Bitstream

13.2

Fixers always pick nightclubs. Maybe it's the noise, maybe it's the cover. Maybe they just like watching desperate people drown in colour. They've got esprit stacked yay high, perched above the crowd, thinking they're untouchable while the floor vibrates with low-end.

Over the last three months it wasn't easy digging up someone with real insight into Ward's chokehold on Lumina's supply line. We burned cred, called in favours, shook hands with devils, all for this sliver of a lead. The closer we crept to the inner sectors, the heavier the air clotted. More drones humming overhead. Patrols on every corner, scanners that see straight through your skin. Out in Neo Arcadia, you can vanish if you're quick. In here, every step feels logged, itemised, billed.

I got another ZennTek Spectra visor during that time: a V-5. Not much different from the V-3: quicker uploads, two additional quick-hack slots, and that's it. Not bad for an extra thousand eddies. Not bad at all.

But all those months led us here. The Monkey's Tail. It looks sickly in daylight, like a clown caught without paint. No bass, no chatter, no drunks chasing beams of light. Not yet. It's a squalid brick box choking on dead neon. The sign out front shows a monkey with a crooked grin and a tail bent into a question mark – or it used to. The grin's chipped, the tubing hisses where it's cracked, and the tail never lights all the way around. What's left looks less like a question mark and more like a limp noose swinging over the doorway.

Two bouncers wait out front. Not giants like Tatum from Flux, but aug'd heavy: steel under skin, eyes polished into chrome pearls that never blink. They size us up, then wave us through. The doors open on a flood of cyan light and shattered glass. The subsonics infest my skin, hammer into my chest. The Monkey's Tail is awake again, and it smells of sweat, synthbooze, and a hint of copper that never leaves.

Fingers and I cut across the dancefloor. For a moment I'm back at The Pulseworks, when Rhythm of Rhythm's bassline dropped me to the floor and Cormac pulled me up, but things are simpler here, safer. The floor's a pit of bodies smeared with glowpaint, jerking with every strobe.

The place is bizarre, as if the whole thing's made of crystal lit in electric blue. I can't imagine spending more than an hour in here. My skull would pound until I begged the DJ to end me just to kill the reverb.

A drunk brushes up and runs a hand along my shoulder. I shove him off without a word, send him sprawling into a leather sofa. His bottle topples, beer bleeding into the cushions. He yells after me, but the noise swallows his words. I don't turn back. Places like this eat little dramas whole and keep the bones.

Unlike Flux, the private booths here are beneath the floor. The four of us came, but only two of us could face the fixer – his rules. So, while Fingers and I slip into the off-limits stairwell, Vander and Dance head for the bar – no surprise. The stairs are narrow, walls slick with condensation, bass pounding harder the deeper we go. Blue strips guide us through a tunnel of muffled screams and laughter until it opens into the club's guts.

The "booths" aren't booths at all, but glass cells. The fixer's is at the far end. Its walls shimmer gold, not the cyan glare of the rest – extra eddies to make him look like a saint among sinners. Fingers mutters something about taste, and I catch her curl of a smile in the half-light. The guards don't frisk us when we head over, only give that chrome-eyed stare that says one wrong twitch and they'll paint the floor with our brains. One palms the glass door and it hisses open.

Inside, I see the alcove: looks similar to the one in Flux, but there's no rich man in a suit, no man with an Afro or silver jacket or dark shades. There's an older gentleman, perhaps in his late sixties, with receding grey hair, wrinkled skin, and… Japanese eyes, perhaps Chinese. It's hard to tell. He gives me a thin smile, and I pause, activating my quick-scan.

The smile deepens when he notices the flicker of my visor. He knows I'm scanning. He wants me to.

I step closer, then, out of absolutely nowhere at all, something black and wiry hangs down from the doorway with a great, big squeal, inches from my face. For a second I think it's a drunk – then I see fur, steel plates stitched into its belly, yellow eyes gone glassy with implants. A small chimp, teeth snapping wetly.

"Christ!" I stumble back into Fingers' arms, heart thumping.

"Easy, Chitters," Crowjack says, voice smooth as lacquer.

