Qualea Drop (The Spiral Wars #7), page 17
“I’m from Tarshin.”
“So what are you doing here?”
“I’m an artist. Qalea has crazy views. I thought I’d come and see some.”
“What kind of artist? Would I know your work?”
“I don’t know. Would you know my work?”
Taj grinned. “Not really into art, no.”
“Then no, you probably wouldn’t know my work.”
Taj chose a path the bullet cruisers couldn’t possibly divert to, increased power and shot up past them, abruptly soaring onto a whole new elevation, as the grime and thick air of the lower canyon dropped away. Ahead and above, the grey skies felt like light and safety, and the faster, more nimble traffic roared about the towering spires of uptown.
Belapur Casino was just a few minutes’ flight, stretching along Hideker Ridge above The Turn, where Meujaza Canyon met Wasat Canyon. Below, a sheer wall of curving steel made a corner in the junction, that more cautious, slower traffic took carefully, and young bikers sometimes took blind at crazy speeds. Taj knew at least one half-acquaintance who’d died here, slamming into a scrap hauler he’d not seen in time. As the old bikers said — if the impact didn’t get you, the fall sure would.
The casino was a big, recent thing, several stories of glass and steel, with crazy views across The Turn to the crumpled cliffs of ascending civilisation in Khadra and Shabab far across the canyon to Old Town beyond, thick with flying traffic. Taj brought them in high, transmitting an intention to land and receiving a pass, a flash of green light. Navcomp told him to hold off while various VIPs departed on priority, expensive cruisers with sleek lines, flashing as they caught weak sunlight through the clouds. But the view, as they sat stationary awaiting a landing slot, was amazing, distant sunlight spearing in angled shafts through the clouds amid the traffic, against the huge, colourful temples of Old Town, dimly visible through the haze.
“Ten days ago,” said Taj, thinking he could at least shock the girl with a story. “Some rich girl from Fahid Family fell from the Crystal Tower, right up there,” and he pointed with a gloved finger to the looming spire on their right, “all the way down the Canyon. Everyone thinks she was pushed, but the Family say she jumped.”
“What do the police say?” asked Smriti.
“Police!” Taj laughed. “Good one. You’re funny.”
The landing slot cleared, and he eased them above the rows of expensive cruisers and a few very nice bikes to a clear spot. A big parking attendant indicated him down on the spot, and he dropped, and caught the landing chit the attendant tossed at him.
“Can’t enter without one of these,” he told Smriti, showing her the chit as she unbuckled her legs. “You’d better stay with me. They don’t know you.”
“But they know you?”
“I work for Family Zurhan,” Taj told her smugly. Maybe she hadn’t read the booking page as closely as he’d thought. “I bring people here all the time. Regulars they’ll let in fine, but you’re new. Stick with me and there’ll be no trouble.”
He shut down the bike, locked it with his visor’s code combination, and went to the rear storage trunk. “Here, you want to leave some extra clothes? I mean…” he indicated her heavy jacket, pants and boots. “Unless you want to go in dressed like that?”
The girl removed facemask, helmet and gloves, and handed them to him, then proceeded with the jacket. She left on the boots, which were leather and actually pretty stylish, and the pants were well-fitted. Underneath she had a lighter black jacket, belted tight about her waist. It was still hardly casino-wear, but better than going in dressed like a foundry worker. The girl’s hair was short, to Taj’s disappointment, but free from mask and visor, her face was pretty, dark eyes cool and watchful. She had the lean jaw of a gym rat, with no soft sags anywhere.
“You’re not armed, are you?” Taj thought to ask. “They don’t like that, they’ve got detectors.”
“Not armed, no,” said Smriti, and they walked the line of super-expensive bikes toward the buzzing entrance. Along the bikes, Taj saw a familiar face — Abshir, handing out flying jackets and helmets to a pair of guests he was escorting. He saw Taj and gave a buck-toothed grin and thumbs-up, then turned his head sideways to check out Smriti, swivelling his head as though to look her up and down. Taj grinned, and waved him away. Abshir gave a mock-nervous look back at his clients… and then, as Taj passed, checked her out again and put a knuckle in his teeth.
