The Heist of Hollow London, page 25
She didn’t deserve this. It had all been wrong, from the start. They’d stolen the life she should have had, and now they’d killed her for trying to get it back. She comforted herself with the thought this had all been deeply unfair and she had done her best in the circumstances. Everything that had ever gone wrong in her life was someone else’s fault, and her final thoughts were that her death was someone else’s fault too.
In her dimming vision she saw Arlo looking down at her, stroking her hair, telling her she’d be fine, it wasn’t that bad, she just had to hang on. He’d always been there, and he’d always been so patient.
36
A HOT MORNING AT SUNGLOW
It was very difficult to locate anyone in this city at night, Loren knew that. Once they’d got out of sight, their chances of avoiding the people chasing them were pretty good. They just had to be rational and calm about the situation. But this was not easy, when so much about the situation was so unclear. Who was chasing them? What did Mia really want?
Running to the next street, they found a hotel and dashed inside, treading as lightly as possible so their footsteps wouldn’t carry. They had an idea: every room in the place was vacant, so if you were going to hide here, you’d hide in one of the guest rooms, right? And if their pursuers came looking in here, they’d focus on searching those. So Loren went past the front desk, down the corridor, and found the room used to store people’s luggage when they weren’t ready to check in yet. They went inside the oddly shaped little room, hid round the corner, and slumped to the floor. They stayed there until morning, and were disturbed only by their own thoughts and worries. If they slept, it was light and brief.
Loren couldn’t hide in the ruins forever. They weren’t cut out to live like a vague. Eventually they would have to resurface, and when they did it would be hard to avoid detection. They appeared to be on their own now. Drienne hadn’t got out of the building, and Arlo had stayed to help her. Kline was dead. And Nadi had been arrested. However Loren got out of this, they’d have to work it out for themself.
When the sun was up, Loren left the little room and slowly, carefully made their way out of the hotel. They needed something to eat, so they headed south.
* * *
NiZCOval was only a short walk away, but Mia would probably be looking for them there. The next nearest corpurbation was the one operated by Sunglow, and it was across the river, on the site of a rail interchange formerly known as Clapham Junction. It took Loren over an hour to walk there, at which point they had a choice: they could try to launder the currency on the Coyne and use that to pay for some breakfast, or they could use Drienne’s alt-id slate, which they still possessed. The slate would be easily traceable, but probably the Coyne would be too. There was no way they could pay for anything without risking being located.
They lurked around a food court, where morning shift workers and overnight cleaning staff were eating. When a group stood up to leave and didn’t clear their table, Loren went over and cleared it for them, as if they might be intending to occupy the table themself, or as if they were a member of staff employed to do this (though a member of staff would probably not be in such a disheveled state as Loren was). When they reached the waste disposal, they furtively ate the remaining scraps of food. After repeating this a few times, they felt satisfied and started to plan their next move.
Loren didn’t think the people who’d shot at them were the police or Oakseed security, so either they’d been hired by Mia or by someone else. Out in the salvage zones you could get away with sending in a small militia at night, but you couldn’t just march into a corpurbation and drag someone away, you’d have to make an application to the security division of the governing corp; it was complicated and political. This meant Loren was relatively safe here, but just because the militia hadn’t swarmed on Loren yet didn’t mean they didn’t know where they were. Someone could well be watching and waiting for them to leave the food court.
Loren wondered if they might be able to set up another alt-id and live here. Get a job as a support at the Sunglow plant. Maybe by some miracle everyone would give up and leave them alone. But even if they did, ultimately someone here would realize Loren was a made and want to know who held them and it would all unravel. Living an independent life as a made was impossible if someone didn’t want you to.
Of course, this raised the question of who actually held Loren. They hoped they found that out at least, before all this was over. They’d hate to die not knowing.
* * *
Arlo was having a conversation in his head with Drienne. This wasn’t unusual for Arlo, but before it had been like a rehearsal for a conversation they might have later, when they came back together. This one would remain painfully unresolved.
I need to explain, he imagined saying. About Mia.
What about Mia?
I needed to know you weren’t stealing the money before I told you she was here. That’s why I didn’t tell you straightaway.
Why? I’d have told you the truth.
But Mia might have thought you were lying to me. Anyway, you didn’t tell me the truth about all this stuff you were doing with Loren.
I was protecting you. I knew something was wrong but I didn’t want to spoil your chance of getting free.
I know that now, but when I walked into that room, all I knew was you hadn’t told me the truth.
I took all the risk for you.
Variations on this had gone around Arlo’s head for hours and hours. He couldn’t stop his mind replaying their final minutes together, trying to do things differently. Sometimes it replayed the moment when she’d told him to go through the window first and he hadn’t argued. He kept telling himself there hadn’t been time to argue, and he never won arguments with Drienne anyway. But he kept seeing other versions of that moment, versions where he told her to go first and she just did it, and some of those versions ended with him being shot instead and some of them didn’t. But none of them became real, and he’d be bounced back to the start again, or have that conversation with Drienne again, the one where he explained he hadn’t betrayed her, he’d just been doing the best he could, trying not to get them all killed.