The ape drops from the top of the booth entrance, turtleneck tight around its frame. It cocks its head at me, lips unzipping into something between grin and snarl. Perhaps, through its mischievous and animalistic mind, both would suffice.

Crowjack chuckles. "Don't mind him. He's my doorman, of sorts. Hates surprises, but then again, so do I."

I shift behind Fingers. "That thing is no doorman."

"Scared of chimps?" Fingers laughs. "Really?"

"What?" My voice cracks. "No. Just – I'm not used to being sized up by something that looks like it crawled out of a vivisection manual."

Chitters hisses at me, then it hops along the floor to Crowjack, crawling up on his shoulder, staring at me soullessly.

Crowjack strokes a hand down Chitters' shoulder as it clicks its teeth. "I suppose that's the point. He keeps my meetings civilised. People get jumpy, they start thinking twice. Isn't that right, Chitters?" The chimp croons, a high-pitched whine that makes my skin crawl. Crowjack's grin widens; it's so white and artificial it almost looks alien against the rag of his skin. "See? Now, why don't you come inside, so we can, as the youth say, 'get down to biz.'"

Fingers steps in first, takes a seat across from him, and I creep in after her, slumping down onto the sofa with my arm strung across my stomach.

"You're not that old," says Fingers. "And we're not that young. Trust me."

"I believe it," he says. "Especially with today's anti-aging medicine – I don't believe in any of that nonsense myself. You are who you are, regardless of what you appear to be on the outside. That's something the old folk like to say."

"Well, for an old guy, you sure have an interesting style. You the one who ordered all glass and blue for a nightclub?"

"Unique, isn't it?"

"I wouldn't say unique," Fingers says. Then, with a cough: "You have a drink? Anything? Fixers usually keep a bottle."

Crowjack smirks, a dry stretch of skin and teeth, and shifts his eyes to me. "Would you like one too, Rhea?" Chitters leans from his shoulder, paw hooked into the slack of his nape, eyes locked on me.

"I wouldn't mind," I say, against my better judgment. I don't usually drink, but with this thing staring holes in me, my throat feels scorched, paper-dry.

Crowjack snaps his fingers, then Chitters drops from his perch to the far shoulder and springs upward. The chimp moves along a narrow shelf that runs behind Crowjack's booth: a polished strip of brushed steel masquerading as a freebar. It hangs just above head height, loaded with bottles in neat rows, corporate logos etched in frost-glass. Chitters hangs inverted for a moment, one claw-foot clamped around the neck of a bottle. The other paw grips three heavy tumblers from a rack above our heads. A fluid switch, paw to paw, like practiced sleight of hand. He drops with them cradled to his chest, landing soft on Crowjack's shoulder.

Crowjack takes the glasses, the bottle. He pours without glancing down, pale liquor sluicing into crystal. Chitters chitters – a sound too close to laughter – and curls back into the booth's corner.

Crowjack slides a glass across to Fingers, then one to me. "Imported. Older than both of you, if you believe the label."

The smell rises sharp and mineral. My visor's HUD displays a line of text: Unverified spirits, high toxicity, 78 proof. I close the window before I can think too hard.

Fingers clinks her glass against mine. "Look at you. Finally livin' a little."

"I wouldn't call it livin'," I say. "But yeah. To business." I take a sip of the drink, and it strikes hard, tastes of cherry. After a moment, it clears my throat, loosens the knot in my chest, leaves the faint aftertang of iron on my tongue. For the first time since stepping in, I feel the floor stop tilting under me.

Crowjack says, "So. This is an interesting one. Word is you're reaching high, top of the food chain. Calyx Ward." He lets the name roll out slow, tasting it. His eyes cut between me and Fingers. "And what are you, hm? Two girls from the gutter who think they can chew through the city's queen?"

"It's a long story," Fingers says. "And believe me, we know what we're getting into. It's still nerve-wracking – don't get me wrong. But we have our reasons."