“Friend of yours’?” Smriti asked.
“Yeah, buddy of mine,” said Taj. “Known him a few years, good rider.”
“And he’s Family Zurhan too?”
“Yeah yeah. All my best buds are. Hanging around with the other Families isn’t too smart.”
“Why not?”
“They don’t like people talking about their stuff with outsiders. And you know, when buddies hang out, we talk.” If Smriti was bothered by Abshir checking her out, she gave no sign.
The entrance was shimmer-glass, changing colours as the engine vibration hit it. One of the guards was dogreth, enormous shoulders and meaty fists, compound eyes that glistened like the shimmering glass. They scanned the readouts only they could see, and waved Taj and Smriti through the security wall, only for a human to stop Taj.
“You’re with Zurhan, yeah?” he asked in Arga.
“Sure am,” said Taj, with all the cocky confidence he could muster. “I brought Iggy Zurhan here last week.”
The door guard nodded, then jerked his head to send them through. Past the wall of living plants, the casino floor opened up, machines and games, glowing holography and lots of well-dressed humans, and some non-humans, taking unwise risks with their money. The racket of bad music and fake rewards was nearly unbearable.
“So,” said Taj, clapping his hands together like he had an idea what this was about. “You gonna play?”
The girl shook her head, making for the stairs. “There’s a nice restaurant upstairs. I was told the views are good.”
Taj followed, hiding his relief. Gamblers were crazy. His one, calculated gamble was the occasional high-speed manoeuvre too close to traffic. He had friends who gambled, or wasted their earnings on expensive girls, drugs or other unproductive nonsense. Taj was too smart for that. He had plans.
The restaurant views were spectacular, though probably less-so than on his bike. But you couldn’t get a drink on the bike, and he sipped the lassi the girl bought him, as she sipped water at a table by the floor-to-ceiling glass, and watched the crazy traffic swarm across The Turn.
“When did you start working for Family Zurhan?” the girl asked him. Her manner was mesmerisingly cool. Taj hadn’t seen her smile yet, but she didn’t look unhappy either.
“Five years ago,” said Taj. “I taught myself engines, talked my way into a job at a repair yard. Made friends with some of the couriers — Dagan, Halhoun — and worked on their bikes. One of them got me an introduction, and I got my first bike on loan. Did jobs for three years to pay it off, and now I’m debt-free.”
“What kind of jobs?”
“Lots of courier jobs. Things they don’t trust anyone else to transport.” He shrugged, sipping his drink. “Lots of rival families out to make trouble, some of these couriers can get intercepted. That’s why they don’t trust a cruiser. Needs to be fast.”
“Ever get chased?”
Taj nodded slowly. He wasn’t supposed to talk about it. But the girl was pretty enough that he wasn’t thinking so much about Maya for the moment. “Yeah,” he admitted. And couldn’t resist a grin. It had been pretty wild. “A few times. Shot at too, I think. Hard to tell with all the noise, but I’m pretty sure.”
“Wow,” said the girl, with a faint smile. “You’ve been shot at.”
Taj shrugged. “It’s not such a big deal. I mean, lots of things out there can kill you.” He nodded out the windows.
“I can see that.”
After a few minutes, the girl went to the bathroom. Taj sat by the windows amidst the other tables and patrons, and thought that this was a pretty good gig, really. Good money, and time spent in cool places with a pretty girl. A strange pretty girl, but that only made it more fun. He wondered if her strangeness extended to sex. Some very in-charge girls weren’t shy about offering.
Someone approached his table. He looked up, and found a big guy in a heavy jacket looming over him. Behind him were two more, all trouble. These were their best clothes, but they were all several degrees less-dressy than the rest of the patrons. Bikers, Taj just knew it.
“Hey Zurhan,” said the big one. “You cut me off at The Fingers, two days back. You real reckless, hey?”
“Sorry pal,” said Taj, attempting nonchalance despite his thudding heart. “You’ve got me confused for someone else.”
