Time's Chariot

paused to savour Rico’s expression. ‘Do you know, that’s a total of two reprimands on your record,’ he murmured in an aside to himself. ‘Dear oh dear.’

The eidolon vanished, leaving them both looking at the space where it had been.

Su spoke first. She reached out and touched Rico’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, Rico.’

‘Bitch!’ The word burst out and Su looked taken aback, until she realized it wasn’t directed at her. ‘That spiteful, malicious… bitch!’

‘Rico…’

‘A reprimand? A reprimand, for… for what? Was I rude to her? Did I insult her? Did I assault her? Su, did I even mention Security? Can I help it if she got it wrong? I thought maybe, just maybe she might be a teensy bit more human than the other high-and-mighties, worked up through the ranks and all that, but no, she’s Acting Commissioner for five minutes and suddenly she’s as bad as the rest of them.’

‘Rico…’ Su said again.

‘And I wanted her on our side! Well, forget that—’

‘Op Garron, shut up,’ Su said. ‘We don’t have a side, remember? You’d love there to be foul play but there wasn’t. He died naturally and if there was something about the agravs, Security will find it. For us, it’s over, Rico.’

Rico was silent for a moment. He reached up and fondled her hand that was still on his shoulder. ‘Yeah, it’s over. Su, there’s two reprimands on my record now. I can’t afford a third.’ A third, they both knew, meant automatic suspension pending a formal inquiry into conduct.

‘You won’t get it if you behave.’

Rico snorted. ‘Yeah, easy to say, Su. How many have you had? Somewhere between nought and none, isn’t it? But not me. The spookboy makes another balls-up. You noticed that, didn’t you? He almost said it.’

Spookboy. Or spookgirl, of course. Someone not born in the Home Time, and in certain quarters, a term of purest contempt.

‘Oh, Rico…’

‘I’m sorry I got you into it too, Su. Next time my paranoid delusions start to take over, say to me, 'Op Garron, your paranoid delusions are taking over.' I promise I won’t mind.’

‘I’ll remember that. Shall we get the Register to witness?’

Rico twitched the corners of his mouth, but it was more to make an effort for her than to show genuine mirth. ‘Nah. I enjoy getting paranoid. Senior Field Op Su Zo, I believe we’re off duty?’

‘We are now.’

‘Then I’m off to pursue my fantasies. Should be safe as long as it’s not on College time.’

‘Fancy a drink?’

‘Thanks, but…’ He shook his head. ‘Go and see your family, Su.’ He walked towards the exit of the hall with his resentment like a dark, heavy lump, deep inside him. It was festering nicely.

Rico was still angry as the taxi approached the sheer white coral cliffs of Azania ecopolis. The breathtaking view as the taxi passed over the ecopolis’ organic building clusters and parks, lights glowing in the night, had a slightly pacifying effect. It reminded him of how far he had come in his life. To keep his ire going, he started to mutter ‘bitch, bitch, bitch’ under his breath.

The taxi threw itself at the land coral cliff that was the residence cluster where he lived, and dropped effortlessly into one of the taxi ways that ran sponge-like through and around the structure. After another minute, it drew to a halt as close to his community module as it was going to get. Door-to-door service wasn’t an option at his social level. Community modules in this section were arranged around a large mock Aztec plaza, complete with looming jungle in the background and insect noises, which at this time of night was empty, so he was spared having to mix with his neighbours. He and they never really got on: technically their memeplexes all contributed equally to the consensus running of the module, but when you’re in a minority it’s easy to be over-ruled and overlooked by the majority. It is especially easy when that majority is afraid of you because they know full well you have more relaxed social preparation than they do and that you actively prefer not being in the Home Time.

His anger was nicely peaking as he reached the door of his own module. Externally, it seemed to be an adobe hut. The suites here were all for single persons and he shared the module with nine others, but they too were all asleep and he could get to his own place without breaking his pace or train of thought.

‘Aggression therapy,’ he said out loud as he walked into his main room. Inside was very different, comfortable and minimally decorated in a completely Home Time style. ‘Level five.’

‘Welcome home, Rico. Would you not rather shower and change first?’ The voice of the household made him look down at himself. He was still in the fieldsuit he had worn for the Brazil trip. Normally he would have showered and changed back at the College; indeed, normally he would have showered, changed, and had a meal and a drink with Su, or perhaps been invited back to the Zos’ suite in a Pacifican multi-family module where Uncle Rico was already a hit with the next generation, in his capacity as mobile climbing frame.

Normally. Today was different.

‘I’m already hot and sweaty,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Very well,’ said the module.

Rico walked into the aggression room, which was white, sterile and padded, without anything hard to fall against. The dummy was waiting for him, poised for combat. Level five meant it would make at least a few moves to fight back. He hurled himself at it without warning, bringing it down in a tackle around the hips. While it wriggled to get free he pinned it down, sitting astride its chest, and proceeded to pummel its blank, yielding face.

This was no good. Too easy.

‘Stand and go to level ten,’ he said. He and the dummy squared off, and this time the dummy came for him. He seized its arm, twisted round and sent it over his shoulder. The dummy recovered and spun round, and its foot came for his head. He ducked under it and kicked both feet out at the dummy’s groin, breaking his fall with a roll that brought him back to his feet again.

‘Full attack and defence,’ he said. This would be no holds barred and he spent a joyous five minutes blocking, parrying and lunging, occasionally letting one of the dummy’s safely padded blows get through his defence. He had programmed it with the full course that any field operative had to undertake — a blend of the best of the many forms of unarmed martial arts from humanity’s history. It was as good as any machine was allowed to get when it came to possibly hurting a human; in other words, it was as close a match as social preparation would ever allow him to have with anyone.

‘Enough,’ he said eventually, with a broad grin on his face. He collapsed against one of the walls and slid down it, panting. On the other side of the room the dummy did likewise. Even at those times when the victory was clearly and distinctly his, it somehow diminished the triumph of the moment to have him lying panting on the floor while the dummy stood passively over him. ‘Assess,’ he said.

‘Blows that connected: seventy-two per cent of your own, forty-eight per cent of the dummy’s.’

‘Pretty good. Pretty bloody good.’ If he had actually tried to hurt a human being within the Home Time then social preparation and his symb connection would have done their best to immobilize him, but there was nothing to stop him pretending that the dummy had been Acting Commissioner Marje Orendal.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘about that shower.’

After a stinging hot needle shower, a massage and a light meal, and with a drink in his hand, he felt much better. Warm, relaxed, contented. He lounged in his favourite chair, legs stuck out so far in front of him that he was almost lying down, and looked around him with a dour smile. Maybe he could get used to it here. His recent demotion had meant moving to a smaller suite, but even the last had been smaller than Daiho’s Himalayan pad, which was practically a module in its own right. But in this (slightly smaller) suite of which he was master there was a main room, a bedroom, a bathroom and an aggression room — four rooms that were entirely his. Not bad for a spookboy from the creche; a child no one wanted to adopt, to give some kind of start in life to, because — well, because he was a spookboy, he came from the past and the past was bad. By sheer hard work and without any kind of sponsorship, he had worked up to this.

He had done all right, and two reprimands weren’t going to change that.

But as he undressed for bed, another thought struck him. The fact was, he still didn’t have that computer. Maybe he would just have to write it off: fate seemed to be against his getting it back. But he also still didn’t have an answer to a question he had put to Su in fourteenth-century Brazil. What did the Commissioner for Correspondents, who never did any fieldwork of his own, want with a field computer?