturally in the same person are almost nil. Military training takes the natural order and fucks with it. It breaks down any resistance to psychopathic behaviour at the same time as it builds fanatical loyalties to the group. Package deal. Soldiers are perfect Envoy material.”