But he had got her killed. This was all his fault. He’d thought he was being so clever, bringing her onto the crew. He should have left her to whatever life she’d have otherwise had: a shit life, but a life nevertheless.
The grief was too big, he could tell. He could only feel a little of it. His brain was looping in this nonsense way, lying to him that if he just went through the steps of what he could have done differently one more time, he could fix this, because otherwise it might have to deal with what had happened and could not be changed. Because she couldn’t possibly be gone, it didn’t make sense that the world didn’t have her in it anymore. Somehow it felt worse than when he’d thought he was going to be reaped, because at least that wasn’t his fault. Now he was going to live, maybe—but all his life he’d hate himself for getting her killed.
He wondered what they’d done with her body. They’d dragged him away from her, but whether they’d just left her body in the alley like they did Kline, he didn’t know.
Arlo had spent the night aboard Mia’s copter, guarded by a member of the small militia she’d acquired from somewhere. There seemed to be five soldiers in total: from time to time one of them would come back to Mia’s copter to take over watching Arlo, and the one who’d been watching him would go out to search. He wasn’t sure which of them had actually shot Drienne. He didn’t really care, he wanted to kill them all. Several times he had to screw his eyes shut tight and dig his thumbnails into his skin until the urge to leap up and attack the guard passed. He had to listen to Drienne’s voice telling him that would be stupid, because the guard would kill him. He wasn’t even sure that’s what she’d have said. She might have told him to go for it. Avenge her. He really wanted to. It was like a cliff he couldn’t wait to throw himself over.
But no, he’d keep himself alive for now. Maybe a better opportunity would present itself.
There was a second copter parked near Mia’s, a more utilitarian affair without the plush xec interior. Arlo surmised this was the one the soldiers had arrived in. It had stood empty for most of the night while the militia searched. They’d used heat-sensitive equipment, but this had only led them to vagues and wild animals. Mia remained at her desk in the copter, quiet and calm as she coordinated the search using a detailed model of the area to locate potential hiding places. When the soldiers reported back, she didn’t shout at them about their failure to locate Loren, just treated it as a problem to be solved.
Arlo spoke abruptly, for the first time in several hours. Mia looked startled, but listened.
“If you had all these guys,” Arlo said, indicating the man guarding him, “why didn’t you use them to carry out the operation?”
Mia leaned back in her chair and directed her eyes at the ceiling. “I couldn’t just send a team of soldiers to march in and grab it. It had to be an infiltration operation. Plus I needed you to open the locker. And I needed to use people who couldn’t be linked back to me.”
“We know you’re not the real Mia.”
“I know you know. Look—it’s complicated, and I don’t need to explain to you, so I’m not going to.” Mia went back to her windows, as if Arlo was a needy child distracting Mummy from her work.
Shortly after sunrise, Mia received a call from someone who was being far less calm about all this. She went into the copter’s bedroom and closed the door, and though Arlo couldn’t make out her words, he could detect the distinctive tones of a person trying to placate someone who was screaming at them. Mia came out and returned to her desk. Arlo caught her eye and forced a smile, letting her know he knew she was in trouble, even if he didn’t know who with.
Half an hour later, Mia straightened up in her chair, looked closely at one of her open windows, then smiled and sat back. The relief on her face told Arlo everything.
* * *
Loren was sitting on a bench opposite a coffeehouse, dreaming of iced tea. Not too sweet, plenty of lemon. It was just after ten o’clock and the temperature was creeping up: it would be the hottest day of the year so far, the report on the window above Loren’s head said. Loren was in the shade and felt like if they stood and crossed the sunlit space between themself and the coffeehouse they’d pass out. The food they’d scavenged had kept them going, but there’d been little in the way of liquid and they were getting a headache, which was making it difficult to think.
At present they had no ideas better than to head for the port, take their chances, and try to catch a flight somewhere. But getting to the port unnoticed would depend on someone, somewhere fucking up, or some other bit of dumb luck. They had to think of something better, but meanwhile they were just getting hungrier and thirstier and increasing the chance of someone finding them.
They had their eyes closed, trying to use a meditation technique that focused on the headache in a way that was supposed to make it go away. But it wasn’t working, probably because they couldn’t stop thinking about the Coyne, which was inside a zip pocket on their tunic. Trying to meditate when your mind was very much on material concerns like that was pointless.
They’d just decided to make their way to the port—on foot perhaps, was that feasible?—when a man sat down next to them on the bench.
“Loren, yes?” said the man. “Thank heavens I got to you before they did.”
37
THIS PLAN WAS MY PLAN
The man Loren found themself sitting next to was probably in his midfifties, but you had to pay attention to notice because at first glance he looked younger. He was very healthy and lean, and had probably been to the gym five times a week for the last three or four decades. His hair was thick and dark brown. His skin was in great condition, neither pallid nor sun-damaged, suggesting regular facials and expensive daily creams. His face was rather narrow and his features strangely delicate, contrasting with his voice, which was low and warm. Loren liked his outfit a lot—a gray sleeveless shirt and matching vented trousers, and an orange tie. He smiled at Loren, and seemed very relaxed around them—not like a friend, but like an old colleague you’d had a good rapport with.