He nods once, then takes a sip of his drink. "Oh, many have their reasons. Calyx Ward is something of an enigma. She's clearly a very intimidating, sharp, and dominant person. A little too dominant for her own good, because with that sort of dominance comes a city of people praying on her downfall." He swirls his glass. "Her rules and regulations… they choke men who once thought themselves wolves. Now they're lapdogs in collars, waiting for scraps. Plenty want her gone. Plenty have tried. None came back with more than a body bag – if they came back at all."

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Fingers leans forward, elbows on the glass table. "We're not here for poetry. We're here for intel. Supply lines. Rumours say you've got a bead on who's keeping them alive."

"Rumours are a kind currency, little bird. Cheap to trade, expensive to prove. Why should I spend mine on you... Morgan?"

Fingers scowls at that.

"Alright," I jut in. "Sorry – she just gets a little heated sometimes. Look, we just need information about Lumina's supply lines. We did some asking around: apparently you know a thing or two, that you used to work in that area. We're willing to pay good money. And this conversation? Never happened. Gone. Wiped. Your name will appear nowhere."

"Well, at least you know something about the fixing process," says Crowjack.

"Oh, trust me," I reply. "You have no idea."

Some silence, and then Crowjack sets his glass on the table. "Alright," he says. "A hundred thousand eddies."

Fingers chokes on her drink, coughs, biffs her chest a couple times, and says, "A hundred thousand? For information? You're serious?"

Crowjack leans back and gestures to the exit. "Door's right there. But good luck finding anyone that knows as much as I do in this entire state, never mind city."

Fingers and I share a glance between each other. It sure is expensive, and significantly reduces our budget. Aside from that, he might not give us anything useful. Still, if we don't make a decision now, he might not ever give us another opportunity; there aren't many other options out there.

Eventually, I swallow and say, "Alright. A hundred thousand. But—"

"This better be good," says Fingers. "No fixer's ever charged that much. It's a little exorbitant, as the fancy like to say."

"Oh, trust me," he says. "There's not a soul in this city that'll give you anything better."

Fingers, taking a moment, brings up her transaction HUD. I know because her eyes turn blue, and after a moment, they blink back to their normal pink and she says, "Done. Feel like I've just sold my soul to the devil."

"Right," says Crowjack. "Now we're speaking the same language."

Then, in a voice so low I'm not sure I hear her correctly, Fingers says: "Better be fluent."

Crowjack downs the rest of his drink, and Chitters hops up onto the freebar and takes the glass off of him with its claw-foot. It drops onto the sofa and starts licking the inside of the glass, ooh-oohing and ahh-ahhing.

"Ward doesn't run Lumina on her own," he starts, running a finger along the ragging skin of his face. His sharp and slit eyes narrow even more than they normally do, and in the gold overlight he looks contemplative. "No dictator ever does. She's got a spine of steel, sure, but every spine needs a vertebrae. If you want to cut into the supply line, that's where you begin: with the two names making sure it all runs smoothly from the top-down."

I lean in. "Names?" I say, sounding bolder than usual. Maybe it's the drink kicking in. Who knows? Either way, the boost of confidence should do me well in prying as much information out of those chapped lips as possible.

Crowjack taps the table with two fingers, but he keeps his eyes on me, still tight, as if measuring the length upon which the words should travel.

He better go the whole distance, especially for that kind of money.

"Mezhane Carrow and Sloan Harrow. In the black-market, people call 'em Carrow & Harrow. No relation whatsoever, just an odd coincidence of rhyme. Though I suppose that sort of thing's the norm in a city built on rhythm."

"Rhythm's a funny word to use," says Fingers amiably. "But what's their deal? How do they play into all of this?"

He puts his elbow on the table and rests his chin on the tip of his finger, regarding her with what appears to be cogitation. "Sloan's the mover. Runs the distribution network. Convoys, warehouses, smuggler docks. Nothing goes in or out without her signature – or her little fleet of driverless beauties. She's got those trucks dancing to Lumina's tune. She's got the trucks parked overnight ready for weekly pickups from Carrow's sub-facility."

"Go on," I say.

