‘Sven,’ Anton says.
Yeah, I know. If you can’t fix it with a hammer, you’ve got an electrical problem. Doesn’t stop him saying it.
Takes me a day to rebuild Sergeant Leona’s gyrobike. Having removed its fairing, I unbolt its saddle, side boxes and shotgun holster. Inside all this is a single fusion unit, matched to a cheap gyro that will keep the bike upright in most conditions short of a direct hit.
Stripped to her singlet and combats, the sergeant sandblasts paint from its fairing on my orders. Sweat darkens Leona’s spine, and stains the singlet under her arms, finally sticking cotton to her breasts and gut.
‘Nipples like bullets,’ Anton mutters.
I’m supposed to be the one who says stuff like that.
Debro thinks the sergeant needs to take it easy. I think the fairing plates need to be able to flex properly. It’s obviously been years since they could do that.
Leona cuts back five coats of paint.
As she does, I take the fusion unit apart. It’s old, obviously enough. But the ceramic shielding is sound and the fuel rod good for several half-lives longer than all of ours added together. After the unit is back in one piece, I balance the wheel and take the Icefeld for a spin.
It brakes well enough, turns on the spot and lets me slide down a gravel slope without losing its grip. Getting back up again is tougher. But only because the engine isn’t really built for someone my size.
The next bike is quicker.
Sergeant Leona sandblasts the fairing as I rebuild the unit, balance its wheel and repair one set of brakes. As an after-thought, I check for bugs and find two.
My first thought is to crush them.
Instead, I put them on a shelf. If anyone bothers to check, I hope it will look as though the bike is sitting in a garage for the next few days. It’s when I cut the badges and braid and medal ribbons off my uniform that Debro decides I’m not just amusing myself and asks what’s going on.
‘I’m going to Farlight.’
‘You’d be an idiot to try.’
‘Debro-’
‘A complete idiot.’
‘Not true,’ the SIG says. ‘There are bits missing.’ You can always rely on it to help matters.
‘Vijay needs to know about General Luc.’
‘So send a message,’ Debro says. ‘It will be simpler. Probably quicker. And . . .’ She shrugs. ‘Safer all round, I imagine.’
Anton catches up with me as I’m adjusting the pair of coils that act as electric brakes on the Icefeld. It’s a simple enough system. Something about his scowl suggests Debro sent him. ‘Not much hope of arguing you out of this?’
‘None.’
‘Didn’t think so,’ he says.
Five minutes later he’s back with the other police bike we downed. When he reaches into his pocket for a hex set, I know Debro isn’t going to like this. Dropping to a crouch, he traces a wire to the bars and adjusts the brake lever. Then he follows a fibre optic from a switch under the lever down to the inside of the fairing.
‘Interesting,’ he says.
He says nothing for the next few minutes because he’s busy unscrewing the fairing. This done, he traces his optic to behind the wheel and removes the fender as well.
Gun mounts.
One at the rear matches another at the front. Both are activated by ribbons of optic. These bikes were designed to run S amp;Ps. Short-barrelled weapons that blip clips in seconds but fire fast enough to scare what’s out there.
‘Remove your fender,’ Anton tells Leona.
She looks at me.
I nod.
The sergeant goes to work.
When Anton returns he has an armful of pulse pistols, more optic and enough clips to start a small war. Stripping a barrel from its chassis, he unclips the chassis from its handle, removes a trigger guard, rips free a tiny panel and plugs optic into place.
Thumbing the button on the Icefeld’s handlebars produces a sharp click. Ignition not pin fire. Caseless not cartridges. We’re talking weight-reduction here.
Grinning, Anton slides a clip into place.
‘Better try it on single,’ he says.
A touch of a button and half the garage door disappears with a bang loud enough to bring Debro running. There’s a fist-sized chunk out of the wall beyond.
‘Just helping Sven,’ Anton says.
