Carnival

And he wasn’t about to address the citizens.

“People of New Amazonia,” he began, raising his voice and pitching it so the audio motes would recognize it and amplify it across the crowd. “I stand before you today in hope–”

It was as far as he got. Michelangelo shouted “Shooter!”and Vincent, as he was conditioned to do, went limp.

The next sensation should have been a blow, the impact of Angelo’s body taking him down, covering him.

But it didn’t happen quite that way.

Certain things happened when Michelangelo saw the gun come up, and all of them happened fast enough that if later asked, he would have been unable to provide their sequence. He registered the weapon before it was sighted in, shouted a warning, pointed, and dove for Claude Singapore. A split‑second judgment, based on the realization that the weapon was tending toward her, that Vincent’s wardrobe would afford him protection, and that Vincent had partial cover behind the lectern.

Shafaqat Delhi was half a step behind him, and she landed atop Vincent, who had recovered from his surprise enough to dive with her to the floor of the stage and land facedown, arms around his head. Michelangelo lost sight of him then; he felt the shock and smelled the snapof ozone as something struck his wardrobe and he struck Elder Singapore.

A second gunshot cracked, louder and longer–two fired at once?–and Michelangelo’s skin jumped away from transmitted pressure as his wardrobe caught that one, too. Shouting echoed around the square: more gunfire, now. Not surprising, when most of the crowd was armed, but it seemed fairly restrained, and no more bullets were arching over the stage.

And the prime minister was shoving at his chest and cursing him as his wardrobe snapped painful sparks at her. “Stay down,” he hissed. He slapped the cutoff on his watch so it wouldn’t electrocute her, and caught her hand as she was reaching for her weapon. “Let security handle it.”

By the time he dared to lift his head and let her lift hers, they had. Elder Singapore shoved him away violently and sat. “You’ll hear about that,” she snapped.

He permitted it only because they were behind a screen of security agents, and–to be honest–he wanted to get to Vincent, who was making much less fuss about an equally rough takedown.

Two bullets hung beside Kusanagi‑Jones, trapped in the aura of his wardrobe like hovering bees. He dialed a glove and plucked them out of the fog.

Shafaqat already had a transparent baggie ready, and she took the bullets–pristine, despite having been stopped by the antishock features of the wardrobe fog–and made them vanish without so much as catching Kusanagi‑Jones’s eye. He could get to like that woman.

“Vincent.” He crouched as Vincent pushed to his knees.

“Unharmed,” Vincent answered, despite the evidence of a scratch across his cheek and a bloody nose. “Good work.”

Kusanagi‑Jones smiled in spite of himself, standing. People in the square were shouting, shoving. Something shattered against the stage, and Vincent ducked reflexively. “All I did was yell. Local security swarmed the shooters. Let’s get you off the stage, Vincent. They’re not pleased about the security–”

“Hell, no,” Vincent answered, wincing again–this time, Kusanagi‑Jones thought, from the pain of moving in his own stiff, burned skin. His hand, fever‑warm, slid into Kusanagi‑Jones’s, and he levered himself up. “I have a speech to give.”

Kusanagi‑Jones, watching Vincent shove ineffectually at his braids and mop blood onto his hand as something else was hurled and broke, bit his own lip hard to stop his eyes from stinging.

Because now he knew what he was going to do.

15

IT WAS FORTUNATE THAT VINCENT HAD PRACTICED HIS speech until it was as automatic to his recall as his system number, because later, he couldn’t remember having recited a word of it. He knew he extemporized the introduction, and if it hadn’t been recorded he never would have known what he said. He must have made quite an impression with the blood caking his face and the split lip, clinging to the edges of the lectern like a drunk in an effort to keep the weight off his knee. His wardrobe provided a brace, but that hadn’t helped absorb the impact when he went down.

At first, the crowd had been restive, muttering, rustling like a colony of insects with passed whispers. More security agents arrived while Vincent was speaking, filtering through the audience, but they didn’t reassure him as much as Michelangelo’s silent warmth at his elbow. Or the way the crowd calmed as he spoke, subsiding like whitecaps after a passing storm.

When he stepped back from the lectern, he had silence. A long moment of it, respectful, considering. And then first snapping, scattered as the first kernels of corn popping, and then stamping feet and shouts–some approval, some approbation, he thought, but nothing else shattered on the stage.

He waved and nodded. Lesa was on his right side, also waving, and her left hand threaded through his arm as she tugged him back. Michelangelo was right there, too, covering Vincent with his body, as Saide Austin stepped forward.

“Like to see her match that,” Angelo murmured.

“I did okay?”

Angelo touched him carelessly. “Real good.”

“Good,” Vincent said, aware that he sounded petulant, and not caring. He was seeing stars now–literally, sparkles in front of his eyes–as the adrenaline wore off. “My nose hurts.”

“And your back?” Lesa asked.

“My back,” he said, with tight dignity, “hurts more.”

Vincent looked gray, the blood draining from his face as he sat stiffly upright on the chair, his leg stretched out before him to ease the knee. Kusanagi‑Jones slipped his hand across the gap between chairs and took Vincent’s, squeezing, hiding the action with their bodies. Vincent sighed and softened a little, his shoulders falling away from his neck, though he had the sense not to lean back. Shafaqat handed Vincent a wet towel while Elder Austin was still talking. He took it right‑handed, and didn’t release Kusanagi‑Jones’s hand with his left while he dabbed at the crusted blood on his lip. “At least my nose isn’t broken.”

Kusanagi‑Jones widened his eyes and spoke in an undertone. “It’s supposed to look like that?”

“The Christ, don’t make me laugh.” He winced, and then flinched, as if the act of wincing hurt.

Vincent handed the bloody cloth back to Shafaqat and glanced at his watch, and Kusanagi‑Jones knew he was thinking about upping his chemistry and dismissing the idea. He was still idly checking readouts when Austin’s speech came to an end, a study in deceptive inattention, but when he glanced up, his eyes were sparkling. They stood when everybody else did, herded by security agents, and filed down the steps and through the crowd again. Kusanagi‑Jones covered Vincent as much as possible, varying distance and pace within the crowd, and for the first time was actively angry that all of the New Amazonian security was female and that Vincent was taller than any of them and all the New Amazonian dignitaries. And, of course, taller than Kusanagi‑Jones. There was nothing to block a head shot, if there was another shooter somewhere in the crowd.

Which meant relying on the agents assigned to crowd coverage and Vincent’s wardrobe to get them through safely. And Kusanagi‑Jones thought that just possibly, he would rather have severed his own fingers with a pair of tin snips than made that endless, light‑drenched walk. Though the crowd was calm, respectful, their attention oppressed Kusanagi‑Jones like the weight of meters of water, cramping his breathing.

He managed a free breath when they stepped out of the square and into the cool shade of the gallery lobby. A brief bottleneck ensued as politicians pulled off shoes and hung them on the racks, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Only the dignitaries, security, chosen observers, and a small herd of media would travel past this point.