found the center of the rear view Devscreen as we headed east out of the strait at ninety kilos.
I released myself from the safety webbing when our course straightened out and, steadying myself with a hand on Mariko’s seat, walked down the steps behind into the cabin below.
I stepped over to the fridge and got out a couple of cold beers. I also checked to see that the food I’d ordered was in there and it looked like EasyRent had done their job well. Then I turned and went back up the stair to the cockpit, ships’ rusted sides gleaming gold with the sun at our backs as we flew down the strait. Mariko had both hands on the grips so I twisted the top off her beer and fitted it into the holder on the side of her Siteazy.
She looked up with a smile and taking her left hand off the grip gave mine a squeeze. “Thanks for not asking,” she said. She picked up her beer with an elbow bent back to reach it, and raised the drink in salute. “Great choice — the Titan I mean — I hope you don’t mind me coming by sea.”
“No, it’s a great idea, but I had no idea you knew how to handle one of these things. Where did you learn to handle a rig this size?”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Jonah. Let me get us out of here and tracking north up the coast in the open sea and then we’ll talk. OK?”
I sat back down in my seat and swiveled to face her, kicking off my shoes. Curling my legs under me I rested an elbow on a knee, the Tiger beer dangling from my fingers swaying to the motion of the craft’s plunge through the darkening sea.
“Sure,” I said and smiled softly at her, not understanding the look of sadness that haunted her green eyes. A cloud hastened the departure of the dying sun behind us as the craft pushed into the darkness in front and the lights of the Devscreen and the buttons in the Dev consoles illuminated the inside of the cockpit, casting everything in a green light.
Mariko banked the craft left and the GPS showed our track as running NNE at about fifteen degrees. She said, “Go to Autopilot at eighty kilos.” The pitched whine coming from the engines behind us dropped a level as the craft seemed to raise its nose a fraction against a horizon now rapidly fading to black. She pushed the steering column out of her lap and her seat rose to a sitting upright position. Then she hit a button on the side of the Siteazy and her seat turned her to face me.
Holding the bottle with two fingers and a thumb and tilting her head right back to force the flow to full, Mariko took a long pull of her beer, looking at me all the time. She stopped gulping, removed the bottle from her lips and exhaled forcefully.
“I’ve wanted to tell you what I am going to tell you since the first time I woke up with you in your Env. It’s just that then I wasn’t sure if it was legal for me to tell you, and when, after I’d returned to my contribution I knew it was, then everything was so perfect that I couldn’t find a way to fit it in without spoiling that perfectness. This evening I’ve realized that there will never be a perfect time to tell you what I have to say, which makes the perfect time right now.”
She put the beer back in its temporary home in the holder on the Siteazy, and reaching across, her arms fully extended, placed her hands on my leg. She looked at me from under her fringe, and took a deep breath.
“I can’t live a lie, no matter how convenient it may be and no matter how beautiful the circumstances. I can’t do it, and right now I’m living a lie and I’ve got to put it right. Are you ready for this?”
I was scared by the intensity of her words and my mind was reeling, tripping through possibilities of what she could have lied about. But I hid this and with an inscrutable expression, said, “Yes, I’m ready.”
She breathed out heavily again and straightened up, looking me in the eye, withdrawing her hands from my leg and placing them on her own knees again.
“I didn’t meet you on the Moon by accident. I was flown to Shackleton to meet you and ordered to engage with you. On the flight home, I knew you’d been given a concocted Truth Treatment and I questioned you under orders from Senior Agent Sharon Cochran. I am contributing in SOE as I have told you. The reason I was in such a bad mood this afternoon was that Cochran had just warned me before we met up that since you were no longer attached to UNPOL, I could not reveal any UNPOL specific information to you. I told her that from a legal standpoint I could, since at the time I was cleared from the task of questioning you and you were cleared of the Blue Notice, you and I were both UNPOL-related and therefore both had access to the information.
“That’s it. That’s my lie. It’s a beautiful lie, because it led me to you, but I can’t live with it and with you at the same time. One of you has to go. I hope it’s the lie.”
My mouth had fallen open while she was talking and it remained that way as I looked at her, my head resting in the palm of my hand and the beer swaying gently to and fro. I didn’t say anything, couldn’t think of anything to say. All of a sudden I had no idea who she was.
“Is Mariko your real name?” I finally asked.
“Yes. Look, it was for those hours on the flight back from Shackleton only and my brief was to question you about your activities on the Moon. You set off an alarm in the trace center — it was the link between the Nineveh you booked and the Nineveh in the interview. The transcribe matched the two, but it wasn’t spotted until you were already at Shackleton and so they sent me up to intercept and question you. I didn’t know about the Truth Treatment until we were on the craft and then I received the order through my Devstick.”
I tilted my head to stare at the ceiling, resting it on an arm folded behind me as I took a long pull of my beer. I breathed out heavily and let the bottle drop by my side. My voice flat I turned to her and said, “Did the lie stop when we woke up together?”
Mariko looked at me as a tear rolled from her left eye. Her voice, caught on the edge of a sob, said, “The lie stopped at the Lev port on Changi.”
After replaced the beer in its holder, I reached out with the same hand and held it in the space between us, palm upward, little finger curled in. She took my hand and I said, “Well that’s all right then.”
Mariko sobbed out loud and came out her seat as if ejected from it, throwing herself lengthways on me, her arms encircling my neck as her tears fell on my throat. I pulled my hands from behind my head and placed them on the sides of her face, lifting her gently to look at me.
“Please don’t lie to me ever again,” I said, gazing deep into her tear-brimmed eyes.
Rising up on one elbow, she wiped tears away with her forearm, smiled at me and sobbed at the same time. I leaned forward and kissed her. She opened her mouth and probed with her tongue into mine, holding the sides of my face now and pulling me into her hard as if trying to swallow me. She disengaged her mouth and sat up on me with a wild look in her eye, her hair in disarray as she reached down with her hands and yanked up the chrome tank top.
Chapter 22
The Marq V, Penthouse Env, Sir Thomas’s New Singapore Residence
Tuesday 31 December 2109, 11:50pm +8 UTC
In the bedroom of his Penthouse at the exclusive Marq V Envplex, Sir Thomas stood on the raised Dias next to his enormous sleeper, and looked out over the airships, ocean liners and private yachts tethered to spine-like piers and floating off moorings in the dark of the harbor.
There was very little traffic in the harbor now that the hour was approaching midnight. It wasn’t raining for a change, and he told the door to the balcony to open, stepping out into the warm night and walking to the railing. The view was spectacular, looking out over the South China Sea, the ships with all their lights on in celebration of the New Year, lighting up the pitch black sea, the Moon a sliver of silver. He took in a deep breath of the warm sea air, although at this height the taste of salt was minimal — it had to be imagined.
In another five minutes, his image would be broadcast for the world to see, and the culmination of a decade’s worth of planning would be put into motion. The hole cards were dealt, the river down, and now the betting and bluffing would begin. He clenched his fists in anticipation, turned, and walked along the balcony until he had reached the door to the living room which had been set up for the broadcast.
Dressed in a blue shirt with the collar open at the neck and an old fashioned woolen jumper over khaki pants, complete with suede brogues on his feet and no socks, his ankles felt cool. He went indoors, sitting at the far end of
