TODAY SEAHAVEN is a city in flight, and Cerise walks through uncrowded streets while the stars whirl overhead and under her feet, easily seen through the transparent sidewalks. The Mayor’s palace looms ahead, always Aztec no matter when the setting, but she ignores it, wanders instead onto the mall where the merchants, legal and not, collect in rows, and a wall displays a thousand messages. Her current icon is known—a comic-book woman, all tits and hips and Barbie-doll waist, but done in one dimension only, exactly like a comic book, so that the shape is paper thin, absolutely flat from certain angles—and so is her current affiliation: the crackers give her a wide berth, and she pretends not to see or recognize the familiar icons. She is interested in Trouble, not trouble, and there’s no point in antagonizing the people who might most be able to help her.
She is early at her rendezvous; she walks the length of the wall, scanning the displays. Art swirls through and over the messages, screening content in glorious colors—the Mayor pays in time for artists without other access to decorate his wall—and she enjoys that more than the words, until she reaches the midpoint. And there, in neon-red, hot Chinese red, the artists giving it a wide berth, is a familiar symbol: Trouble’s harlequin, brilliant against the dark seeming-stone of the wall itself. Cerise reaches for it, feeling the familiar flicker of codes against her fingers—Trouble’s work, no mistake, no forgery, the real thing, not the pale imitation of the new Trouble’s work—and the message spills into the air around her.
I’M THE ONLY TROUBLE THERE IS. I DON’T TAKE KINDLY TO IMPOSTERS—FAIR WARNING, LAST AND ONLY WARNING.
Cerise puts the message back where she found it, watches the red symbol reappear around it and flatten itself back against the wall, glowing like fire against the darkness. So my Trouble’s back now, she thinks. I knew it wasn’t her who did the boasting. For an instant she considers copying the message for Coigne, using it to force him to admit that her Trouble wasn’t the intruder, but common sense intervenes. He will say that this is more clever planning, more evasive advertising, and, from anyone else but Trouble, he could be right.
She turns away, the stars wheeling overhead, streaks of light in a cloudless dark, wheeling underfoot as well, as though she and the city lay on a plain that bisected a sphere spinning through space. The buildings look sharper-edged, as though seen against fireworks, but she ignores the effect, scans the plaza for Helling’s icon. She sees it at last, almost doesn’t recognize it—he’s changed the symbol, gone from the old blue biplane to a blue thunderstorm, almost invisible, an inky shadow against the greater darkness.
*So you’ve seen it,* Helling says without preamble, drifting closer, and a tiny fork of lightning briefly touches the dancing figure.
How could I miss it? Cerise asks, and hears herself hard and bitter.
No one else has, either, Helling agreed. *It’s been up for a hundred-twelve hours.*
Cerise whistles softly, amazed that the Mayor would allow anything to occupy space for so long, and Helling goes on, “Treasury’s seen a copy, too—and it’s been downloaded out of town, of course.*
Of course. Cerise looks up at the spinning sky, dizzying herself. This is Trouble’s style, this warning one warning, and God help you if you don’t listen, because she won’t give another one, or any quarter afterwards. She remembers Trouble, long ago, earning the name she’d taken, tracking a man who hadn’t paid her through the nets, and, once she’d found out exactly what he was doing and where in the realworld he was doing it, passing details and location to the police, once a day every day for three weeks—always through complex cutouts, she’d been just as deep in the shadows as her victim—until they’d caught up with the dealer. Trouble had sat smiling at the evening news, and never had to do it again. Cerise shakes her head, shakes the memory away, and looks back at Helling. *I hear you’re consulting these days. *
*That’s right,* Helling says, and she hears him suddenly wary.
*I also hear you’ve got a friend at Interpol. *
*Yeah. *
Anywhere accessible? In reality, I mean. It occurs to her that she no longer knows where Helling is based—she had heard he was in London, but that was a year ago.
To you, yeah, Helling says, sourly. *I’ll tell him to have his people call your people. *
Thanks, Cerise says.
One thing, though, Helling says, and Cerise looks back at him. Vess wants Trouble, too.
I thought Interpol only dealt with multimillions or germ warfare, Cerise says, already dreading the answer.
*The new name’s been linked to a couple of nasty viruses.*
Bullshit. The word triggers a lurking watchdog, which materializes as a small and yapping terrier, sparks flying where its claws strike the transparent paving. Cerise glares as it circles her ankles—the Mayor’s delicacy never fails to irritate her—waits until it dissolves before she goes on. *Also not Trouble’s style. Even less so than boasting.*
Vess never knew Trouble, Helling says. *He’s a Eurocop, they move in different circles. You sure you want to talk to him, Cerise?* His face shows briefly in the thunderstorm, smiling.
No, Cerise thinks, but says, *I’m sure. Tell him, will you?*
*I’ll tell him,* Helling says again. The icon brightens slightly, lifts away from her, lightning flickering through it to outline the clouds.
She watches it go, fading to nothing against the moving sky, makes no move to call him back. There’s nothing more to say, not to him, and she walks back down through the plaza under the spinning stars.
