Altered Carbon(187)

I got up to go.

“Thanks for the drink.”

I got as far as the door—”

“Takeshi.”

“—and turned back, unwillingly, to face her.

“That isn’t it,” she said with certainty. “Maybe you believe all those things, but that isn’t it. Is it?”

I shook my head. “No, that isn’t it,” I agreed.

“Then why?”

“Like I said, I don’t know why.” I stared at her, wondering if I was glad I couldn’t remember or not. My voice softened. “But he asked me to do it, if I won. It was part of the deal. He didn’t tell me why.”

I left her sitting alone amidst the martyrweed.





EPILOGUE




The tide was out at Ember, leaving a wet expanse of sand that stretched almost to the listing wreck of the Free Trade Enforcer. The rocks that the carrier had gashed herself on were exposed, gathered in shallow water at the bow like a fossilised outpouring of the ship’s guts. Seabirds were perched there, screaming shrilly at each other. A thin wind came in across the sand and made minute ripples in the puddles left by our footprints. Up on the promenade, Anchana Salomao’s face had been taken down, intensifying the bleak emptiness of the street.

“I thought you’d have gone,” said Irene Elliott beside me.

“It’s in the pipe. Harlan’s World are dragging out the needlecast authorisation. They really don’t want me back.”

“And no one wants you here.”

I shrugged. “It’s not a new situation for me.”

We walked on in silence for a while. It was a peculiar feeling, talking to Irene Elliott in her own body. In the days leading up to the Head in the Clouds gig, I’d become accustomed to looking down to her face, but this big-boned blonde sleeve was almost as tall as me, and there was an aura of gaunt competence about her that had only come through faintly in her mannerisms in the other body.

“I’ve been offered a job,” she said at length. “Security consulting for Mainline d.h.f. You heard of them?”

I shook my head.

“Quite high profile on the East Coast. They must have their headhunters on the inquiry board or something. Soon as the UN cleared me, they were knocking on the door. Exploding offer, five grand if I signed there and then.”

“Yeah, standard practice. Congratulations. You moving east, or are they going to wire the job through to you here?”

“Probably do it here, at least for a while. We’ve got Elizabeth in a virtual condo down in Bay City, and it’s a lot cheaper to wire in locally. The start-up cost us most of that five grand, and we figure it’ll be a few years before we can afford to re-sleeve her.” She turned a shy smile towards me. “We spend most of our time there at the moment. That’s where Victor went today.”

“You don’t need to make excuses for him,” I said gently. “I didn’t figure he’d want to talk to me anyway.”

She looked away. “It’s, you know, he was always so proud and—”

“Forget it. Someone walked all over my feelings the way I did over his, I wouldn’t feel like talking to them either.” I stopped and reached in my pocket. “Reminds me. I brought something for you.”

She looked down at the anonymous grey credit chip in my hand.

“What’s this?”

“About eighty thousand,” I said. “I figure with that you can afford something custom-grown for Elizabeth. If she chooses quick, you could have her sleeved before the end of the year.”

“What?” She stared at me with a smile slipping off and on her face, like someone who has been told a joke she’s not sure she understands. “You’re giving us—Why? Why are you doing this?”

This time I had an answer. I’d been thinking about it all the way up from Bay City that morning. I took Irene Elliott’s hand and pressed the chip into it.

“Because I want there to be something clean at the end of all this,” I said quietly. “Something I can feel good about.”

For a moment she went on staring at me. Then she closed the small gap between us and flung her arms around me with a cry that sent the nearest gulls wheeling up off the sand in alarm. I felt a trickle of tears smeared onto the side of my face, but she was laughing at the same time. I folded my arms round her in return and held her.

And for the moments that the embrace lasted, and a little while after, I felt as clean as the breeze coming in off the sea.

You take what is offered, said Virginia Vidaura, somewhere. And that must sometimes be enough.



It took them another eleven days to authorise the needlecast returning me to Harlan’s World, most of which I spent hanging around the Hendrix watching the news and feeling oddly guilty about my impending checkout. There were very few actual facts publicly available about the demise of Reileen Kawahara, so the resulting coverage was lurid, sensational and largely inaccurate. The UN Special Inquiry remained veiled in secrecy, and when the rumours about the forthcoming adoption of Resolution 653 finally broke there was little to connect them to what had gone before. Bancroft’s name never appeared, and nor did mine.