inhabited in the Rust Belt, or some of the other settlements on Yellowstone, like Loreanville. Nobody in the network knew more than a handful of other subscribers, and their true identities were camouflaged by an elaborate system of deceits and masques, so that no one could be exposed in the open chambers of Canopy life, which still affected a kind of decadent civility. Hunts were organised at short notice, with small numbers of subscribers alerted at any one time, convening in disused parts of the Canopy. On the same night — or no more than a day before — a victim would be extracted from the Mulch and prepared.
The implants were a recent refinement.
They allowed the progress of the hunt to be shared amongst a larger pool of subscribers, boosting the potential revenue enormously. Other subscribers would help with ground coverage, risking the Mulch to bring video images of the hunt back to the Canopy, with cachets to those who obtained the most spectacular footage. Simple rules of play — which were more strictly enforced than any actual laws which still prevailed in the city — determined the accepted parameters within which the hunt could take place, the permitted tracking devices and weapons, what constituted a fair kill.
‘There’s just one problem,’ I said. ‘I’m not from the Mulch. I don’t know my way around your city. I’m not sure you’re going to get your money’s worth.’
‘Oh, we’ll manage. You’ll have an adequate headstart on the hunters. And to be frank, your not being local is actually something of an advantage to us. The locals know far too many shortcuts and hidey-holes.’
‘Pretty unsporting of them. Waverly, there’s something I want you to know.’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m going to come back and kill you.’
He laughed. ‘Sorry, Mirabel, but I’ve heard it all before.’
The cable-car landed, the door opened and he invited me to step out.
I started running as the cable-car damped its lights and climbed above me, heading back to the Canopy. Even as it ascended, a dark mote against the milky strands of aerial light, more cars were descending, like fireflies. They were not headed straight for me — that wouldn’t have been sporting — but they were certainly headed for my general part of the Mulch.
The Game had started.
I kept running.
If the area of the Mulch where the rickshaw kid had left me was a bad one, then this was something else: a territory so depopulated that it could not even be termed dangerous in the same sense — unless you happened to be the unwilling participant in a night’s hunt. There were no fires burning in the lower levels, and the encrustations around the structures had a look of deserted neglect: half-collapsed and inaccessible. The surface roads were even more dilapidated than those I had travelled earlier, cracked and twisted like strips of toffee, apt to end abruptly in mid-span as they crossed a flooded abyss, or simply to plunge into the flood itself. It was dark, and I had to constantly watch my footing.
Waverly had done me a kind of favour, dimming the interior lights as we dropped, so that my eyes had at least accustomed themselves to the darkness, but I didn’t feel an overwhelming rush of gratitude.
I ran, glancing over my shoulder to watch the cable-cars as they sank lower, dropping behind the closest structures. The vehicles were close enough now that I could see their occupants. For some reason, I’d assumed that only the man and the woman would be chasing me, but obviously this wasn’t the case. Maybe — in the way these things were handled in the network — it was just their turn to find a victim, and I had strolled blithely into their plans.
Was this how I was going to die, I thought? I’d nearly died dozens of times in the war; dozens more times while working for Cahuella. Reivich had tried to kill me at least twice, and had nearly succeeded on both occasions. But if I hadn’t managed to have survived any of those earlier brushes with death, I would at least have admitted some grudging respect for my adversaries, a sense that I had chosen to do battle with them, and thereby accepted whatever fate had in mind for me.
But I hadn’t chosen anything like this.
Seek shelter, I thought. There were buildings all around me, even if it wasn’t immediately clear how to get inside any of them. My movements would be limited once I was inside, but if I stayed outside there would be plenty of opportunities for the chasers to get a clear shot at me. And I clung to the idea — unsupported by any evidence — that the implanted transmitter might not function so well if I was concealed. I also had a suspicion that close combat was not the kind of endgame my pursuers really wanted; that they would rather shoot me from a distance, crossing open ground. If so, I was more than happy to disappoint them, even if it only bought me minutes.
Up to my knees in water, I waded as quickly as I could to the unlit side of the nearest building, a fluted structure which climbed for seven or eight hundred metres above my head before turning mutant, fanning out into the Canopy. Unlike some of the other structures I had seen, this one had suffered considerable damage at street level, punctured and holed like a lightning-struck tree. Some of the apertures were only niches, but others must reach deeper, into the structure’s dead heart, from where I might be able to access higher levels.
Light scythed across the ruined exterior, harsh and blue. Crouching into the flood so that my chest was fully submerged and the stench almost unbearable, I waited for the searchlight to complete its business. I could hear voices now, raised like a pack of jackals in musk. Man-shaped patches of utter blackness flitted between the closest buildings, beckoning each other, arms laden with those instruments of murder permitted by the Game.
A few desultory shots rained against the building, dislodging shards of calcified masonry into the flood. Another patch of light began sweeping the side, grazing only inches above my head. My breathing, laboured as it was by the pressure of the filthy water, was like a barking weapon itself.
I sucked in air and lowered myself into the flood.
I could see nothing, of course, but that was hardly a handicap. Relying on touch, I skirted my fingers against the building’s side until I found a place where the wall curved abruptly in. I heard more shots, transmitted through the water, and more splashes. I wanted to vomit. But then I remembered the smile of the man who had arranged for my capture and realised I wanted him to die first; Fischetti and then Sybilline. Then I’d kill Waverly while I was at it, and piece by piece I’d dismantle the entire apparatus of the Game.
In that same moment I realised that I hated them more than I hated Reivich.
But he’d get his, too.
Still kneeling beneath the waterline, I closed my fists around the edges of the aperture and thrust myself into the building’s interior. I could not have been beneath water for more than a few seconds, but I slammed upward with so much anger and relief that I almost screamed as air rushed into my mouth. But apart from gasping, I made as little noise as possible.
I found a relatively dry ledge and hauled myself from the murk. And there, for long moments, I just lay, until my breathing settled down and enough oxygen reached my brain for it to resume the business of thinking, rather than simply keeping me alive.
I heard voices and shots outside, louder now. And sporadically, blue light stabbed through rents in the building, making my eyes sting.
When the darkness resumed, I looked up and saw something.
It was faint — fainter, in fact, than I had imagined any visible object could possibly be. I had read that the human retina was in principle capable of detecting only two or three photons at a time, if conditions of sufficient sensitivity were reached. I had also heard — and met — soldiers who claimed extraordinary night vision; soldiers who spent every hour in darkness, for fear of losing their acclimatisation.
I’d never been one of them.
What I was looking at was a staircase, or the ruined skeleton of what had once been a staircase. A spiral thing, ribbed by crossmembers, which reached a landing and then climbed higher towards an irregular gash of pale light, against which it was silhouetted.
‘He’s inside. Thermal trace in the water.’
That was Sybilline’s voice, or someone who sounded very much like her, with the same tone of arrogant surety. Now a man spoke, knowingly, ‘That’s unusual for a Mulch. They don’t like the insides, usually. Too many ghost stories.’
‘It isn’t just ghost stories. There are pigs down here. We should be careful, too.’
‘How are we going to get in? I’m not going in that water, no matter what the bloodmoney is.’