"If you want to reach Calyx Ward, you'll have no chance just sneaking in. Trust me. People have tried. She has technology generations beyond generations, the sort that can see through Chroma-Skin, detect netrunning software and flag you down on a mini-map as soon as you enter the Capital, and have your entire history up on a panel. So if you've been naughty girls in the past, best believe her team will spot you out and lock you up, if not mow you down where you stand. The only access-way is through the Lumina trucks. Unhackable, at least on paper. Watchdog daemons in every panel, kill-switches wired into the engines. Try to force one and you'll be pulling your teeth out of the pavement."

"Trojan truck method," Fingers says. "Yeah, we know that already."

"Don't think it's that simple, little bird." He looks over at Chitters, who hasn't stopped licking the inside of the glass. He snaps his fingers, and it looks up with a single 'Ooh?' before making its way onto his lap, where he massages its head and it bares those awful teeth at random intervals.

Fingers shifts, pink eyes narrowing. "So if we wanted to interfere with one of those convoys..."

Crowjack cuts her off with a low laugh. "If. You'd be gambling with your lives. Harrow's fleet isn't just cargo. Ward wants the people to see them rolling, to know she's untouchable. Touch one and the whole city will come down on you."

Chitters clicks his teeth, as if punctuating the threat.

I steady my voice. "And Mezhane?"

Crowjack taps his finger against the chimp's spine, right where the steel plates show. "Mezhane Carrow's the Maker. Surgeon, engineer, vivisectionist, as you like to say. He builds the hardware Ward needs to keep Lumina more than just a drug, and he runs the central experiments, constantly improving it, changing compounds, all that science nonsense. Technology out of this world: override chips, neural nets, little parasites that slip between cortex and implant." His hand trails down the ape's shoulder, casual as petting a dog. "He's the reason Ward's dream doesn't fail on the operating table."

Fingers' lip curls. "Dream's a pretty word for what you're describing."

Crowjack shrugs, palms up. "Call it nightmare, then. Makes no difference to me."

"Okay," I say. "So why do we need them? How can they get us access to one of the trucks so that we can, I suppose, slip into the Capital undetected?"

"An excellent question, Rhea," he says sarcastically. "Each truck is protected by both software and hardware. First, Sloan Harrow's AI grid. Those rigs don't have drivers – no, they've got machine minds. And she's the only who can change their routes, get you into the Capital. But she can't grant you access to them even if you show up to her facility, ice her, and take the AI shard."

"That where Mezhane comes in?" I ask.

He taps Chitters on the spine where the plates show, and the chimp stiffens. "Mhm. Carrow's a sadist with a scalpel, but he's clever. Every truck's wired with a kill-switch – engine detonates, cargo cooks off, ashes on the wind the second someone forces a panel. When they're loading, when they're swapping modules, Carrow plugs in his little override chip to pause the sequence. Like a key in a lock. No Carrow, no chip, no way in."

Fingers says, "So it's both. Sloan to move the pieces, Carrow to make the pieces and keep them from exploding in our faces."

Crowjack's grin cuts sharp. "Now you're speaking my language. Harrow and Carrow are the vertebrae. Snap one, Ward limps. Snap both, and maybe you get close enough to see her bleed."

"Who do we go for first?"

"You want to crack Ward's shell, you hit Mezhane first. He's the linchpin. Nasty bastard, but he's the one who built the keys. Take his chip, and you can stop those trucks from exploding. Ward'll notice sooner or later, sure, if you take too long, but you don't need forever – you just need a gap. Sloan? She's second. Her AI keeps things humming even if she keels over, but if you want to remap the route into the Capital, or to know which trucks are supposed to be going to the Capital, then you're gonna need her shard."

I take one sip of my drink, then another, and after a couple seconds I finish it off. I place the glass down and Chitters, that bastard of a chimp, sweeps forward and snatches it. Makes me jump, makes my heart cry out, but I manage to keep my breath steady. "Mezhane it is. And where's he being held?"

Crowjack yawns – maybe out of boredom, maybe because all this chatter has worn him down and he's ready for one of his old-man naps. He says, "Public facility where people come to gawk at lab rats, restricted sector. Technically it's a lab complex, but don't picture chrome floors and clean rooms – picture cancerous gantries and coolant leaks that have been dripping since the last century, picture concrete tunnels re-skinned with corporate polish, picture something old and dead underneath that Paxson keeps alive only because it's cheaper than building new. That's where Mezhane Carrow's nested himself. He likes it down there. White, damp, smells of mildew and ozone. Perfect place for him to wire his creations to his machines and call it science."