A look passes between them. No idea what it says. But Debro nods and disappears. A few minutes later Aptitude turns up with a plate of fried peppers and three beers. Anton takes his, I take mine, and Leona shakes her head.
‘Don’t waste it,’ I tell her.
The sergeant looks worried. There are rules against non-coms drinking with officers. Equally, there are rules against disobeying orders. And Aptitude is watching with a strange expression on her face.
She wants to know how I’ll handle this.
‘It’s OK,’ I say. ‘We’re off-duty.’
Leona drinks.
Anton, meanwhile, strips back another pistol and sets about bolting its breech, barrel and clip box into position. There’s a dogged determination about him I recognize. Most days I see it in myself. Not since Hekati, though.
That thought halts the beer bottle halfway to my lips.
‘You OK?’ Aptitude asks.
‘Just thinking.’
My gun snorts. So I turn it off.
‘If you want to talk . . .?’ Aptitude says quietly.
Must shake my head too firmly, because she tells me she’s needed in the kitchens and shuts the stair door behind her with a bang.
The restlessness that brought me here is going to take me back to Farlight. There’s a chance I’ll die there. It’s better than evens. But better to meet death face on than sit around waiting for it to find you.
‘Going for a walk,’ I tell Anton.
Picking up my beer, I discover it’s already empty. Mind you, they’re small bottles.
It’s cooler outside than in the garage.
Well, provided you keep to the shade. Taking a track out of the village, I skirt the edge of the hill that Debro’s compound commands, and head for open country. It’s blisteringly hot and tar from the road sticks to my boots. There’s no one around to see me take off my shirt.
The flesh where my stump slides under the edge of my combat arm is raw. So I remove the arm to give the flesh some air. The scar tissue looks like tortoiseshell, with an open wound where metal has worn it away.
It used to look a lot worse until I met Colonel Madeleine.
Not only did she tidy up the stump, she liked the result so much she cut her initials into her handiwork. She also made me another arm.
Unfortunately I lost that on Hekati.
So now I have this one.
Old and crude, with a mess of overlapping plates and braided hoses.
A socket in the elbow takes a spike. A collection of ceramic blades slot into the forearm. I don’t wear these around Debro. Although a noise behind me makes me wish I did and that the arm was back on my shoulder where it belongs.
‘Sven . . .’
It’s Aptitude, carrying a fresh bottle.
‘Thought you might want . . .’ Her voice fades as she sees the state of my shoulder, although it’s already beginning to heal.
As my old lieutenant used to say, you need to be a fast healer or a fast learner. Since I wasn’t the second it was as well I was the first. And then she sees a scar on my side and walks around me, like she’s walking round a tree.
I make myself stand there.
‘Fuck,’ she says, and then blushes. ‘Was that the ferox . . .?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘That was people.’
‘You were tortured?’
‘Whipped,’ I tell her. ‘In the Legion. Usually it kills.’
Aptitude digests this. Handing me the beer, she sits herself on a rock and stares into the distance. Takes me a moment to realize it’s because my chest is bare. Since she’s just taken a good look at the scars on my back that doesn’t make any sense at all. But then I’m not a sixteen-year-old girl and I’m not high clan.
Refitting my arm, I tighten the grips that hold it in place. Pistons hiss and braided hoses flex as my fingers come back to life. The fighting arm is a work of art. It’s just a work of art made to fit someone else.
‘Our house medical AI-’
‘Aptitude.’
She stops talking.
‘It’s like that because I want it like that. Some lessons you need to remember.’ I’m pretty sure we’ve had this conversation before.
Not sure why we’re having it again.
‘But you remember it anyway.’
‘Without the scars I’d forget.’
We both know we’re not here to talk about my scars. And I’m pretty certain Aptitude didn’t leave Wildeside’s air-conditioning just to bring me a beer.
‘Come on,’ I say. ‘Spit it out.’
She flushes. Takes another long look at the horizon.
