evening.-Are we being led into a trap?
– I can’t see anything around us, answered Red.-Besides, I trust her. Her body language backs up her words. I don’t think she’s keeping anything from us.
– I…agree, said Blue, — but I can’t help thinking that someone with the ability to train as a ghost might have enough skill to conceal her motives, even from us.
“Be quiet,” muttered Constantine, concealing his mouth with his hand and pretending to cough. “She’s watching me. She knows I’m listening to you. You’re supposed to be a secret, remember?”
Mary was gazing up at him again, her eyes full of cool appraisal. Constantine nodded toward the barge.
“That smells delicious, doesn’t it?” he said.
A pair of tramlines emerged from a side street to their left and swept round to follow the axis of the central strip of grass. The line of trees now moved to one side to make way for it. They walked on in silence for a while. Presently a tram came bumping along, an ancient construction of wood and metal that clanked and rattled as it trundled down the rails. It slowed sufficiently for Mary and Constantine to climb on board and then grumbled to itself as it sped up again. The pair sat down on a bench of varnished wooden slats. Constantine rubbed his fingers approvingly across the warm wood.
“When Stonebreak was set to build itself, they wanted the best of all worlds,” said Mary. “The Australian and Southeast Asian government wanted it to be both ultra modern and ultra traditional. That’s why you can still see the VNM bodies in the I-station, and that’s why the tramlines zigzag around this level. Some thought trams were too modern to be ultra traditional, so it was decided that no line should run the entire length of any street. It will be a twisty journey from here to the locks.”
“Fine,” said Constantine, surprised to realize how relaxed he was becoming. If it hadn’t been for his encounter with Mary, he would have gone straight to his hotel and would now be worrying about tomorrow’s business. Instead, he was seeing the sights of Stonebreak. Even the mystery of his guide’s purpose and identity was giving him something else to think about for a while. It helped that Mary did not seem threatening in any way.
“You can feel it, can’t you?” said Mary.
“What?”
“A sense of freedom. I can see it in your face. Everyone thinks that being a ghost means you can do what you want, whenever you want, but they don’t get it, do they? They don’t know what it’s like to be regularly exposed to indifference. Most people think it would be good to get out from under the noses of Social Care, but you miss it once it’s gone. What if you fall ill, and there’s no one there to see it? That’s when you regret the millions of credits worth of software constantly combing the world’s databases and removing each and every trace and reference to you. What if you were drunk and fell from this tram into the canal? There would be no record of your destination or your point of origin. Every computer sensor you’ve passed has been deliberately turned the other way as soon as they detected your bio signature. No one is waiting up for you somewhere because your employers want it that way, so no one would even know that you were splashing feebly in the water down there in an alcoholic haze.”
She sighed and leaned back in her chair.
“And that’s not the worst part, is it? It’s the loneliness.”
She wiped a fat hand across the corners of her eyes and sighed, then she sat up and forced a smile.
“Still. It could be worse. Maybe it’s not so bad for you. You’ve got the voices in your head for company, after all.”
“Voices?” Constantine forced a puzzled expression onto his face.
Mary put a hand to her mouth and raised one shoulder a little. “Oops. Sorry. Silly me. They’re supposed to be a secret, aren’t they? Pretend I didn’t say anything. Nothing about voices.”
She giggled and nudged him in the ribs.
“Still, I’ll tell you something. You want to be careful when those voices that don’t exist are speaking to you. Your whole face relaxes and it makes you look really stupid. I suppose they don’t think to control your expression. You should tell them that. Oh, sorry, I mean, if they really existed, you should.”
She giggled again, then sighed.
“I wish this tram would get a move on.”
They reached the inner perimeter of the second level. Just beyond the stone streets, a glass cliff rose into the sky, marking the border between the old and the new. Through this transparent wall Constantine could see the skeleton of the land: silver-grey bodies of VNMs in thick-plaited strands, rising in smooth curves and waves to support the next level up. The scene reminded Constantine of a mangrove swamp, a tangle of short-trunked trees with wide-spreading roots and intertwining branches, holding up the roof of the world. Staring at the greyish tangled trunks before him, Constantine had his first sudden inkling of the sheer size of Stonebreak, and the huge effort that had gone into its construction. He felt quite humbled.
Mary yawned loudly and began to scratch her side.
“They left the walls transparent so that people could see the roots of the city. Back then they were just showing off; now that VNMs build everything, it’s more of an embarrassment. The base is solid and there’s no room for the modification or organic growth that you get in modern arcologies. Stonebreak is lodged firmly in the past. It was defunct the day they built it. Some day they’re going to have to tear it down and start again.”
She gave a little sigh. “It can’t come soon enough for me. Come on, onwards and upwards.”
There were elevators set into the base of the soaring wall. Perfectly transparent, they rode its inside as invisible as a sheet of glass in water. As they ascended, Constantine looked out over Stonebreak: at the low-rise streets, light reflecting from the black water of the canals, and beyond that to the darkened outer area that held the expansive gardens and arboretums, the playing fields and farmland situated on the first level, and then, finally, to the empty wilderness of the Nullarbor plain.
He felt as if he was walking through a dream. The bustle of the I-station and the awakening nightlife of the second level seemed to belong to another world.
There was a pause before they answered.
– I don’t think so, said Red.
Another, longer pause.
– No. I can’t see anything, but I know what you mean. Things seem strange.
– I agree. Go carefully.
From the fourth intelligence, as always, there came no word.
Mary took his arm and pointed to their left. Water was falling in a twisting tube down the inside of the wall, a liquid tornado, except moving with none of the violence and energy; instead, it seemed to splash and play like a merry stream. Hidden lights shone on the torrent, sending rainbows spinning and flashing and dancing around the inside of the glass walls in a fairy display.
“That’s the water that feeds the canals. It passes through the water features and fountains of the business quarter on its way from the evaporators at the center of Stonebreak. They say if the water flow ever ceased, we’d all be dead within twenty-four hours. They built this city on one of the most inhospitable terrains on Earth.”
She sighed. “I’ll tell you what, though. I like it. I like the way it looks. I think it’s pretty, you know? Everything else within the wall is about power and size and strength, but that waterfall, it’s just about making something for pleasure.”
Constantine frowned. “Oh, come on Mary, all of the second level looks nice. All those streets and canals. I’ve been in far worse places. Many people would like to live there, given the choice.”
Mary shook her head and laughed.
“Oh, Constantine. How can you be so naпve? Being a ghost, obviously a trusted man within your organization, you should be able to look more deeply into the reasons for things, and yet you accept this at face value? Stonebreak wasn’t about providing a nice environment to live and work, Stonebreak was all about telling the world that the Australian and Southeast Asian coalition had come of age and that they weren’t prepared to be fucked with. When they raised this arcology, they were taking out their big dicks and slamming them on the table, saying ‘Look at these! How about these for prime Australian beef, you fuckers.’”
Constantine smiled weakly at Mary’s imagery. The elevator slid to a halt and the doors opened, but Mary stayed where she was, warming to her theme.
