Overthrowing Heaven-ARC Read online

  "Then I should go," she said. "If you learn anything else, or if you spot him leaving the island, contact me—" she paused and looked to the side as if seeking help. "Forget that idea. I don't know how you can contact me."

  A local online address popped onto the display next to her head.

  "Ah," she said, "I guess you can call me there."

  "Tell Mr. Moore we don't appreciate him treating our people this way," the man said. He cut the session and vanished.

  Lobo kept the image of Suli on my display. She shook her head, apparently no more impressed with the guy's behavior than I was. I had to give her credit for not whining to them and for sticking with our deal.

  I went up front. "Why didn't you ask him where Wei goes when he's in town?"

  "I didn't know you wanted that information," Pri said. "You wanted to know where he was, so that's what I found out." She crossed her arms over her chest, paused, and then said, "You may also have noticed that I didn't get the chance to ask him anything else, thanks to you."

  I ignored the jab and decided not to worry about where Wei went. If we could take him on the island, we'd have the best possible chance of also retrieving the kids. "We have tickets for the full Wonder Island tour in the morning," I said. "It's getting dark. Let's go find dinner and check out the town."

  "What about me?" Lobo said over the machine frequency. "I suppose I sit and wait."

  I turned away from Suli and subvocalized, "No. Follow us overhead just in case."

  "Lovely," Lobo said privately, "aerial bodyguard duty. First I get to shop, and now I get to hover in case you overeat and need immediate relief for indigestion. I feel so fulfilled."

  I ignored him and said aloud, "Open a hatch."

  Suli looked happy for the first time since she'd boarded Lobo. "You'll love this part of Entreat," she said. "Even though I know it's a manufactured tourist magnet, it's still beautiful."

  The hatch opened.

  "You lead, Suli" I said to her.

  "Pri, please," she said.

  "Pri," I said. As she stepped out, I added under my breath to Lobo, "Fulfilled or not, you yell if anyone even appears to be following or approaching us."

  Shuttles glided along the narrow streets, their passengers and cargo invisible behind tinted plexi, but like thousands of other visitors enjoying the early evening, we walked. As darkness settled over the town—even though it was simply a district within a much larger city it felt like a separate place—clusters of tiny lights on buildings and poles flickered on and created an enchanting blend of light and shadow. Neither of us was starving, and I believe there's no way to understand a place like seeing it on foot, so with my encouragement Suli led us along small side streets and alleys as we wound our way toward a square she said would offer plenty of dining choices. We would often spend a minute or two alone on a road, moving in and out of patches of darkness where sandstone buildings lacked lights, then encounter fellow tourists coming the other way, their long black shadows preceding them on the street and the sounds of their laughing children warning us of their approach.

  No side road ran for more than a block without either crossing or feeding into a larger, better lit avenue swarming with people. Shops hawked their wares from spots on every street. Most of the goods were souvenir crap, but here and there stores offered clothing, groceries, and other basics. Music, some recorded and occasionally some live, wafted into the streets from bars and restaurants as exiting patrons opened their doors. Each time a family with children walked into view, Pri's eyes tracked the kids and her expression tightened with pain. Watching her suffering made me hope against reason that her son was still alive—that Joachim was alive; I would make myself use his name.

  To distract her a bit, I said, "The Wonder Island security software will record us the moment we get on the shuttle, right?"

  "Yes," she said. "There's no way around that."

  "Then I don't ever want to look like we're trying to hide. I'd rather go in a little loud, like a guy trying to impress his date."

  She stopped and smiled. "Loud?"

  "Sure."

  "Are you willing to spend some money to look like you're out to impress me?"

  "If you think that'll help."

  "Oh, it'll help," she said. She pointed to the cross street just ahead of us. "Follow me."

