spy picked you up in Jupiter Café – the old man you bought cigarettes for? His vidboy is an eye-cam linked to PanOpticon central computer. Now kneel down – slowly – and slide your gun across the floor. Slowly. Don’t make me nervous. A Zuvre at this range will scramble your face so badly your own mother wouldn’t recognize you. But then, that never was her strong point, was it?’
I ignore the taunt. ‘Unwise to approach an intruder without back-up.’
‘Your father’s file is a highly sensitive issue.’
‘So your bioborg was telling the truth. You want to keep the hush money my father pays you all for yourself.’
‘Your main concern should not be practical ethics, but to dissuade me from omeletteing you.’ Keeping her eyes trained on me, she bends over to retrieve my Walther. I aim the carrier case at her face and open the switchclips. The lid-mounted incandescent booby trap explodes in her eyes. She screams, I roll-dive, her Zuvre fires, glass cracks, I leap through the air, kick her head, wrench the pistol from her grip – it fires again – spin her around and uppercut her over the half-moon sofa. Silverspines gush and thrash on the carpet. The real Akiko Kato lies motionless. I stuff the sealed folder on my father down my overalls, load up my toolbox and exit. I close the door quietly over the slow stain already gathering on the corridor carpet. I stroll down to the elevator, casually whistling ‘Imagine’. That was the easy part. Now I have to get out of PanOpticon alive.
Drones fuss around the receptionist still slumped in her rainforest. Weird. I leave a trail of unconscious women wherever I go. I summon the elevator, and show appropriate concern. ‘Sick building syndrome, my uncle calls it. Fish are affected in the same way, believe it or not.’ The elevator arrives and an old nurse barges out, tossing onlookers aside. I step in and press the close button to whisk me away before anyone else can enter.
‘Not so fast!’ A polished boot wedges itself between the closing doors, and a security guard muscles them apart. He has the mass and nostrils of a minotaur. ‘Ground Zero, son.’
I press the button and we begin our descent.
‘So,’ says Minotaur. ‘You an industrial spy, or what?’
Blood and adrenalin swish through my body in strange ways. ‘Huh?’
Minotaur keeps a straight face. ‘You’re trying to make a quick getaway, right? That’s why you nearly closed me in the elevator doors up there.’
Oh. A joke. ‘Yep.’ I rap my toolbox. ‘Full of goldfish espionage data.’
Minotaur snorts a laugh.
The elevator slows and the doors open. ‘After you,’ I say, even though Minotaur shows no signs of letting me go first. He disappears through a side door. Floorpad arrows return me to a security booth. I beam at Ice Maiden. ‘I get to have you on the way in and on the way out? This is the hand of destiny.’
Her eyes dart over a scanner. ‘Standard procedure.’
‘Oh.’
‘You have discharged your duties?’
‘Fully, thank you. You know, ma’am, we at Goldfish Pal are proud to say that we have never lost a fish due to negligence in eighteen years of business. We give each a post-mortem, to establish cause of death. Old age, every time. Or client-sourced alcohol poisoning, during the end-of-year party season. If you are free I could tell you more about it over dinner.’
Ice Maiden glaciates me. ‘We have nothing whatsoever in common.’
‘We’re both carbon-based. You can’t take that for granted these days.’
‘If you are trying to disgust me out of asking why you have a Zuvre .440 in your toolbox, I must tell you that your efforts are wasted.’
I am a professional. Fear must wait. How, how, could I have been so stupid? ‘That is absolutely impossible.’
‘The gun is registered under Akiko Kato’s name.’
‘Oooh!’ I chuckle, open the box and take out the gun. ‘Do you mean this?’
‘I do mean that.’
‘This?’
‘That.’
‘This is, uh, for—’
‘Yes?’ Ice Maiden reaches for an alarm.
‘—this!’ The glass flowers with the first shot – alarms scream – the glass mazes with the second shot – I hear gas hiss – the glass cracks with the third shot, and I throw my body through the window – shouting and running – I land tumbling over the floor of the lobby, flashing with arrows. Men and women crouch, terrified. Everywhere is noise and jaggedness. Down an access corridor guards’ boots pound this way. I engage the double safety catch, switch the Zuvre to continuous plasma