Farewell Horizontal

“That’s right.” Brevis’s voice went up in pitch, feeding on the small interest detected in his client. “Top secret, Ny. Clamped down to the max.”

That was the part that tasted sour – and false – in his mouth. Producing unease. “I think somebody’s fed you one, Brev. That just doesn’t make sense. The Havoc Mass thinks that DeathPix has been playing doubles on them? Selling confidential info to the Amalgam? I don’t believe it. Why the hell would DP risk losing that big a contract? Let alone all the other shit the Mass could pay them back with. Those people love to make examples of people who screw with them. Plus, if they survived whatever payback came round, their big-money markets would be cut in half; without the Mass bidding against them, the Amalgam would be able to pick up DeathPix’s stuff for pennies. And they could scratch off any chance of lining up new clients, after getting caught out like that.” He shook his head. “I just don’t see it, man. DeathPix has got it set up too sweet to risk blowing it all with leak action.”

Brevis smiled, replete with craftiness and self-satisfaction. “True, true; DeathPix wouldn’t want to blow a nice, cozy setup like they got. But you’re forgetting something – DeathPix is a publicly traded company. They’re listed on the big board up here; Christ, I’ve got a few shares in ’em. They’re a solid blue-chip, though they might not be for long, once the shit starts to fly. But they’ve got to file quarterly reports with the trading commission, and anybody can read those; you just have to call up the commission and ask for a copy. They’re not secret info. And those reports include corporate earnings, Ny. There’s the giveaway. DeathPix may have done complete redesigns for the Havoc Mass in the past, but never the whole thing in one shot. And never in conjunction with the kind of big push they’re planning. If the money they’d have to pay DeathPix for a graffex project of this magnitude were to show up in those reports, then the Amalgam would flash on what was up, sure as shit. And that’d be the end of any surprise factor for the Mass. Get the picture, Ny?”

Got the picture. He looked away from the wall and the deadfilm, letting the bright morning light wash his agent’s image to a ghost. Out in the distance, a darker speck floated, as though it were an intangible particle of dirt caught against his eye; he blinked, and it was still there. He gave it no more thought, his brain filled with Brevis’s words. Get the picture? He supposed he did. Some crazy things in there… Just waiting for the opportunity to dig them out of his design archives and slap them into place, right onto the skin and armor of – the Havoc Mass? That’d be fine; my graffex for the Big Push, charging up and over the Amalgam. That’d be all right, indeed. Time has come. Maybe it has.

Brevis’s voice broke in, revved up to an even more excited pitch. “You see, that’s why the Havoc Mass wants to go with somebody small for this redesign project – they want a sole-proprietor operation, somebody who hasn’t issued stock that’s being traded on the board up here. Somebody who doesn’t have to file any reports with the trading commission. They need a freelancer.”

“Hmf.” The scary part was that it was all starting to make sense. That’s what the Mass would want. “Why me, though?”

“Je-zuss, Ny.” Brevis’s hands spread beside his face, as if to keep his head from exploding. “You drive me fuckin’ nuts. You got no goddamn confidence in yourself, man. They want you ’cause you’re hot. You got the kinda stuff they want.”

“What stuff of mine did they ever see?”

“Remember those insignia you did last year, for that little buncha thugs, they called themselves – what, uh… Gnash Boy Squad, something like that. Remember them?”

Vividly, and with some regret. He’d really uncorked one for those guys; time and effort. There had been twelve of them in all, each wanting some distinct and grandiose rank, all meaningless given their slobbering berserker operational methods. But he’d been happy to oblige, on a standard cut-of-swag royalties rate: they’d gone wild for the corny taloned eagles and fanged serpents he did for them, not noticing the subtler matte black against glossy, details of teeth inside corneas… tiny pinpoints sliding a millimeter in and out of the glistening sockets at a tempo tagged to the bearer’s pulse. He’d had to run sensor nodes from the biofoil implantations to the jugular vein and set up feedback loops to modify the animating signals. That had been fine work; he could call the images up from his own archive, plain as ink. Too good for those slobs. Pearls before swine. Plus he’d never seen any more goddamn money from them. “Whatever happened to those guys, anyway?” He’d finally had to cancel the relay order with the Small Moon Consortium, killing the coded signals that brought the images up and into motion.

