Woken Furies

“Don’t get melodramatic on me, old man.”

“Oh, you think this is melodrama?”

“No.” This time he got the edge on the contempt about right. “It’s too fucking pitiful even for that. It’s wildlife. You’re like some lame old wolf that can’t keep up with the pack any more, has to hang around on the fringes and hope it can grab some meat no one else wants. I can’t believe you fucking quit the Corps, man. I can’t fucking believe it.”

“Yeah, well you weren’t fucking there,” I snapped.

“Yeah, because if I had been, it never would have happened. You think I would have let it all go down the drain like that? Just fucking walked away, like Dad did?”

“Hey, fuck you!”

“You left them just the same, you fuck. You walked out on the Corps and you walked out of their lives.”

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. They needed me in their lives like a fucking webjelly in a swimming pool. I was a criminal.”

“That’s right, you were. What do you want, a fucking medal for it?”

“Oh what would you have done? You’re an ex-Envoy. You know what that means? Barred from holding public office, military rank or any corporate post above menial level. No access to legal credit facilities. You’re so fucking smart, what would you have done with that hand?”

“I wouldn’t have quit in the first place.” “You weren’t fucking there.”

“Oh, okay. What would I have done as an ex-Envoy? I don’t know. But what I do fucking know is that I wouldn’t have ended up like you after nearly two hundred years. Alone, broke and dependent on Radul Segesvar and a bunch of fucking surfers. You know I tracked you to Rad before you got here yourself. Did you know that?”

“Of course I did.”

He stumbled for a moment. Not much Envoy poise in his voice, he was too angry.

“Yeah, and did you know we’ve plotted just about every move you’ve made since Tekitomura? Did you know I set up the ambush at Rila?”

“Yes, that bit seemed to go especially well.”

A new increment of rage twisted his face. “It didn’t fucking matter, because we had Rad anyway. We were covered from the start. Why do you think you got away so fucking easily?”

“Uh, because the orbitals shot down your swoopcopter, and the rest of you were too fucking incompetent to track us into the Northern arm perhaps?”

“Fuck you. You think we looked hard for you? We knew where you were going, man, right from the start. We’ve been on you right from the fucking start.”

Enough. It was a hard pellet of decision in the centre of my chest, and it drove me forward, hands raised.

“Well then,” I said softly. “All you’ve got to do now is finish it. Think you can manage that all on your own?”

There was a long moment when we stared at each other, and the inevitability of the fight dripped down behind our eyes. Then he rushed me.

Shattering blows to throat and groin, unwrapping from a tightly gathered line of attack that drove me back a full two metres before I could contain it. I turned the groin strike on a sweeping block downward with one arm and dropped low enough to take the throat chop on the forehead.

My own counter exploded at the same time, directly up and into the base of his chest. He staggered, tried to hook my arm with a favourite aikido move I recognised so well that I nearly laughed. I broke free of it and stabbed at his eyes with stiffened fingers. He swept a tight, graceful circle out of reach and unleashed a side kick into my ribs. It was too high, and it wasn’t fast enough. I grabbed the foot and twisted savagely. He rolled with it, took the fall and kicked for my head with his other foot as momentum rolled him through the air. His instep cracked me across the face—I was already backing off, rapidly to avoid the full force of the kick. I lost my hold on his foot and my vision flew briefly apart. I staggered back against the grav sled as he hit the ground. It bobbed on its fields and held me up. I shook my head to get the airy lightness out of it.

It wasn’t quite as savage as it should have been. We were both tired and relying inevitably on the conditioned systems in the sleeves we wore. We were both making mistakes that under other circumstances might have been lethal. And, perhaps, we were neither of us really sure what we were doing here in the quiet, mist-tinged unreality of the empty dock.

The aspirants believe …

Sylvie’s voice, brooding in the capacity vault.

Everything outside is an illusion, a shadow play created by the ancestor gods to cradle us until we can build our own tailored reality and Upload into it.

That’s comforting, isn’t it.

I spat and drew breath. Got off the curve of the grav sled cover.

If you let it be.

Across the dock, he climbed back to his feet. I got in fast, while he was still recovering, summoned everything I had left. He saw it coming and twisted to meet me. Kick turned off a raised and crooked leg, fists brushed aside on a pivoting double handed block across his head and chest. I lunged past on deflected momentum and he followed me round, elbow hooking into the back of my head. I went down before he could do more damage, rolled and flailed in an attempt to knock his feet out from under him. He danced aside, took the time to snarl a grin, and came back in, stamping.

For the second time that morning, my time sense dissolved. Combat conditioning and the jacked-up Eishundo nervous system slowed everything to a crawl, blurry motion scrawled around the approaching strike and behind it the bared teeth of his grin.

Stop laughing, you fuck.

Segesvar’s face, long decades of bitterness contorting to rage and then despair as my taunts sheared through the armour of illusions he’d built up for himself over a lifetime of violence.

Murakami, fistful of bloody excised stacks, shrugging back at me like a mirror.

Mother, and the dream and—

—and he stamps with a booted foot on her stomach, she convulses and rolls on her side, the bowl goes over and soapy water laps out towards me—

—tidal rage, rising—

—I’m older with every passing second, soon I’ll be old enough and I’ll reach the door—

—I’ll kill him with my bare hands, there are weapons in my hands, my hands are weapons—

—a shadow play—

His foot came down. It seemed to take forever. I rolled at the last moment, into him. Committed, he had nowhere to go. The blow landed on my upturned shoulder and unbalanced him. I kept rolling and he stumbled. Luck put one of his heels against something lying on the dock.

Sylvie’s motionless form. He toppled backwards over her.

I came upright, hurdled Sylvie’s body and this time I caught him before he could regain his feet. I put a brutal kick into the side of his head. Blood jumped in the air as his scalp tore. Another, before he could roll. His mouth tore, and spilt more blood. He slumped, propped himself groggily up and I landed hard on his right arm and chest with all my weight. He grunted and I thought I felt the arm snap. I lashed down with open palm to his temple. His head rolled, his eyes fluttered. I drew up for the chop to the throat that would crush his larynx.

—a shadow play—

Self hatred works for you, because you can cha

It’s a static model, Kovacs. It’s a sculpture of despair.

I stared down at him. He was barely moving, he’d be easy to kill.

I stared at him.

Self hatred—

Shadow play—

Mother—

Out of nowhere, an image of hanging beneath the Martian eyrie at Tekitomura from a grip welded shut. Paralysed and suspended. I saw my hand clamped on the cable, holding me up. Keeping me alive.

Locking me in place.

I saw myself unhinge the grip, one numbed finger at a time, and move.

I got up.

I got off him and stepped back. Stood staring, trying to work out what