“I’m not your pal,” said the biker, grabbing his shoulder. “Outside, now.” The hand on his shoulder exposed a wrist tattoo — a scrawl in Arga. Family Hussein. Just great.
“Look,” said Taj, getting up slowly, but not removing the hand in case it earned him a punch in the face. “Let’s keep the family shit out of other peoples’ premises, yeah?”
“This ain’t no family shit!” the big biker growled. “You cut me off at the The Fingers! I recognise you, boy! And your pussy Shaytan outside.”
Taj thought desperately of what to do. He could fight, had won more fights than he’d lost, but this guy was big and so were his friends. He could prolong it and hope that casino security intervened…
And then he saw Smriti approaching, walking determinedly toward the rearmost guy like she was going to attack him. That was crazy, and in the adrenaline charge of the moment he nearly laughed. Until she hit the rear guy with a massive roundhouse that crashed his head sideways and dropped him, then took the other guy’s leg, did something else so fast that Taj missed it, but suddenly the other guy was upside down and hitting the ground on his head.
Taj took his chance and swung at the big guy, partially connecting as the biker spun away, crashing into a nearby table. But the big guy came back, and then Taj was grappling through several furious spins, colliding off neighbouring patrons who scattered… until suddenly the girl was on the biker’s back, choke-hold expertly applied and by the agony on the big man’s face, with huge force. He fell to his knees, and the look on Smriti’s face was quite something — no expression save a determined tightness of jaw and eyes, forearm locked around wrist, the biker’s eyes bulging as he wanted to thrash but dared not in case the force compressing windpipe and jugular increased to crush his spine. Then the lights went out, and Smriti stepped off him as he collapsed.
“Come on,” she told Taj, heading for the stairs. “The view’s not that good.”
“Wait,” Taj panted, chasing her to the stairs. “If we go out the main way the security will stop us and ask questions!”
“No they won’t,” said Smriti, grabbing his hand.
“No look, listen to me!” He tried pulling, but the power in her hand was insane. Taj had known girls with combat augments before, but nothing like this. “They’ll have seen on security vision, they’ll stop us and ask questions! I know a back way…”
“Their security cameras aren’t working, but if we wait long enough they’ll figure it out,” said the girl, and the force on his hand became painful as she yanked him down the stairs. “No short cuts, we get to the bike now and get out.”
Taj’s mind was spinning too fast to argue. The clear augmentations in her grip, the way she’d taken down all three of those bikers without breaking a sweat…. He walked as calmly as he could, her hand in his, and reached the base of the stairs as casino security came running up it. By the time they reached the exit, his heart was hammering, but the guards on duty there were all talking into coms and looking elsewhere, and they passed straight through.
Back at the bike he opened the rear trunk and handed her helmet, coat, mask and visor. “How did you know their cameras weren’t working?” he asked in a low voice. Out in parking, things continued as before, attendants guiding new vehicles down, patrons walking to and fro. Abshir was long departed, his customers with him, and there was no one else he knew.
“You wouldn’t believe me,” said the girl, calmly donning her flying gear as Taj took out his own.
“Well fuck, there’s gonna be trouble with Family Hussein until I get that sorted out,” Taj said with feeling. He was going to have to report it to Emil now — the Family wanted to know about all run-ins with other big families and their people, and hated to be blindsided by payback for things they weren’t aware had happened. It wasn’t always a bad thing though — he really hadn’t caused this one, and standing up for yourself when on the receiving end from others could gain you respect. Only how was he going to explain Smriti to them? “You’re not some kind of assassin are you?”
“No,” said Smriti, still as calm and cool as ever. That, more than anything, almost convinced Taj that she was lying. His heart was still hammering, head spinning like crazy. It wasn’t human that someone could do that, and be so calm afterward. “So the next place I’d like to go is Angivid Temple.”
Taj stared at her like she was crazy. Then he laughed. “Yeah, sure. Why not? But that’s alien territory, hardly any humans there at all.”
“Will that be a problem?”