Smoke drifting from the rift at one edge and the line of hills that form the boundary to the Wolf’s estates at the other. Not much out there she’d want to look at. So I figure she’s taking care not to look at me.
But I don’t need to see her face to know she’s desperate. That’s obvious from the way she clenches her fists.
‘Sven . . .’
‘I don’t break my promises.’
She laughs, unhappily.’ You think I don’t know that? If anyone can protect Vijay from General Luc-’
‘So what’s this about?’
‘I want to go too.’
‘You can’t.’
Flipping round, she starts to protest and shuts up when I scowl. She looks as if she’s about to cry. And Aptitude doesn’t.
Not usually.
‘You’re taking Leona,’ she protests.
‘So?’
‘She’s a woman.’
‘No, she’s a sergeant in the Farlight militia. A combat-hardened, fully trained specialist with two tours of duty behind her.’ This has nothing to do with gender. Although I know Aptitude won’t believe that.
‘I’m scared,’ she says.
‘Of course you are . . .’
A nicely brought up girl like her. How could she not be?
Aptitude shakes her head crossly.’ You don’t understand. I’m going to get you both killed.’
‘Me and Leona?’
‘No! You and Vijay. The two men I-’
Wisely, Aptitude doesn’t finish that sentence.
‘Sven,’ she says, ‘I’ve already got Vijay in trouble. And now . . .’
I don’t realize I’m gripping her shoulders until she whimpers. Then I step back and make myself step back again. Telling her she’s a stupid little idiot isn’t the answer. So that means I’ve got to apologize.
‘You stay at Wildeside.’
She still wants to object, so I give her reasons. ‘If the Wolf captures you, Vijay’s dead. You think he wouldn’t give himself up?’
The tears come.
Ignoring them, I take another look at the horizon. I have a better idea than Aptitude what’s out there. ‘Your dad told you about the furies? We need sex and food. Some of us need to fight . . .’
She’s looking at me strangely.
Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned sex.
‘Furies need to kill. All their instincts are sewn up in one primal urge.’
‘They’re human?’
Maybe once, I think.
The definition of human is wide these days. Wide enough to include me, Anton and Debro, all three. But I’m not sure it can be pushed that far.
‘No,’ I say.
Better if Aptitude thinks of them as machines.
Unbuckling my gun belt, I wrap it around Aptitude’s waist.
‘Open the holster,’ I say.
Her fingers fumble with the catch.
‘And again. This time make it smoother.’
Aptitude’s second go is better. Her third better still. Slow healer, quick learner. Works for some people.
‘Now give me the gun,’ I say.
The correct term is a side arm or piece.
Actually, the correct term is SIG-37, with added Colt combat AI, up-rated memory chip and pulse-rifle capacity. Battle planning, forward projection, combat probabilities and one-minute certain. In U/Free territories the SIG would have voting rights.
One-minute certain means the SIG can tell you with 99.2 per cent accuracy what is going to happen in the next sixty seconds. (Combat situations only.) It’s a useful edge to have in battle.
Although it burns battery like nothing else.
I’ll take five minutes’ high probability, with some power left, over certainty any day. The other thing it does is tactics, targeting and three-level-deep identity.
If your enemy is running black flag it will tell you who they really are. And if that second identity is a lie, the SIG digs one level deeper.
I don’t bother Aptitude with any of this.
‘Keep it turned on,’ I tell her. ‘Keep it close. And do what it suggests, unless you have good reasons for thinking it’s wrong. Even then, check it’s not the other way round.’
‘You think the furies will attack?’
‘You’ve got food, you’ve got power. They can sense things like that. And the furies aren’t your only problem.’
She looks at me.
‘You heard the crowd. “Kill the doubter.”’
‘They were talking about Sergeant Leona.’
Aptitude’s right. But it won’t take the village long to transfer their hatred to Debro. She threw several families out of the compound when she reclaimed it. I know it’s hers. But they’re likely to look at it differently.