But down at the lower limits of my neurachem hearing as we walked away, I could just make out the cry of ancient sirens, like a warning, feeble and faint, of the stirring forces and the chaos to come.
THIRTY
Harlan’s Day.
More correctly, Harlan’s Eve—technically, the festivities wouldn’t commence until midnight rolled around, and that was a solid four hours away. But even this early in the evening, with the last of the day’s light still high in the western sky, the proceedings had kicked off long since. Over in New Kanagawa and Danchi the downtown areas would already be a lurid parade of holodisplay and masked dance, and the bars would all be serving at state-subsidised birthday prices. Part of running a successful tyranny is knowing when and how to let your subjects off the leash, and at this the
First Families were accomplished masters. Even those who hated them most would have had to admit that you couldn’t fault Harlan and his kind when it came to throwing a street party.
Down by the water in Tadaimako, the mood was more genteel but festive still. Work had ceased in the commercial harbour around lunchtime, and now small groups of dock workers sat on the high sides of real keel freighters, sharing pipes and bottles and looking expectantly at the sky. In the marina, small parties were in progress on most of the yachts, one or two larger ones spilling out from vessels onto the jetties. A confused mish-mash of music splashed out everywhere, and as the evening light thickened you could see where decks and masts had been sprayed with illuminum powder in green and pink. Excess powder glimmered scummily in the water between hulls.
A couple of yachts across from the trimaran we were stealing, a minimally-clad blonde woman waved giddily at me. I lifted the Erkezes cigar, also stolen, in cautious salute, hoping she wouldn’t take it as an invitation to jump ship and come over. Isa had music she swore was fashionable thumping up from below decks, but it was a cover. The only thing going on to that beat was an intrusion run into the guts of the trimaran Boubin Islander’s onboard security systems. Uninvited guests trying to crash this particular party were going to meet Sierra Tres or Jack Soul Brasil and the business end of a Kalashnikov shard gun at the base of the companionway.
I knocked some ash off the cigar and wandered about in the yacht’s stern seating area, trying to look as if I belonged there. Vague tension eeled through my guts, more insistent than I’d usually expect before a gig. It didn’t take much imagination to work out why. An ache that I knew was psychosomatic twinged down the length of my left arm.
I very badly didn’t want to climb Rila Crags.
Fucking typical. The whole city’s partying, and I get to spend the night clinging to a two-hundred-metre sheer cliff face.
“Hello there.”
I glanced up and saw the minimally-clad blonde woman standing at the gangplank and smiling brilliantly. She wobbled a little on exaggerated stiletto heels.
“Hello,” I said cautiously.
“Don’t know your face,” she said with inebriated directness. “I’d remember a hull this gorgeous. You don’t usually moor here, do you?”
“No, that’s right.” I slapped the rail. “First time she’s been to Millsport. Only got in a couple of days ago.”
For the Boubin Islander and her real owners at least, it was the truth.
They were a pair of moneyed couples from the Ohrid Isles, rich by way of some state sell-off in local navigational systems, visiting Millsport for the first time in decades. An ideal choice, plucked out of the harbourmaster datastack by Isa along with everything else we needed to get aboard the thirty-metre trimaran. Both couples were unconscious in a Tadaimako hotel right now, and a couple of Brasil’s younger revolutionary enthusiasts would make sure they stayed that way for the next two days. Amidst the confusion of the Harlan’s Day celebrations, it was unlikely anyone was going to miss them.
“Mind if I come aboard and take a look?”
“Uh, well, that’d be fine except, thing is, we’re about to cast off. Couple more minutes, and we’re taking her out into the Reach for the fireworks.”
“Oh, that’s fantastic. You know, I’d really love to do that.” She flexed her body at me. “I go absolutely crazy for fireworks. They make me all, I don’t know—”
“Hey, baby.” An arm slipped around my waist and violent crimson hair tickled me under the jaw. Isa snuggling against me, stripped down to cutaway swimwear and some eye-opening embedded body jewellery. She glared balefully at the blonde woman. “Who’s your new friend?”
“Oh, we haven’t, ah…” I opened an inviting hand.
The blonde woman’s mouth tightened. Maybe it was a competitive thing, maybe it was Isa’s glittery, red-veined stare. Or maybe just healthy disgust at seeing a fifteen-year-old girl hanging off a man over twice her age. Re-sleeving can and does lead to some weird body options, but anyone with the money to run a boat like Boubin Islander doesn’t have to go through them if they don’t want to. If I was fucking someone who looked fifteen, either she was fifteen, or I wanted her to look like she was, which in the end comes to pretty much the same thing.
“I think I’d better get back,” she said, and turned unsteadily about.
Listing slightly every few steps, she made as dignified a retreat as was possible on heels that stupid.
“Yeah,” Isa called after her. “Enjoy the party. See you around, maybe.”
“Isa?” I muttered.
She grinned up at me. “Yeah, what?”
“Let go of me, and go put some fucking clothes back on.”
We cast off twenty minutes later, and cruised out of the harbour on a general guidance beam. Watching the fireworks from the Reach wasn’t a stunningly original idea, and we weren’t even close to the only yacht in Tadaimako harbour heading that way. For the time being, Isa kept watch from the belowdeck cockpit and let the marine traffic interface tug us along. There’d be time to break loose later, when the show started.
In the forward master cabin, Brasil and I broke out the gear. Stealth scuba suits, Anderson-rigged, courtesy of Sierra Tres and her haiduci friends, weaponry from the hundred personal arsenals on Vchira Beach.
Isa’s customised software for the raid patched into the suits’ general purpose processors, and overlaid with a scrambler-rigged comsystem she’d stolen fresh from the factory that afternoon. Like the Boubin Islander’s comatose owners, it wouldn’t be missed for a couple of days.
We stood and looked at the assembled hardware, the gleaming black of the powered-down suits, the variously scuffed and dented weapons. There was barely enough space on the mirrorwood floor for it all.
“Just like old times, huh?”
Brasil shrugged. “No such thing as an old wave, Tak. Every time, it’s different. Looking back’s the biggest mistake you can make.”
Sarah.
“Spare me the cheap fucking beach philosophy, Jack.”
I left him in the cabin and went aft to see how Isa and Sierra Tres were getting on at the con. I felt Brasil’s gaze follow me out, and the taint of my own flaring irritation stayed with me along the corridor and up the three steps into the storm cockpit.
“Hey baby,” said Isa, when she saw me.
“Stop that.”
“Suit yourself.” She grinned unrepentantly and glanced across to where Sierra Tres was propped against the cockpit side panel. “You didn’t seem to mind so much earlier on.”
“Earlier on there was a—” I gave up. Gestured. “Suits are ready. Any word from the others?”
Sierra Tres shook her head slowly. Isa nodded at the comset datacoil.
“They’re all online, look. Green glow, all the way across the board. For now, that’s all we need or want. Anything more, it just means things have fucked up. Believe me, right now, no news is good news.”