Angavid Temple was further away, nearly a seven minute ride with slipstream roaring about the windshield and Taj’s body. It gave Trace time to talk to Styx, whose sweeps of Qalea’s network were less comprehensive than she’d have liked.
“I detect no indications of pursuit, or that the incident at the casino constitutes some kind of assault upon our operations,” came Styx’s voice in her ear. Taj wove past some slower traffic, in that crazy way of all Qalea traffic, lacking central control with fatal collisions possible at any moment. But it was extraordinary, an assault on the eyes and senses, the jumbled old city built upon a decaying and far older city, simultaneously a polluted, broken-down ruin and a spectacular, thriving metropolis. The traffic lanes up here were utterly unregulated, vehicles of all shapes and sizes mixing without concern, holding to streams in similar directions and speeds more by established habit than any enforceable rule.
“We’re going to proceed on the assumption that someone’s tailing us,” said Trace, confident that Taj couldn’t hear her past the howl of wind, engine and ear protection. “I don’t like the coincidence of how those guys try to jump our courier at the first stop. Are you getting good readings from the casino?”
The casino was the territory of Family Tadesse, and Family Tadesse had contacts into private networks that even Styx had found frustratingly difficult to penetrate. It was the thing through the Reeh Empire, she’d said, that their civilisation was simultaneously decrepit like Qalea on the world of Eshir, and incredibly advanced in portions, particularly regarding infotech. Mostly it was that their defensive networks were segmented, and they were intensely security conscious, making private systems very hard to penetrate.
Worse, Styx said that there were protocol defences running loose in the Qalea network that appeared specifically designed by a super-advanced AI, to counter another super-advanced AI. With Styx along, Trace had concluded that another tech expert would only make a fifth wheel, and another vulnerable asset for the marines to protect. With no other infotech experts in the group, they all had to take Styx’s word for it.
Assassin bugs on their own had proven vulnerable to those defences, possibly even to back-hacking that could reveal sources and methods, perhaps even revealing the Phoenix team’s presence on Eshir. And so Styx had arrived at this current plan of penetrating the big families’ external networks at physically vulnerable locations, and personally controlling assassin bug infiltration from there, already inside the most difficult defences. The Belapur Casino had been the first, its security systems to monitor the gambling containing vulnerabilities, Styx insisted, that could provide ways in past the main defences.
“I have completely penetrated Tadesse Family networks,” Styx assured her. “I am analysing many sources now. We will have a clearer picture of their utility once we have penetrated others.”
The Ceephay Queen had been here once, Styx was certain of it. Romki agreed, spending his days exploring anything that passed for an historical archive. Those were few, for on Eshir, he said, there was little concept of the public commons, and thus no libraries, and precious little of what Spiral humans would recognise as ‘government’. But wealthy families had private archives, and old temples and religious houses contained protected libraries. The problem was that humans had only been on Eshir for a thousand years, while the Reeh Empire history they were searching for went back far further than that.
In the conversations they’d had since arriving ten days ago, the Phoenix humans had been mostly wondering what sort of civilisation made no attempt to preserve its history. It was Romki who had suggested that the opposite was occurring — that the reeh were not simply careless, they were actively erasing history. Trace wasn’t so sure — there remained plenty of old things in Qalea, and if the reeh were that interested in erasing everything they could have nuked the city long ago, having little enough concern for its inhabitants. Instead they let it fester, as the reeh had a tendency to let so many things fester. Like the remnants of corbi civilisation on Rando. What they thought to gain from it was anyone’s guess.
What Romki and Styx increasingly agreed upon was that there had been a very large upheaval approximately eight thousand human years ago. Reeh had been at war with various neighbours long before that, but the large upheaval was about a thousand years before the time when the conflict with the croma had begun. Styx proclaimed that in all the data records she’d accumulated while in reeh space, all ancient references stopped short of eight thousand years, as though there were some sort of wall beyond which time could not be measured. Romki, too, claimed to have found various references in old holy books and records, in places human and alien, to some great conflagration from around that time, when one old incarnation of the Reeh Empire had ended, and a new one began.
