Nightside City

And why I was once in the honeymoon suite is none of your business, but it sure wasn't a honeymoon.

A door peeled back from an i

A moment later another silky black divan appeared, sliding through a blackness I'd taken for a wall, but this one had a woman sprawled on it.

This was either Sayuri Nakada or one hell of a good imitation; I'd seen her recorded from every angle when I studied up on her, and this person looked exactly right. She had black, straight hair, like most people, but she wore it very long and completely natural, with no slicking or shaping at all. Her skin was a warm, golden color, and she had epicanthic folds that looked as natural as her hair. She was lovely-with her family's money, she ought to be.

Of course, when I say that her hair or eyes were natural, I'm guessing. They looked natural, but for all I know she was born blonde and round-eyed.

She was wearing a semisheer housedress with a color scheme that did nothing for me-it was mostly shifting blues and gold linework. I was wearing scarlet and double white, myself, on static setting-worksuit and jacket. I was working; I didn't need frills like color shifting.

Besides, in a place like the Trap, something bright that didn't move caught the eye, and I didn't mind if people were distracted from my face.

Her legs were long and her feet were bare and she was eyeing me as if my gun were pointed at her face, instead of neatly tucked away under a sealed jacket.

I wondered if it was really Nakada. She could afford a good imitation, if she wanted one. I could be looking at a holo, or a sim, or even a clone.

But I didn't really think it mattered. Whoever was in charge, whether it was the original Sayuri Nakada or not, whether it was the woman in front of me or not, had to be listening.

We watched each other for a while, and I hoped my face wasn't as openly hostile as hers was.

"You wanted to talk to me," she said.

"Yes, Mis' Nakada," I said. "I did."

"Here we are," she said, waving a hand. "Talk."

I grimaced. "I'm not sure where to begin," I said. "What I need to know is just how you plan to stop Nightside City from reaching the dayside."

"Why?" she demanded, glaring at me. "What business is it of yours? And what makes you think I plan anything of the sort?"

Right there, I had all the confirmation I needed that she really was pla

Hell, if she'd had any sense, that last question would have come first in any case, so I'd also confirmed that her personal software wasn't completely debugged.

"It's my business because I live here, Mis' Nakada," I said. "I was born here in Nightside City, I grew up here, and I've never been outside the crater walls in my life. The city's important to me, and anything that concerns its future concerns me. That's why, and what my business is, and as for what makes me think you're up to something, I found out while I was on a case."

"A case?" An instant of puzzlement seemed to flicker across her face. "Oh, you're a detective." From the way her eyes moved when she said that, I didn't think she figured it out; I thought she'd gotten the word over an internal receiver. She'd have one, of course, or more likely several. She probably had more control over the com when she was just lying there than I did when I was jacked into my desk.

"Yeah, I'm a detective," I said.

"But how did you find out? And however you found out, don't you already know what I'm pla

She was trying to be slick, I think, trying to find out what I knew and what I didn't know by playing dumb. I didn't mind playing along; the best way to get information out of someone, short of a brain-tap or drugs or torture or otherwise doing things that I couldn't do to someone like Nakada, is to make her feel good, make her think she's outwitting you, so she gets careless.

"I found out that you're buying up city real estate," I said. "I found out that you've been making secret calls to the Ipsy that they won't talk about. I talked to people and found out that you've got people at the Ipsy working for you to keep the city out of the sunlight, so that your real estate will be worth a fortune. But that's all I found out, so far, and I don't like it. I want to know just how you plan to keep the sun off. I want to be ready for it."

"The Ipsy?" She looked puzzled for an instant again, and then her eyes twitched again, and she said, "Oh, the Institute!"

I wondered how in hell anyone could live on Epimetheus as long as she had and not know that it was called the Ipsy. This woman, I realized, was badly out of touch with the city and probably the rest of the world around her.

"Yes, the Institute," I said.

"They wouldn't tell you anything?"

"No," I said.

"Well, good for them." She almost smiled.

"Mis' Nakada," I said. "They wouldn't tell me anything because it's not their place. They're working for you. But if you don't tell me, then I'll have to tell the whole city everything I know. I don't know everything, but I know enough to convince people that you're pla

She waved that away. "What if I just run some free-form scrubware through your com instead, Mis' Hsing? And then kill you, of course."

It was my turn to wave away nonsense. "You must know better than that, Mis' Nakada," I said, with maybe a hint of a reproving tone. "I'm a licensed detective, and I'm in good health and still young enough. If I die, the city's got copies of all my files in the high-security event-of-death section, and they'll give them a good, close going over. I don't think even you can get into the ITEOD files without causing more trouble than you want and probably giving the whole show away."

"All right, then," she said. "How do I know you won't put it all on the nets anyway, even if I do tell you?"

"You don't," I said. "Not really. But why should I? Look, I don't want to see the dawn any more than you do. My whole life is here. If you're really going to save Nightside City, I'm all for it, and I don't give a damn if it does make you richer than your old man and leave you ru

"So you're just worried about when I'll do it?" she asked, and it seemed as if she was a bit calmer, less angry.

"That, and how," I said. "Because for all I know what you have in mind might make the neighborhood unpleasant for a while. After all, the real estate is still valuable even if half the city gets knocked around."

She nodded. "That's right, that's exactly right."

I nodded back and waited.

She smiled.

"So tell me," I said.

She sighed a little, or maybe just pouted. "All right," she said. "I'll tell you. It's simple enough. My people are going to set off a directed fusion charge that will stop the planet's rotation dead. Nightside City won't go anywhere after that; it'll stay right where it is now." She smiled again.