was about a hundred times more extreme than your average English person’s. She was very private and apparently very respectful of our privacy, even though we were quite literally guests in her world. A lot of her behaviour seemed very ritualistic – the past, if it was even a real past, seemed important to her. To me she seemed to be fighting to keep something alive. Something I didn’t understand. I guess that her being a chimera didn’t aid my understanding. To all intents and purposes I was trying to relate to a machine, but she just seemed so… alien.
And then she withdrew. Pagan watched her and I watched Pagan as she took small steps to a sliding wood- and-paper panel and slid it shut behind her. This symbolised her leaving the closed system. In the real world we were all sitting cross-legged on crates facing each other, plugged into a memory cube. The jack that connected Nuiko was mounted on a cable snake, which would have disengaged from the memory cube and would be snaking its way back towards the armoured cocoon that protected our pilot. The memory cube held a downloaded copy of the tea house environment. Another gift from Nuiko. All these gifts made me nervous, but I wasn’t looking after the information security aspect of the operation.
Pagan and Morag started rechecking the security. Glyphs of light appeared in front of them, throwing shadows over their respective icons’ features. I took the opportunity to stand up and pace over to the wooden veranda. It looked out onto an ornamental garden of stone and water features. Past the garden was the stunning mountain vista. The tea house was part of some kind of castle complex built high into the side of a mountain. The fact that I could enjoy the mountain air, seemingly feel it cold and thin in my lungs, was sublime.
The holographic display hovering over the low lacquered wooden table took me out of the illusion and reminded me where I was and what I was doing.
‘This secure?’ Merle asked.
‘As anything is any more,’ Pagan told him. ‘Are you in or not?’
‘I’m not happy to be here, but it’s an improvement. Besides -’ he looked at Cat ‘- my sister has provided me with some very compelling reasons to help. Not least of which is a fuckload of money.’
‘Just so you know we’re probably not coming back,’ Pagan told him. ‘And don’t swear.’ I glanced over at him before turning back to Merle.
‘Want to share those compelling reasons?’ I asked.
‘No,’ Merle told me flatly. ‘Besides, I know the lie of the land. Things go to shit, I reckon I can disappear.’
‘I told you, don’t swear,’ Pagan said. I don’t think he liked Merle but there was something else here as well.
‘Fuck, Pagan, she’s not even in the fucking room,’ Mudge said, smiling.
‘I know. It’s just-’
‘It doesn’t seem right,’ I said. Pagan nodded. The language, the briefing, it was going to war with the environment. We needed our moments of fantasy. ‘And that’s it,’ I said with finality. They all looked at me expectantly.
‘I’ll bite. What’s it?’ Mudge finally asked.
‘From now on we’re not trying to piss each other off. We’re not trying to score points.’ I looked over at Merle. ‘We don’t need the strong silent hard men-’
‘Speak for yourself,’ Morag and Mudge said in unison.
I bit down the flash of irritation and jealousy. She had more than the right to try and make me feel that way.
‘If we don’t stop trying to pull each other apart then I will sabotage the OILO cocoons myself and we’ll sit out the war. Okay?’
‘Plus you won’t have to make the jump?’ Pagan said, but he was smiling.
I nodded.
‘No offence, man, but you’re part of the problem,’ Cat said. I glanced over at Morag, or rather the Maiden of Flowers that Morag was wearing. She was studiously looking elsewhere.
‘I think we all are, but you’re right. It’s not going to get in the way. We’ll either deal with it or ignore it effectively, or the mission won’t be happening at all.’
The Maiden of Flowers’ head snapped round to look at me. I thought she was about to argue. Maybe it sounded too much like I was making decisions for her, which people had been doing all her life. All I thought I was doing was stating our only two real options for the situation we were in. I think she reached that conclusion as well and nodded.
‘This soap opera’s a joke, right?’ Merle asked.
‘You can pack that in as well. I realise you don’t know us so you’ve got to wipe your cock in our faces so we know you’re not a victim. We get it. You’re hard core, so you can stop now. Also any problems you have with your sister, resolve them or leave them until after.’
He stared at me, but his icon was off the shelf and it didn’t have the same effect that being stared at by his weirdly intense brown eye implants would have had.
‘This mission being scrubbed is not the problem for me that it is for you,’ he told us.
‘Fine. Either you’re in or out. You’re out, you can rattle around in here until we’re finished.’
‘Bullshit,’ Merle said. Pagan’s icon seemed to twitch. ‘You’d put a bullet in my head.’
‘Compelling reasons. If you’re in, you play nicely.’
He gave what I’d said some thought and then nodded. The guy was a prima donna, I decided. He was too used to doing ops on his own.
‘Anyone who has a problem with Mudge’s pharmaceutical recreations can mind their own business,’ I said.
Mudge grinned but Cat and Pagan protested.
I continued, ‘Mudge, your hobby gets in the way, you run out and have a nasty withdrawal, or for whatever reason can’t keep up then you get left behind. If it’s a dodgy situation and it looks like you’ll get compromised I’ll shoot you myself.’
‘You are so masterful,’ Mudge said acidly.
I could tell he was about to go off on me. Come on, Mudge, I urged silently. You’re not stupid. You know I’ve faith in you. This has to be said. This is for the audience. I watched Mudge’s icon swallow. Morag’s programming was superb. I was betting that the tranced-in Mudge had done that back in the meat world. Mudge seemed to master his anger and nodded.
‘While we’re on the subject, what were you doing back in Trace’s office?’ I asked.
‘What? The guy was an arsehole?’ Mudge said.
‘So? We’ve met arseholes before.’
‘And I always deal with them like that.’ He was sounding defensive now.
‘You almost got us killed,’ Cat said angrily before turning to me. ‘And this is the point. I’m sure he’s a party guy but the drugs in his system compel him to make bad decisions, make him overconfident.’
‘That’s really not the drugs,’ I told her. It was meant to be flippant but in retrospect who knew? It was impossible to separate who Mudge was from the drugs. I’d only ever seen him straight once. That was in Maw City and he’d been sick from withdrawal.
‘Sometimes you’ve just got to shit in your hand and throw it at them,’ Mudge said. We all turned to look at him. He shrugged. ‘It turned out all right.’
I was starting to get angry now. ‘It turned out all right because Morag was seriously on the ball. Everything we knew about the situation suggested that hacking their systems wasn’t an option. If she hadn’t noticed-’
‘And pulled off the greatest hack ever,’ Cat said.
‘Then we would have been dead,’ I finished.
‘We’ve all got to go sometime. If you’re scared then get another line of work,’ Mudge said.
Tried that, I thought.
‘Don’t worry, Mudge. We’ll get fucking killed soon enough but let’s at least try first, okay?’ I said angrily.
‘Good speech – raises the morale,’ Merle said dryly.
‘And when did you start arguing with me when we’re in the middle of a job?!’ I demanded, thinking back to the brothel.
‘You left me behind!’ Mudge shouted. I think that had really hurt him. ‘I don’t have to do what you say – we’re not in the army now!’