  Two stores, forty-five minutes, and enough purchases to tire my wallet later, we hit the streets again, but now we were carrying three bags. Pri's contained a rich, black brocade jumpsuit with gold trim and some fancy tapers and blue and silver fabric designs on her sleeves that made my head hurt. My larger bag held a sleeveless teal shirt-and-pants combination that was almost as ornate as her outfit and struck me as downright silly.

  "Are these clothes really in fashion?" I said.

  She gave me an insulted look. "Trust me," she said. "Of course they are."

  In my smaller sack was a large handgun and a brown holster. Weapons were always in fashion, but this one was far more for show than for use. "What's the point of this gun?" I said. "I have better alternatives in Lobo, much better, and lots of them."

  "I'm sure you do," she said, "but this is the sort of showy rig that tourists who want to do the handgun hunt bring to the island."

  "But I have no intention of hunting," I said.

  She rolled her eyes at me. "And you'd never wear that outfit, either—but you're playing a part. Now you'll look the role. Okay?"

  "Fine," I said, not meaning it but not willing to fight with her about it.

  As we left the shops and merged back into the crowds, I realized how tense I'd been. I don't care much about what I wear, so on those rare occasions when I have to buy new clothes I tend to buy purely functional outfits. The entire shopping process was disorienting and wearying.

  As we moved down the street, I spotted restaurants everywhere, none very large, all softly lit, all at least partly full of people laughing and eating and smiling. Walking by them, I felt as I usually do in the presence of happy groups: alone, outside it all, not quite human—which, technically, was correct—and acutely aware of my own inability to connect intimately with others. Yet to anyone who saw us, I'm sure we appeared to be just another awkward couple, finding our way on an early date, the tall pale man and the shorter lovely woman with the thick, wedge-cut hair.

  I shook off the thought and focused on the smells, which were amazing, rich, and varied. I recognized some of them—meat roasting slowly on grills, freshly baked bread still cooling—but many were complex blends I couldn't identify. A light breeze from the river filtered through the town, cooled the night, and wove the many different odors into new, often mouthwatering aromas.

  Breaking the drab, ancient-looking colors of the buildings were the frequent gelatterias, shops with open-air sides and cabinets full of bins piled high with brightly colored, frozen desserts. I wouldn't have believed one area this size could have supported so many places selling the same type of food, but each one we saw had attracted a line of waiting tourists.

  Suli caught me noticing one as we crossed a street and entered the square to which she'd been leading us. "Would you like to skip dinner and go straight to dessert, Jon?" she said, no mocking in her tone. "You can always talk me into gelato."

  "No," I said, "I want both."

  "Not afraid to eat, eh?" she said, laughing lightly.

  I couldn't help but smile in response.

  "Good," she added. "I don't trust a person who has no use for food." She pointed to a restaurant diagonally across from us, part of it on the square and part extending further down the road in front of it. "Let's go there. Their pasta is only adequate, but the view and the atmosphere are wonderful."

  As we entered the square, I stopped for a moment, finally really seeing it. Block-wide buildings squatted on opposing sides; rows of shops and restaurants lined the other two. One of the large buildings was in active use, with modern doorways flanked by large statues. The other, bigger structure, its sides open, its ro
of supported by ornate pillars, existed entirely to show off a dozen or so statues. Carefully placed lights illuminated the best features of the stone men and women and creatures, while the shadows they cast filled the square with bits of dark that formed intriguing, intangible shadow animals. On the side of the statuary a group of young men were playing a collection of drums, no two instruments the same yet their rhythms blending perfectly and filling the night with music that clearly was of a different era than the square but which complemented its surroundings. A crowd of tourists, many of them young women, watched the drummers with rapt attention. I'm not sure I've ever had a woman stare at me with such desire; the thought saddened me, and I looked away.

  "Beautiful, isn't it?" Suli said. "It's a reimagining of an ancient Earth city, a place that once mattered, though—" she shrugged "—I confess I don't remember its name." She shook her head. "That's not important. What matters is how it feels, not what it once was."