Loren was unsure whether to admit their name was Loren. But it seemed futile to deny it: if this guy knew their name and had managed to track them down, he wasn’t just fishing. He knew.
He introduced himself as Ackland. “You’re in quite a situation, aren’t you, Loren?”
“Maybe,” said Loren, because that did sound like fishing, trying to get the details.
“You stole a Coyne from a locker at Kentish Cyc yesterday evening,” he said. “Three members of your operation are dead, a fourth has been captured alive, leaving you the only one at liberty.”
“Three? Which ones?”
“The survivor is called Arlo.”
Fuck. They’d killed Drienne, and Nadi … she must have died in custody. Christ. Both hit Loren hard, for different reasons. But they had to shut that out and focus on what this guy was telling them.
“You still have the Coyne, you’ve made your way here, so: what’s your next move?” He turned to face them with a sympathetic smile. This wasn’t a trap; he knew they had no next move.
Loren shrugged.
“Yep,” said Ackland. “It’s tough. But I can help you.”
“You can?”
“I knew Joshi Samson. We used to work together. Nice guy, not too bright, but … Anyway, he told me about this nest egg of his years ago. This plan you were bought to carry out was my plan, I came up with it—Arlo, the eyes, tricking the time stamp, all of it. But after the company collapsed I was busy trying to secure my own future, you know, and I didn’t realize Samson was dead until about a day later, by which time someone stole my plan and bought Arlo, and I didn’t know who’d bought him or where he’d gone. They covered their tracks too well. So all I could do was watch for what happened at the plant.” He smiled again. “Didn’t go entirely smoothly for you, did it?”
Loren bobbed their head from side to side. “I mean I did my bit.”
“And making off with the money? Was that part of the plan?”
“I figured Mia was lying to us and I wanted to know what was really—” Loren stopped, realizing they were saying more than they needed to.
Ackland splayed his fingers into a claw shape and tapped them on his knee. “Look—I don’t care what you did. You didn’t steal my plan, someone bought you to execute it—and if I’d carried it out myself I’d have needed a team, and I’d have paid them. So what I’m proposing is you give the money to me, I launder it, and we split it fifty-fifty.”
“What about Mia and those soldier guys?”
“I make all that go away, don’t you worry. You just give it to me and all this stops.”
“I want my freedom too.”
Ackland smiled. “I’ll buy out your debt and cancel it.”
Loren considered whether it was to their advantage to say the next part. But they didn’t want Ackland to go back on his promises if he felt they’d been dishonest with him, so they said it. “It’s not as much money as Mia told us.”
“You’ve seen what’s on it?”
“Yeah. Nowhere near as much money, in fact. She told us there’d be a big chunk of cash hidden on it, but I’ve checked. It’s only ninety-five thousand reps.”
“Oh dear.” Ackland shook his head. “Samson was prone to exaggeration. But I stand by what I said, we’ll share the money and I’ll take care of Mia.”
“Okay.”
“I mean, it’s only money. It isn’t worth dying over, is it?”
Loren thought about this for a while. Then they swallowed uncomfortably. “I’ve got a headache. I could do with a drink.”
Ackland nodded. “Of course. I’ll get you something.”
“Iced tea.”
“Sounds good.”
Together they stood and walked into the coffeehouse.
“I can’t force you to give me the money,” Ackland said. “I wouldn’t—that’s not the kind of person I am, my intention was to do this clean. But I think it’s a compelling offer considering the position you’re in.”
“I don’t disagree—Sorry, I can’t think with this headache.”
“Sure.” Ackland turned to the young man behind the counter and ordered an iced tea for Loren and a complicated coffee for himself. The young man told him it came to r33.70 and Ackland was about to tap his finger on the terminal, but Loren quickly said, “Oh no, let me,” and waved the Coyne over the terminal, which deducted a tiny percentage of its currency and flashed up a cheerful message saying Thank you!
Ackland turned to Loren slowly with a cold stare. “What … did you just do?”
“I paid. My treat. No need to thank me.”
“But it had to—” Ackland lowered his voice to a hiss. “It had to be laundered first—I told you I was going to—”
“Yeah, and I think I know why. See, I always thought there was more to this than just money, because surely it wouldn’t be that hard to launder it? People do it every day.”
Ackland looked around. The coffeehouse wasn’t busy, but the guy behind the counter was taking notice of this conversation and so were some of the customers.
“I wouldn’t worry about who’s listening right now,” said Loren. “So anyway, I thought there was something else on here other than money, like something you’d blackmail someone with. But it is just money, and a lot less than we thought.”
“Of course it’s just money—”
“Ah, but it isn’t just money. See, not only is this not as much as Mia told us, it also wouldn’t be that difficult to launder.”
