Simon Morden - Theories of Flight

“And the Jihad?” hissed Chain, “What about the Jihad?”

Petrovitch’s sardonic smile slipped. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. That’s going to be a problem.”

“They’ll want whatever you managed to save of Oshicora’s VirtualJapan. They won’t want to share it. They’ll want it for the exclusive use of Uncle Sam, and my guess is that they’ll eliminate everyone who knows about it before they carry it back to the Pentagon.”

“Langley,” said Petrovitch. “CIA headquarters is in Langley, Virginia.”

Chain grabbed Petrovitch’s lapels and pulled him nose to nose. “If you don’t want the world to face a weaponized AI in five years’ time—a world without you, Madeleine, your friend Doctor Ekanobi, or me in it—cut the crap. The Sorenson woman’s turning up isn’t a coincidence, it’s a sign. They’re getting ready to move, and you being famous all of a sudden will not save you or anyone around you.”

Petrovitch looked down. “Let go, Chain. I’ve been getting self-defense lessons from a very good teacher, and I’d hate to damage you.”

Chain released his grip, and the two parted, glaring at each other across the cracked and pitted formica. Eventually, Petrovitch raised his gaze to see Wong standing by his counter, hand resting on a meat cleaver.

Petrovitch shook his head slightly, and Wong went back to swabbing empty tables with disinfectant.

“You told Sonja any of this yet?”

Chain pursed his lips. “I thought it’d be better coming from you.”

“Thanks. You know how much Maddy likes me seeing her. Considering the govno I’m going to get, I may as well just suggest a threesome.”

“Go on your way to work, Petrovitch. You don’t have to tell Madeleine you took a diversion.”

“And you wonder why you’re still single.” He swilled the last of his coffee and dragged himself to his feet. He was more tired than he realized. Despite two mugs of rocket fuel, he felt a bone-deep weariness lay on him like a blanket.

“Think about it,” said Chain. “But not for long: you know where to find me.”

“Yeah. Middle of your spider’s web, just like last time.” Petrovitch squeezed out from behind the table. He waved at the owner as he passed. “Night, Wong.”

Wong folded his arms. “You still bad man. Sleep well.”

P etrovitch made the long walk in from Clapham, through ruined Battersea to the Thames. Waterlogged bricks had cascaded into the roads in blocks and sheets, exposing the rooms behind. Thick sulphurous mud was banked up either side of the road, oozing slowly back under its own gelatinous weight.

He wasn’t the only one walking, but that there were so few of them was disturbing. The heart of the city had been ripped out by the flood and the machines. Now the surrounding limbs were being severed by the Outies. His beloved Metrozone—he was doing what he could, but it wasn’t going to be enough. He’d saved it from the Jihad, only to see it die a slow, tortured death, rotting from the inside and eaten from the out.

Streets that were once so full of life were like the buildings either side of them: empty. So very sad.

The north end of the bridge was guarded by MEA troops. He’d remembered to put the Ceska back in its pouch when he’d got back from Wong’s. He had nothing left to declare, only his own genius.

It took time to pass through, all the same. Cities with checkpoints, with areas under curfew, with daily gun battles and bombings: they faltered, and the Metrozone was already on its knees.

Ahead of him in the queue, the soldiers caught some kid with a knife tucked in the top of his sock. They bundled him away into the back of a van, and the doors closed behind him.

The van didn’t drive away. It rocked and boomed, the light twisting off the mirrored windows. The doors hadn’t opened again by the time Petrovitch had walked under the screen’s arch. He took his diversion toward Green Park.

The nikkeijin, refugees once before, now had nowhere else to go. Sonja, showing some of her father’s skill, paid them when no one else would. They cleaned the corpses and the rats from the ground floors. They pumped and shoveled the basements. They used pressure hoses on the stone flags outside. They spread outward, scraping and sifting as they went.

Petrovitch passed one blue-overalled team as they shifted the filth off the tarmac with the aid of a bulldozer, then dug into the resulting mounds of ordure with spades, flinging it high into the back of a waiting truck. With hoods drawn tight over their heads and soft white surgical masks obscuring their faces, only their eyes were showing and they were giving nothing away.

Behind them, in the area they’d already swept that day and on previous days, were meters of tape between the lamp-posts, together with markers on the buildings to show their conditions. Much of it was in kanji script, and MEA had its own obscure coding underneath, strings of letters and numbers.

The kanji called to him. He had been able to read it once, fluent as a native. That it had been a trick, a contrivance of virtual reality, mattered less than the fact it had rewired his brain. If he caught it right, a momentary glance, he felt as if he could make out the meaning behind the symbols.

This house is uninhabitable from the second floor down. This house poses an unacceptable biological hazard. Five bodies were retrieved from the ground floor of this property.

He blinked, and it was gone. He looked up, and there was the Oshicora Tower, in the midst of fallen skyscrapers and broad, crushed concrete avenues. In front of the doors were two figures, both strangely slight, almost elfin.

One was a man, young, slim, as sharp and flexible as the blade he carried across his back. He had a carbine, too, folding stock already tucked into his right armpit. He wore armor, but it didn’t seem to encumber him in any way. He carried himself like the samurai he’d always dreamed of becoming—and now his loyalty to the one who had made that possible was absolute. And not a little scary.

The other: Petrovitch still remembered her as a furious, smoke-tainted hostage and as a savage katana- wielding avenger. Here she was as smart businesswoman, wearing a dawn-gray pencil skirt and tailored jacket. It didn’t fit easily with his memories, but maybe he was just uncomfortable around suits.

The man, Miyamoto, tracked his every step across the wide plaza, standing close behind his employer. He withdrew slightly as Petrovitch approached, not because he wanted to or because he trusted the other man at all: he was expected to, and that was all.

“Hey,” said Petrovitch, his breath condensing about him.

Sonja Oshicora smiled. “It’s good to see you.”

Petrovitch pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “Yeah. And you.”

“It’s been a long time. You only work down the road. Maybe…”

“Or maybe not. You know why.”

“Are you happy, Sam?” she asked. She was wearing lipstick. She never used to.

“I’d be happier if the city wasn’t pizdets. We’re losing her: six months, a year, two. I don’t think it matters how long it takes. You can shovel govno by the barge-load, but it’s…”

“Inevitable? I know.” She stepped closer to him, and Petrovitch forced himself not to retreat. “You can always leave. Lots of people have.”

“You stayed.”

“But you’re not staying because of me, are you?”

“No,” he said. “The world has become a complicated place, and I don’t know where I stand anymore. You heard about yesterday?”

“Of course.” She ran her finger through her fringe, and the hair fell back like it was made of rain. “Who’s the blonde?”