  I studied her and in that moment wished we actually were just another couple out for a romantic evening. I didn't want her, I was both embarrassed and chagrined to realize, so much as I wanted that relationship, that moment of connection with a woman. Still, we were here now, and despite how much I'd let the city distract me, I had learned my way around it, so there was no reason I couldn't enjoy the moment. "Yes," I paused, then continued as naturally as I could manage, "Pri, it is. Thank you for bringing me here. It was a good idea, and you've been a great guide." Another wave of smells hit me, and my stomach rumbled. "But now, I think it's time to eat."

  "My thinking exactly," she said. "Let's go."

  It had been a while since I'd been so glad to have the nanomachines consume my excess calories. As I prepared to head out the next morning, I was amazed my stomach was back to normal. Between the pasta, grilled meat, fresh-baked bread, and, of course, the enormous cup of large, dirt-black, chocolate gelato after the meal, I'd stretched my abdomen to the breaking point. Pri had eaten her fair share as well and was so full that she suggested we stay the night in town, but we didn't. Though I'd come to appreciate her more, I didn't trust her enough to take that type of risk. We hiked back to Lobo, took off, and slept in orbit, safe and secure. In the morning, I still wasn't hungry, but as we landed and prepared to go out, I found myself craving another cup of the gelato.

  I was up before Pri was ready to go, so I put on the clothing she'd purchased for me, went up front, and talked with Lobo.

  "Nice outfit," Lobo said, "but hardly your style. You usually run to the dark, brooding, and armored; what gave you the sudden fashion transfusion?"

  "These things really are in fashion?"

  "Yes," he said. "I take it Pri chose for you."

  "Of course. Now, may we get to work?"

  "As you wish."

  "Once we're at the island," I said, "how close to us can you come?"

  "I can join the tourist shuttles hanging outside its air space," Lobo said, "so I won't be more than a minute away. Should I have to fly in for you, though, we can expect retaliation, and I'll also have a few moments without clear sight as I pass through the cloud wall."

  "Then let's hope we don't have to call you," I said.

  "Fighting would at least give me something to do," he said. "Anything would be better than having to hear about you two swaning about town and consuming delicious frozen concoctions I will never be able to taste."

  I shouldn't have told him about the meal, and I definitely should have kept my mouth shut about the gelato. I considered countering by pointing out that he had not yet finished the story about Wei, but I finally decided to ignore him; starting down any conversational path would lead only to more arguments.

  "Can we transmit from there?"

  "No," he said. "They're jamming everything they're not sending out, and from the extremely low level of background noise it appears they may not even be operating any unwired comm channels themselves. A large set of transmitters ring the outer perimeter, so they're probably using those for the communications they must make and feeding them from wired connections. All visitors also pass through scanners that check for active data cells. They don't want anyone to be able to make recordings; you have to pay to see this show."

  "Then build the best images and maps you can from the shuttle routes, and we'll have to rely on my memory for the rest of the layout."

  Pri's door opened. "Ready?" she said.

  "Yes," I said. She looked none the worse for the huge meal she'd eaten, and her eyes were bright with something—excitement, determination, I couldn't tell. "Let's go."

  Lobo let us off at a commercial landing zone a klick from a shuttle station whose only reasons for existence were to feed tourists into the island, take them back, and along the way leach money from them for souvenirs such as activefiber story shirts and animated toy versions of the island's special animals. The morning sun was burning the last of the dawn haze from the sky and warming the morning. The air where we started carried the unmistakable residue of ships coming and going, but after a couple of blocks that smell faded. In its place we caught whiffs of wet grass, hints of a few bakeries too far to see but near enough to make us drool, and, as we went on, the growing stench of too many people occupying too small a place. Our progress stopped a few seconds after we could see the shuttles, because even though we had our tickets, we had to join a queue of fellow visitors waiting to board.

