Lawrence Watt-Evans - Nightside City

"You got it," I said.

"Squatters? God, Hsing, you almost got killed for a bunch of squatters?" The grin broadened.

"Hey," I said. "Out in the burbs I take what I can get." I grinned back.

His grin grew wider, and then he chuckled, and then he burst out laughing, leaning back, roaring with laughter, so that the chair had to struggle and squirm to keep him from falling.

I was glad to see that. I was pleased that he was taking it that way, as something to laugh at. After all, it was costing him one hell of a lot of money, for the eye and the rescue and the medical bills.

So I was glad he was laughing, instead of threatening to take it all out of me somehow.

For myself, I didn't laugh. Oh, I saw the humor in it, certainly, but I was a little too close to laugh at it. It wasn't just money for me; somebody had tried to kill me. I was lying there in a hospital, up to my bald little head in debt, and I could see the humor, but I wasn't ready to laugh at anything yet.

"Oh, Hsing," he said. "I'm going to enjoy working with you-if it doesn't bankrupt me!"

I grinned, then managed to laugh with him a little after all, and it was at least partly genuine.

Part of it was relief at Mishima's reaction. Part of it was something more.

I thought I would enjoy working with him, too. I'd worked alone long enough.

I might live longer with a backup.

WE LAUGHED AND BANTERED FOR A WHILE, BUT eventually we got back to business. He still wanted to know what the case was, and how the hell a two-hundred-buck job had got me stranded on the dayside.

"Someone was trying to collect rent from all the squatters in the West End," I told him. "They wanted me to stop it, keep them from being evicted."

"So?" he said. "That's a simple shakedown. You call the cops, they take care of it. If they don't, you hire muscle. Hsing, you aren't muscle. You're tough, I won't argue that, but you're small, and up until now you worked alone. Muscle can't work alone; a bullet or a needle can kill anybody. So why'd they come to you?"

"First off," I said, "they did call the cops, more or less. They called the city, anyway. The rent collectors were legit; they really were working for the new owners."

Mishima blinked at me. "What new owners?" he demanded. "Dawn's coming, Hsing; who'd be buying?"

" That ," I said, "is what the squatters hired me to find out. And no, they didn't try hiring muscle; they couldn't afford it. Not when the collectors looked legal. They might have had to take on the cops. Besides, I was a lot cheaper."

He stared at me for a moment. "All right," he said. "So that was the job? Find out who the new owners are?"

"Find out, and stop them from charging rents or evicting the squatters," I explained.

"All right, then," he said. "What did you find out?"

"I found out that somebody-one person, using fifteen names-had bought up most of the West End. Listen, Mishima, are you sure you want in on this?"

"Yeah, of course I'm sure," he said. "Who was it?"

"Don't be so sure, damn it," I told him. "Remember, this is the case that got me dumped on the day side."

"I hadn't forgotten that, Hsing. I can take care of myself. Now, who the hell was it?"

I hated telling him. It was like giving up a piece of myself. I owed him, though, and I had to tell him.

"Sayuri Nakada," I said.

He blinked again. "No shit," he said, staring at me. "Nakada's buying the West End?"

I nodded.

"Why?" he asked.

I called to a service module in the back wall for a drink of water, which slid out on a floater. I sipped that down slowly before I answered.

"That's where it gets tricky," I said. "I found an answer, but it may not be right, and it gets messy from here on. I don't know everything I'd like to."

"Go on," he said.

I was past the worst part, giving up Nakada's name. The rest wasn't that much. "Nakada has hired a bunch of the brains-the human ones-at the Ipsy to stop Nightside City from crossing onto the day side. She really thinks they can do it."

He considered that. "She does?" he asked.

"Yes, she does," I said.

"Can they?" he asked.

"I don't know," I said truthfully. "Probably not. I'll get to that."

He nodded. "Go on."

I went on. "Apparently, Paulie Orchid got her together with them-you know him?"

Mishima nodded again. "I've heard of him."

"I don't know whose idea it was originally, whether it was Nakada or Orchid or this person Lee at the Ipsy who came up with the whole thing. I hadn't gotten that far. I had talked to Nakada, and gotten the story from her, that the crew at the Ipsy was going to set off a fusion charge that would stop Epimetheus right where it is, before it rotated the city past the terminator. She'd have bought up as much of the city as possible, at cheap dawn's-coming prices, and would be running smooth after the bang, when dawn isn't coming anymore and land values head for high orbit. Simple enough, right?"

Mishima didn't answer. I went on. "Then I went over to the Ipsy to get some details, because the way Nakada told it, with just one big fusion charge, it not only wouldn't work, it obviously wouldn't work, so obviously that nobody but an idiot like Sayuri Nakada could take it seriously. If they tried it the way she described it, they'd probably wreck the whole city, and without even slowing down the sunrise. I figured Nakada had it wrong. But the people at the Ipsy wouldn't talk to me. I don't mean they took convincing, or that they were hostile; I mean they wouldn't talk, they wouldn't even tell me why they wouldn't talk. I mean, even when I waved a gun around and acted dangerous, they said nothing, absolutely nothing. So after I got tired of the silent treatment I threatened to put everything I knew on the nets, which I figured would crash their whole system, or at the very least cut Nakada's profits, but they were still not talking, which seemed crazy. Finally, I got an agreement that they'd talk it over and get back to me in two hours-but instead they horsed me with a neural interrupt, and Orchid and his buddy Bobo Rigmus paid me that little visit you saw." I shrugged. "And that's it."

Mishima considered that for a long minute. "Either I missed something, or that's just crazy," he said. "Why'd they try to kill you? Hell, why didn't they just tell you what you wanted to know? Didn't they try and buy you off first, or anything?"

"Nope." I shook my head emphatically. "Never offered me a buck."

"But that's haywire!"

"I know it is," I said.

Mishima sat back to think matters over. I lay back to let him. I was tired; I might be healed, but that didn't mean I was healthy. I was horribly aware of the absence of my symbiote; without it, I could catch diseases, I could be seriously injured in stupid little accidents, I'd take weeks to heal up if I damaged myself. And I didn't have much of a reserve of strength of my own anymore.

I closed my eyes and rested for a moment. Then Mishima cleared his throat, and I looked up at him again.

"So you blew my spy-eye down to keep me from seeing you talk to Nakada?" he asked.

I nodded. I hadn't mentioned that, but he was smart enough to work it out for himself. It didn't seem important.

"I don't know about that, Hsing. I mean, yeah, you were probably smart to try and keep me from finding out Nakada was involved, but shooting the eye just got me mad."

I shrugged. "I had a point to make. I don't take kindly to that sort of harassment."

"Yeah," he said slowly. "Yeah, I can see that. Okay. I still don't like it, but I see your point." He went on considering my story, and I rested a little more.

"So why were you after all the details of Nakada's little scheme?" he asked. "I mean, all that stuff at the Ipsy- what did that have to do with the squatters' rents?"