His hand drifts over Chitters' spine again and the creature twitches as if it's caught a ghost current.

"Access is tier-four only, which means government, corp, or contractors with the right tags. You don't have that, which means you'll need to bleed for it. He doesn't leave often. Once a month, maybe twice, when they move a shipment topside. He walks it himself, chip in his pocket, overrides the kill-switch while they load the cargo, then disappears back into his warren. That's your window. You catch him outside the nest, in transit, you've got a chance. Inside? Different story. He owns that space. Built it in his own image, filled it with things that scuttle in the dark. Things you don't want waking up hungry."

I don't like the sound of that. If he's keeping experimented creatures as stock, then that opens up a whole other can of worms to deal with. We'll have to be quiet. There's also the possibility that Mezhane won't leave the area, meaning we'll have to find him and take the chip by force. So many possibilities, so many ways for things to go wrong, but if one thing's for certain, whatever he's keeping down there can't wake up. He might not have a lot of tech under his skin, but he has, in Crowjack's words, his creations.

I push the worry aside, thinking that this information, while helpful, wasn't anywhere near a hundred thousand eddies' worth. Regardless, I'm happy to stand up, shake his hand, and get the hell out of that booth, away from that horrifying ape. I know it's childish, but they simply just give me the creeps, especially when they bare their teeth in trickery or mischief, as if telling you you've made the dumbest deal you ever could.

And hey, we might have. Things rarely go well in this world.

When we head up the stairs and reach the dancefloor, bodies are still swaying everywhere and casting neat little shadows against the glass floor and walls. We don't see Vander or Dance anywhere for a time – too compact, too many shoulders pressed together – but their voices come through the bustle with all the wobble of tipsy walkers. They couldn't have had that much to drink already – surely not; they're only playing around, and when the music hits a deep bassline and a steady, intriguing beat begins to drum and rattle, I find my head bobbing just a little.

The crowd opens, and there's Vander, massive shoulders hunched, eyes half-lidded, moving with a peculiar rhythm that doesn't quite belong to the music and doesn't quite belong to him either, but somehow fits. Dance is egging him on from the side, glass in hand, shouting some nonsense about "the freight train boogie," and Vander – bless him – actually rolls with it. His trench coat's gone, left somewhere by the bar, and for once he doesn't look like N.A.'s bulldog, doesn't look like an engineer built to absorb bullets, doesn't even look like a man who's seen too much. He looks… lighter.

The lights catch him in a sudden flare of blue, strobes pulsing over the gloss of his lipstick – stained from some cheap synthdrink or some strange cocktail Dance shoved into his mitt. They gleam, cobalt bright, against the wall of his jaw. And I don't know what possesses me – maybe the drink, maybe the beat, maybe the sight of this great bear of a man moving with such odd grace – but I find myself stepping into his orbit.

He sees me and, impossibly, offers his hand. A hand the size of a shovel, callused, scarred, the kind of hand that's broken more noses than I've had warm meals. I take it anyway.

The bassline deepens, spreads underfoot in liquid electricity, and suddenly I'm being turned – not roughly, but carefully, as if he's remembering how small I am compared to him, how brittle I might feel in his grasp. The crowd becomes a blur, the floor thumping, and Vander, the immovable rock, is spinning me gently as if he's always known how.

I laugh, and he grins, glowing: something out of a dream. His steps are clumsy, sure, his rhythm is questionable, but he's holding me steady, and for a brief, impossible stretch of seconds it feels like the city isn't burning, like Ward isn't waiting, like the ghosts of my past aren't gnashing their teeth through my skin.

When the track drops into silence, just for a beat before the next one rises, I catch my breath against his chest, and Vander rumbles something too low to hear, but it sounds promising. Then the crowd swallows us again, cyan glass and bass and laughter, and the day carries us forward.

One hell of a dancer he is.