  The line fed a winding chute of people, bodies shifting forward like ships moving through a jump gate. The transparent boxes that were the shuttles, each one about ten meters long by five wide, rode above the also transparent maglev track that wound from here to an edge of Wonder Island and back. Each arriving shuttle disgorged its human cargo, ran fifty meters to the front of the waiting line, and then headed out as soon as people had filled it. In the now bright morning sun, the effect was magical: Men and women and children stepping in groups into the air, hanging together as if by mystical magnetism, and then floating skyward and away at an ever accelerating pace.

  The magic faded as we proceeded slowly through the queue. Before I'd turned the first of the many corners in the chute I was wishing for multiple shuttles picking up simultaneously, but only one came at a time. With the small space available to the station, the government had done the best it could with the land available to it, but the situation was still almost unbearable.

  "It'll be worth it," Pri said. "Even if we weren't—" she paused, looked around, and lowered her voice "—doing what we're doing, the sights alone would repay the wait."

  I pulled her closer as if to kiss her cheek, just another man out with a woman on a beautiful morning, and whispered in her ear, "All we're doing is sightseeing. Don't ever again talk about anything else in public." I leaned back, smiled at her, and held the expression until she smiled back. "I'm really looking forward to seeing it," I said. "You've told me so much about it."

  She glared at me and, after a pause that began to feel uncomfortable, responded, in a barely civil tone, "None of what I've said can do the place justice. It's magical."

  We didn't speak again for the next forty minutes, until we could finally see the shuttle loading area up ahead. Lobo really was better with women than I was.

  Pri faced me, leaned close enough to me that our cheeks almost touched, and whispered, "There's something I've always wanted to do here, and I think it might put you in a better mood, but it's expensive."

  "What?" I said. She was playing her role well, so if I could keep her doing it and also lighten the situation by spending some money, I was all for it.

  "Look over there," she said, pointing to a small loading area that was strangely devoid of people and contained a pair of shuttles much smaller than the others I'd seen. "Those are the two-person transports. They're built for couples, but that's not what really matters. They have the finest quality walls, so thin you can't tell they exist until you touch them, plus those beautiful purple chairs, free drinks, snacks—you name it. I've seen people enter the island in them, b
ut they've always been out of my price range, so I've never been in one."

  I stared at the little shuttles. Either she was helping the mission by isolating us from other people and thus reducing the number of sources of risk, or she really did want to ride in one and doing so would make her happy. Both were good motivations, and with Shurkan's retainer I was more than flush, so I said, "Okay. Let's ride one."

  She stepped back from me and smiled so broadly that I couldn't help but grin a little in response. "You'll love it," she said. "I know you will. And I can pay my half."

  When we reached the front of the queue, we headed right toward the small shuttle. No one was in line ahead of us. Our wallets vibrated for attention as the shuttles realized our current tickets wouldn't cover the tab.

  "My treat," I said. Pri didn't argue as I thumbed the payment for both of us.

  As we boarded the small transparent carrier, I noticed the chairs swiveled and so sat in the front one. Pri took the other. A clear box was a tactical nightmare, of course, but at least we were alone in this one. I had to hope any external threat would be big enough that I could spot it quickly—not that I expected an attack, but there was no point in taking undue chances. As I studied our surroundings, I had to give Pri credit for not exaggerating: Even sitting less than a meter from the nearest wall, I couldn't tell it was there without touching it. We could have been floating on our chairs in the air. The climate control system was excellent: Small bursts of air washed through the compartment as if we were on a mountainside and breezes were playing across us.

  A holo menu appeared above the arm of my chair. I chose a drink that claimed to blend the flavors of all of Heaven's most famous fruits. Pri asked for the same. Moments later, a drawer extruded from the side of the seat. Inside it were two thin, bluish purple glasses, each of which held a thick, reddish liquid. I took a sip. It was excellent. Pri did the same and grinned at the sweet, bright taste. Sitting there, holding my drink and wearing the silly outfit Pri had chosen, with her beside me, I could almost buy us as a couple.