Deadstock

The remote had an impressive range, its signal not scattered or impeded by the rain or intervening structures. The lime-green car had left the parking lot of Steward Gardens. It had returned to Beaumonde Street and sailed further down that affluent boulevard until they d lost sight of the building in their wake. Only then, when he could no longer see it, did Javier push the key on the remote. He didn't point it behind him; he didn't have to. He didn t even turn his head to look.

But the others looked back, astonished by their handiwork.

Over the tops of the office blocks arose a miniature mushroom cloud, growing fast as if nourished by the rain, like a towering tree with a storm-churned head of leaves. Even with the hovercar making no contact with the street itself, they felt the vibration of the blast ripple through it, rattle them in their seats.

The column subsided quickly, its ominous head dissipating, but before it did it billowed and seethed against the black sky, like a gray mass of formless flesh.

EPILOGUE limbo

It made Jeremy Stake angry to find a message from Thi Gonh on his wrist comp, once he was conscious enough to realize that he lay in a hospital bed. Once he had remembered her face, hovering over him, inside the lobby of Steward Gardens.

It made him angrier still that it was not even a recorded message with her face, her voice, addressing him from the wrist comp s screen. Instead, it was a written message. And to further his disappointment, the English was just too good, indicating that she had used a Ha Jiin-to-English translation program to compose it. To him, it did not sound like her at all.

'Ga Noh,

I am back home now. Before I left the doctor told me you would be well.

I hope you understand why I could not stay. I had to lie to my husband about where I was going.

I told him it was business on Oasis about our farm. I don't know if he believes me.

I hope you understand why I watched you for several days but never let you see me. I have already dishonored my husband with my deception. But I was concerned when I saw your face on the phone screen. I followed you a while and you seemed okay. I was going to leave but I am glad I remained a little longer. I was pleased that I could help you fight your enemies.

If you need me again please you must be honest next time and tell me.'

'Okay. I need you,' Stake whispered as he read the words. He read on, gazing directly down at the device so that its screen filled the front of his mind itself. The words would leave their afterimage there, etched into his brain like a stinging tattoo.

'Once you took care of me. I was happy to repay that debt…'

'Debt,' Stake echoed bitterly.

'.and I would repay it again a thousand times.

Be well Ga Noh.

Your Ban Ta, T '

For a few moments he had to digest the Ha Jiin words 'ban ta,' which she had not translated to English. But Stake knew perfectly well what they meant. Henderson had told him, long ago. He just wanted to be sure he was reading them right, be sure that they would not change when he looked back at them. So he read them again and again.

'Ban ta,' Henderson had told him, meant, 'your lover.'

Stake closed the message and lay back heavily on his pillow. Then he reached out and beeped for a nurse.

'Yes?' a dry voice asked from a speaker. He didn't know if it were a human or a robot. Not that it made much difference, he'd found from previous hospital stays. A tough business at times, being a soldier. And a hired investigator.

'When can I get out of here?' he asked. And in a low murmur, he added for his own benefit, 'I need a drink.'

But he found he wasn't angry anymore.

Bass-heavy music thudded from a jukebox, a sports program played on one giant VT screen and a muted soap opera (watched avidly by several drunken gray-haired men) on another. Neons glowed fuzzily through cigarette smoke, and a genie-like holographic woman belly-danced inside a large plastic bottle advertising Knickerson beer. Stake seated himself on one of the stools at the bar.

Without having to be asked, Watt pulled a tap with his insect-like prosthetic arm to fill a glass with Zub beer and placed it in front of him. 'You doing okay, man?' the Choom asked him gravely.

'Never been better. I think I ll take a shot today, Watt.'

'Hey, Stake,' slurred a hulk down at the end of the bar. Still no one had told Lark that Stake was responsible for his own recent trip to the emergency room. He momentarily diverted his attention from the alcohol-dazed woman on the stool beside him. Stake had to admit she was attractive for a mutant, except for having one bulbous eye four times the size of the other. Defiantly, she called further attention to their mismatched state by wearing too much makeup around them. Lark went on, 'What the hell did you come home in one piece for if you re going to get yourself all shot up now?'

'It s something to kill the time.'

'Well, I hear that. Time s all we got left to kill these days, huh? But next time you run into some trouble on the job, you call your buddies down here at LOV 69, will ya? We'll cover your ass. Right, Watt?'

'I d be more afraid of taking a stray bullet from you than from someone else,' Watt told him.

'Aw, blast you, ya fuckin wanker.'

Lark turned back to the woman weaving precariously on her perch, her larger eye looking especially glassy and bloodshot, and Watt pulled a Clemens Light for another veteran.

Stake was halfway into his own beer when his wrist comp alerted him to a call. His heart quickened, but it was not her, of course. From the little screen, Janice Poole smiled up at him. He did not engage the screen so that it filled his mind, this time. 'Hey,' he said.

'Where are you, mister? I hear you left the hospital this afternoon.'

'I m having a beer at my Veterans Post.'

'Sounds exciting. How do you feel? I came to see you yesterday but you were out of it.'

'I feel fine. A little stiff.'

'Stiff can be good. I ve missed you.'

'Sorry. Things have been busy lately.'

'Yeah.' Even with her image this small he could see the skeptical expression on her face. 'Well, Yuki s father called me a few minutes ago. He s the one who told me you d been discharged. I think he was checking to see if you were with me. He probably needs to talk to someone.'

'I m sure he does. He s called me a couple times but I didn t answer. I guess I m not ready to talk to him yet.'

'Well, he told me a little of what happened.' Janice shook her head. 'She was so dear. It's too terrible, Jer. Too terrible.'

'I wish I could have saved her.'

'Fukuda told me you did what you could. He said you were very brave.'

'That's generous of him.'

'That place where Tableau had Yuki… did you see on the news it blew up? Good thing you have an alibi, being in the hospital, but I guess the authorities have already questioned Fukuda about it.'

'I ve got some questions about that myself.'