Brevis shrugged. “Yeah, well… they started out strong, but they didn’t pan out. They got absorbed by the Havoc Mass, and -”

“Yeah? Where’s my cut of the recruitment bonus? That was in the contract!”

Neck tendons made a harp as Brevis grimaced. “It wasn’t like that, Ny. It was more like they got… eaten by the Mass. You know?”

He sighed, rolling his eyes upward. He knew. Goddamn wimps.

“Anyway,” Brevis went on, “that’s how the Havoc Mass saw your stuff. And they liked what they saw – I’m not sure, but they might even have… you know… peeled it off and kept it, at least until the animating signal was canceled. Your signature and copyright mark were right there; so they found out I was your agent, and they called me up. Strictly on the hush-hush. If we don’t pick up on this deal – and I hope you’re not going to be that big an idiot, Ny – it’s going to behoove us to keep our lips zipped about it. Know what I’m saying?”

“Yeah… yeah; sure.” Axxter nodded, lost in thought. If all this were true, it would be a big change, on the order of the difference between horizontal and vertical. Inside or out. Or, more accurately, between having money and not having it. And a lot of other changes would follow from that one. A snap memory of a door slamming in the face of his hollow-time image; that would be different, for one thing. Money does that.

“Ny… Ny, what’s it gonna be?”

The voice pleaded in his ear. From far away; easy to ignore. Other things louder: Time has come.

“All right.” He pulled in his breath, spine against the curve of the sling. “You got it; let’s do it. Just tell me where I’m supposed to go for all this.” He flicked on transcript mode with a quick glance to one corner of his vision – just to make sure he had a record of whatever instructions his agent would give him. His brain was still too full of everything that had been said to trust it with any more.

“I knew I could count on ya, Ny. Believe me, you’re not gonna regret this.” Brevis smiled and winked. “Here’s the deal. The Havoc Mass wants to see what you can come up with, on a commission specifically for them. Just a little taste, to make sure they’ve made the right decision, before they give you the whole job. ’Cause the job’s gonna be so big, total redesign for the whole tribe, all the alliances, everything, they’re probably gonna have to pull in several more freelancers, set up a team. But you’ll be the guy at the top, calling the shots, farming out the designs. That cool with you?”

Axxter nodded, letting the voice slide past his awareness. Until Brevis signed off, with an even more radiant smile and cheerleader jazz. The terminal went blank; he gazed at the empty deadfilm for another minute before he shifted position.

The Norton had stationed itself next to the bivouac sling; its nightly grazing over, its fuel conversion tank now gurgled with mechanical contentment. The sling’s anchoring pithons creaked as Axxter stood up and began loading the wadded-up blankets and other gear into the sidecar.

Goodbye to all this; thank Christ for that. With everything stowed away, he straddled the Norton’s seat, pushing himself up and back from the handlebars to look around. No more scrabbling around these friggin’ waste-wall sectors looking for business; that’s something I won’t miss. Even if this last little expedition had been something of a season of wonders, both grim and bright. The ruin zone, the black twisted metal of the torn wall, and the smell of burned things inside – all that came sliding out of memory with no effort on his part. And another burned thing… more pleasant to think of that. If you had to go out into the wilderness to encounter angels, then maybe it was worth it. For a little while, at least.

He looked out across the sky, and saw the little speck again. Larger this time; he could almost recognize it. He dug the camera out of the sidecar and zoomed the object into close focus.

The angel Lahft drifted in the sky. He knew it was her even before he tilted the camera up to see her face; the biofoil with which he’d healed her flight membrane flashed silver into the lens, brighter than even her radiant skin.