Noir

the hills would gradually shrink like detumescing male genitalia, maybe Harrisch would disappear as well, as though his dark image were constructed of the Nacht he spoke of, encasing the pale Nebel of his flesh, which would burn off with the day’s first heat.

“You see,” continued Harrisch, “it’s important to concern ourselves with what’s real. What’s really real. Who was the wise man who said that reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it’s still there?”

“Beats the connect out of me.” McNihil brushed his own dried blood from his fingertips as he glanced over at the other man. “I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”

“That’s a shame. Because it really is important.” The mad spark at the dark centers of Harrisch’s eyes was as ice-cold as their surroundings. “I’m talking about how the world is constructed. Our world, Mr. McNihil, the one in which we exist, for good or ill.”

Mainly the latter, thought McNihil.

“You know,” continued Harrisch, “I share some sentiments with your little friend, back there on the ground. I know a lot about what she thinks and feels. She has the same coital phobia, the disgust and rage that come with all that sticky, messy wiring-up and networking. The erosion of one’s sharply defined outlines, the loss of one’s individuality, subsumed into the great puddinglike mass.” He shook his head. “After all, I didn’t become such as I am by having any great fondness for ego loss. But November-that’s her name, I believe-she thinks the ocean is just sex. Whereas I…” The narrow face’s expression darkened, generating its own shadows in its etched crevices. “I take a considerably wider view. A definition of greater compass. One that takes in all the world, and not just that smaller one bound by sweating skin and mucosal emissions.”

“I either don’t know what the connect you’re talking about,” said McNihil, “or else I just don’t care.” A glyph of ash had been smeared across the back of his hand, sometime during the extended, steel-crumpling crash; he rubbed it away with the ball of his other thumb. “Either way, it doesn’t matter.”

“Perhaps not, Mr. McNihil.” The sharp gaze regarded him, as though he were some small creature suspended on needles. “Why don’t you tell me what does matter to you, then.”

“Look, uh, you have to understand something.” McNihil pointed across the bleak landscape gradually forming out of darkness. “I made my living out in the field, working for the Collection Agency; I’m an operative, not an ideologue. People like you, you start going on about some big cosmic notions, and then I just want to go home and lie down. Lick my wounds, crank up the music, wake up with an empty bottle beside me. I don’t have time or inclination to listen to your theories about how the universe is stitched together. Why don’t you try giving me some kind of clue? About why you wanted to talk to me so much. And this job you’re so hot for me to take on. About looking into what happened to your boy Travelt.” His bruises and bone-aches, from being thrown around inside the toppled passenger car, twinged as he looked at the exec. “I can’t imagine you start off all your appointments this way.”

“Perhaps not.” From above, Harrisch bestowed an indulgent smile. “But you have to admit that it got your attention.”

“Right now, you could have my attention. In exchange for aspirin and morphine.” McNihil shifted his aching bones inside his jacket. “And that was before the unscheduled stop.”

“You’ll be on your way soon.” The other man nodded toward the work crews, farther back along the rails. Between the sizzling sparks of the welding torches and the softer blue of the anti-SCARF generators, the thin lengths of rust-colored metal had been restored, straightened into level functionality. “Our times together are brief, though I hope this one will prove at least… memorable to you. Even after your scars heal.” A slight signal passed from Harrisch to the dark-uniformed assistant at the crane’s levers; the circle and cross dipped hoveringly closer. “Tell me, Mr. McNihil. What do you know about TIAC?”

“‘Kayak?’” Out of the blue; that puzzled him. “You mean, like Eskimos used to paddle around in?”

“Bigger than that.” Amused, Harrisch shook his head. “It’s an acronym. Tee… eye… ae… see. Any idea what that is?”

“Not a one.”

“You should,” said Harrisch. “It has to do with your new job. With the late Travelt. And a lot to do with what happened to him.”

“Ah.” Could’ve guessed that much, thought McNihil. “So I take it that this TIAC thing… it’s got something to do with DynaZauber? Maybe it’s a DZ project of some kind? That seems like the kind of code designation that you and your friends would be fond of.”

“Very good,” Harrisch nodded. “It’s DynaZauber’s baby, all right. And mine, in particular. I’ve been in charge of it for a long time. Exclusively; I don’t have any other corporate responsibilities at the moment.” A shrug. “Well, almost none.”

“Really?” With one hand, McNihil gestured over toward the tracks. “What about all this rail stuff?”

“A little diversion, is all. I’ll be handing it back to the exec who’s actually in charge.” Harrisch’s smile widened. “Let’s just say I borrowed it for a little while. Just to make a grand entrance.”

“Whatever.” McNihil felt more weary than amused. “So this TIAC thing. The letters. So what do they stand for?”

“Actually,” said Harrisch, “you have no need to know. And in fact, perhaps it’s just as well that you don’t know.” The smile disappeared. “All you really need to know is that it’s something that belongs to us. To DynaZauber. And we don’t like losing things that belong to us. Or having them taken.”

“Really?” McNihil wasn’t surprised by that. “How’d you lose it? Or to put it another way… who took it?”

“Those are very good questions.” Harrisch turned his cold gaze around, like aiming a gun. “That’s the reason we hired you, Mr. McNihil. To find out exactly that.” The two black holes at the centers of his eyes were as deep and reflectionless as the surrounding night. “We figured-or I did, at least-that it would be the kind of thing you’d be very good at finding out. Somewhat perfect, actually.”

“Why’s that?”

“Simple.” A few empty seconds passed while Harrisch regarded him. “Where it’s lost, is someplace you’ve been. Someplace you know all about. Rather a specialized area of knowledge for you.”

McNihil said nothing. He had a premonition of where this was all going.

“The Wedge.”

He looked over at Harrisch. “You’ve been misinformed,” said McNihil. He kept his voice quiet and controlled. “I don’t go there.”

“Not anymore?”

“Ever.”

“How interesting.” One of Harrisch’s eyebrows lifted in mock surprise. “My sources are very reliable. And they tell it differently. You had some big times in that little district. Famous times. People are still talking.” The bad smile again. “You don’t hear them, but they are.”

McNihil felt his own anger stacking up inside himself. At this point, after those words, he didn’t care if the other man had his corporate flunkies and thugs all around. I’ll unload on him, swore McNihil, letting the hands dangling at his sides tense in fists. I don’t care what happens. Not anymore…

“I seem to have upset you,” said Harrisch smoothly. “My apologies.”

“Don’t bother.” McNihil supposed that the vein he could sense pulsing at the corner of his brow was the dead giveaway about his emotional state. “You can go back and congratulate your sources. They’ve got it right this time.”

Ancient history. It felt that way, like something engraved on rock-faced stelae on the mountainsides, the records of fallen empires. Though the only thing that had fallen was McNihil himself. A bad fall, the kind that you survive. But I wish I hadn’t, he brooded. Another night, older and deeper than this one, folded around him.

The truth of the matter: any line McNihil handed out about not working as an asp-head anymore was pure shuck and jive. He knew the score; it was burned into not only his personnel file back at the Collection Agency, but into the file he carried around inside his head. The file marked both Learn to Forget and Not to Be Forgotten.

“You have to expect things like this.” Harrisch’s voice slid into his thoughts. “You have to expect that I’d know all about what happened. Back then.”

“Big deal,” growled McNihil. “So you know I didn’t leave the agency voluntarily.”

“That’s one way of putting it. Another would be to say that they canned your ass.”