Woken Furies

No less subject to flux were the inhabitants themselves. There were population cycles in lazy motion all the way along the Strip—some of them geared to the turn of Harlan’s World’s five seasons, some to the complicated rhythm of the trilunar tides, and some to the longer, languid pulse of a functional surfer sleeve’s lifetime. People came and went and came back. Sometimes their locational loyalties to a part of the beach endured from cycle to cycle, lifetime to lifetime, sometimes they shifted.

And sometimes, that loyalty was never there to begin with.

Finding someone on the Strip was never going to be easy. In a lot of cases, that was the reason people came here.

“Kem Point coming up.” Petkovski’s voice again, against a backdrop of downwinding turbines. She sounded tired. “This good for you?”

“Yeah, as good as anywhere. Thanks.” I peered out at the approaching evercrete platforms and the low-rise tangle of buildings they held up over the waters of the Expanse, the untidy sprawl of structure marching up the hill beyond. There were a handful of figures sitting in view on balconies or jetties, but for the most part the little settlement looked emptied of life. I had no idea if this was the right end of Sourcetown or not, but you’ve got to start somewhere. I grabbed a handstrap and hauled myself to my feet as the skimmer banked left. Glanced across the cabin at my silent companion.

“Nice talking to you, Mikhail.”

He ignored me, gaze pi

I shrugged, was about to swing out onto the railed decking, then thought better of it. I crossed the cabin and propped myself against the glass, interrupting Mikhail Petkovski’s field of vision. He blinked up at me, momentarily surprised out of his self-absorption.

“You know,” I said cheerfully. “You got lucky in the mother stakes. But out there, it’s all guys like me. And we don’t give a flying fuck whether you live or die. You don’t get off your arse and start taking an interest, no one else is going to.”

He snorted. “The fuck’s it got to do with—”

Someone more street would have read my eyes, but this one was too washed out with the wirewant, too puffed up with maternal life support.

I reached easily for his throat, dug in and hauled him out of the seat.

“See what I mean? Who’s going to stop me crushing your larynx now?”

He croaked. “Ma—”

“She can’t hear you. She’s busy up there, earning a living for you both.” I gathered him in. “Mikhail, you are infinitely less important in the scheme of things than her efforts have led you to believe.”

He reached up and tried to unpin my fingers. I ignored the feeble prisings and dug in deeper. He started to look genuinely frightened.

“The way you’re headed,” I told him in conversational tones, “you’re going to end up on a spare-parts tray under low lighting. That’s the only use you are to men like me, and no one else is going to get in our way when we come for you, because you’ve given no one a reason to care. Is that what you want to be? Spare parts and a two-minute rinse and flush?”

He jerked and flapped, face turning purple. Shook his head in violent denial. I held him a couple of moments longer, then loosened my grip and dumped him back in the chair. He gagged and coughed, eyes wide on me and flooded with tears. One hand crept up to massage his throat where I’d marked it. I nodded.

“All this, Mikhail? Going on all around you? This is life.” I leaned closer over him and he flinched. “Take an interest. While you still can.”

The skimmer bumped gently against something. I straightened up and went out onto the side deck into sudden heat and brightness. We were floating amidst a crosswork of weathered mirrorwood jetties secured at strategic intervals by heavy evercrete mooring buttresses. The skimmer’s motors kept up a low mutter and gentle pressure against the nearest landing stage. Late afternoon sun glinted hard off the mirrorwood. Suzi Petkovski was standing up in the cockpit and squinting against the reflected light.

“That’ll be double,” she reminded me.

I handed over a chip and waited while she ran it. Mikhail chose not to emerge from the cabin. Maybe he was thinking things over. His mother handed me back the chip, shaded her eyes and pointed.

“They got a place you can hire bugs cheap about three streets over. By that transmission mast you can see. The one with the dragon flags.”

“Thanks.”

“Sure. Hope you find what you’re looking for here.”

I skipped the bug hire, at least initially, and wandered up through the little town, soaking up my surroundings. Up to the crest of the hill, I could have been in any Expanse-side suburb of Newpest. The same utilitarian architecture predominated, the same frontage mix of waterware mech- and soft shops mingling with eating houses and bars. The same stained and worn fused-glass streets and the same basic smells. But from the top of the rise looking down, the resemblance ended like waking from a dream.

Below me, the other half of the settlement fell away downward in haphazard structures built out of every material you could readily bring to mind. Bubblefabs rubbed shoulders with woodframe houses, driftwood shacks and, towards the bottom, actual canvas tents. The fused-paving thoroughfares gave way to poorly laid evercrete slabs, then to sand, then finally to the broad, pale sweep of the beach itself. Here there was more movement on the streets than on the Expanse side, most of it semi-clad and drifting towards the shoreline in the late sun. Every third figure had a board slung under one arm. The sea itself was burnished a dirty gold in the low angle light and flecked with activity, surfers floating astride their boards or upright and cutting casual slices across the gently flexing surface of the water. The sun and distance turned them all to anonymous black tin cutouts.

“Some fucking view, eh sam?”

It was a high, child’s voice, at odds with the words it uttered. I glanced round and saw a boy of about ten watching me from a doorway. Body rib thin and bronzed in a pair of surfslacks, eyes a sun-faded blue. Hair a tangled mess from the sea. He was leaned in the door, arms folded nonchalantly across his bared chest. Behind him in the shop, I saw racked boards. Shifting screen displays for acquatech software.

“I’ve seen worse,” I admitted.

“First time at Vchira?”

“No.”

Disappointment notched his voice. “Not looking for lessons then?”

“No.” I paused a moment, measuring advisability. “You been long on the Strip yourself?”

He gri

“I’m looking for some friends. Thought you might know them.”

“Yeah? You a cop? Enforcer?”

“Not recently.”

It seemed to be the right answer. His grin came back.

“They got names, these friends?”

“They did last time I was here. Brasil. Ado, Tres.” I hesitated. “Vidaura, maybe.”

His lips twisted and pursed and he sucked his teeth. It was all gesture learnt in another, much older body.

“Jack Soul Brasil?” he asked warily.

I nodded.

“You a Bug?”

“Not recently.”

“Multiflores crew?”

I drew breath. “No.”

“BaKroom Boy?”

“Do you have a name?” I asked him.

He shrugged. “Sure. Milan. Round here they call me Gungetter.”

“Well, Milan,” I told him evenly. “You’re begi

“Hey.” The pale blue eyes narrowed. His arms unfolded, fists tensed to small hammers at his sides. “You know, I fucking belong here, sam. I surf. Been shooting curls at Vchira since before you were a fucking splatter up your mother’s tube.”