Neal Asher - Shadow of the Scorpion

Neither Dax nor his mother had mentioned last night. Both of them were drinking from litre bottles of Coke and had earlier popped a few Aldetox. In fact they weren't saying much at all, and both of them were wearing sunglasses.

Departing the maglev station they headed straight out into the tubular streets of the undersea city, one Loyalty Luggage chest groaning along behind them on roller leg spokes like a particularly fat and short-legged dog. Ian had his own case hanging from his shoulder with his own necessities inside, which obviously didn't include such ephemera as clean underpants and socks—they were in the luggage.

"The Watts?" suggested Dax.

"Of course," said their mother. The Watts—named after some long-dead science fiction writer—possessed the best undersea windows, airlocks and diving facilities. They'd stayed there before on numerous occasions and one of Ian's most enduring memories was of their father taking all three boys out into the sea for the first time. Back then they didn't have the full-skin pressure suits so the hotel's rooms had been pressurized and actually venturing beyond it had not been an easy option.

As they headed for their destination, Cormac scanned his surroundings for places he recognised, but everything, barring the exterior shapes of the streets themselves, had changed. A lot of the shops seemed to be closed down and the usual cornucopias of goods were not on display.

"It's hitting here," Dax observed.

"Everywhere," their mother replied. "I don't think it's because of lack of supply, but more to do with guilt about supply."

"There's a war on," Cormac piped up.

His mother raised her sunglasses to expose reddened eyes and gave Dax one of those knowing looks that irritated the boy immensely.

"That's the opinion," she said. "It seems to have brought out the Puritan in many."

Dax shook his head. "Stupid," he said. "Most of what's sold here won't even impinge." He paused for a moment, thoughtful. "Unless things get a lot worse."

They continued along the concourse and eventually arrived at the portico of The Watts. Arrayed across the front of this building were five heavy oval chainglass doors, which were the original pressure locks for this building. Hannah placed her cash card into the slot of a console beside one door and on the touch-screen made her room selection. Peering up at the screen Cormac was gratified to see she had requested three interconnected rooms, all en-suite, so he would have his own room, his own space. The last time they had come here he had shared with her, while Dax and Alex had their own rooms. He felt this meant he was not so much of a child anymore.

The nearest pressure door opened upon insertion of one of the three key cards the console had provided and he and his mother stepped through into the lock while Dax waited his turn with the Loyalty Luggage. They entered a vestibule containing a central auto-kiosk packed with those items the hotel's guests might need while venturing out into the city. Around the walls numerous doors opened into the accommodation areas while between them were mounted screens showing undersea scenes.

"They were going to get rid of them," said Dax as he came through, gesturing back to the pressure doors.

"A lot of people objected and there were moves to put a preservation order on them," Hannah replied. "The hotel owners finally realised they were an attraction rather than a hindrance to their usual guests—keeps the non-diving riff-raff out."

She walked over to one of the doors at the end of the vestibule, inserting the key card again, which gave access to a long corridor with rooms along either side. When she halted by one of the doors on the left, Cormac became even happier, for he remembered enough to know that the rooms on this side were those nearest to the sea, so were provided with real undersea windows.

"You're there," she said to Dax, pointing to the room they had just passed and tossing him one of the cards. "And you're there," she said to Cormac, handing over another card and gesturing to the next room along. "I'll send the luggage to you, Dax, once I've unpacked, and you can send it to Ian." She paused for a moment. "I mean Cormac."

Cormac inserted his key card into his door, entered and closing the door behind him gazed about himself with relish. A large bed lay to his left, interactive netscreen up in one corner opposite the bed, large blacked-out window taking up the entire wall to the right of that, plenty of cupboards, some low comfortable chairs arranged around a coffee table and a door to an en-suite in the right-hand wall. He stepped over beside the bed, dropped his shoulder bag on it, then picked up the room remote from the bedside table. It took him just a moment of checking through the touchplates to find the window control. He walked over, turned one of the comfortable chairs round to face it, plumped himself down in the chair, then hit the control to make the window transparent.

Starting in a swirl pattern right in the centre, the photoactive liquid, sandwiched between two layers of chainglass, began changing from black to transparent. Cormac remembered spending hours gazing through a window like this. He remembered the crustaceans bumbling along the bottom out there: the masses of winkles gathered like multicoloured pearls, the whelks oozing across the glass and the occasional scallop jetting past; the hermit crabs, lobsters and edible crabs; the shrimps, prawns and crayfish; and the endless varieties of fish. But what sat out there was not quite what he expected, and he shrieked with fright.

Giant iron scorpions were not in the guide book.

The autodozer garage was surrounded by a security fence with cameras mounted on the posts. Floodlights were on, their glow extending out into the darkness and also reflecting off the polished bodies of two mosquito autoguns patrolling inside like skeletal metallic guard dogs.

As he strode towards the big gates, torch beam stabbing down at the churned earth ahead of him, Cormac glanced back at his three companions. Stiletto, who Cormac now knew to be called Pramer, wore a false hand in place of his blade and appeared quite fitting for this role, since many of those who did this sort of job boosted their musculature and took pride in being able to carry out heavy work normally the territory of some drone or Golem. The other two didn't really fit. Layden was a scrawny, pale and sickly individual who just looked plain uncomfortable in his baggy overalls, and Sheen was a teenage girl with a perpetual expression of sulky rebellion. No problem, their physical details had been logged into the personnel databank.

Cormac halted and peered up at the security drone extending out from the gate post on a stalk like some iron and plastic seed pod. It tilted towards them and after a moment said, "Admittance approved." He stepped aside and now Layden received the same approval as did Pramer, then Sheen moved into place. With her the drone paused for a moment, and tilted as if curious about what it was seeing. Cormac suspected the AI was deliberately racking up the tension—it didn't want this to appear too easy for them.

"Identicard," the drone demanded.

Cormac was amazed at the teenager's sudden calm as she reached into her engineer's belt bag, took her card from amidst the numerous small packs that would open out into monofilm rucksacks, and held it up. He saw the flash of laser scanning pass over the card and hand, then after a moment Sheen received a grudging "Admittance approved," whereupon a personnel door popped open in the main gates and they entered.

"It must be your acne," said Pramer.

"Fuck off," Sheen replied.

Cormac had already instructed them to confine their talk to the kind of exchanges expected from such workers, but hadn't expected these two to show such talent for it. Not a word could be uttered about their real reason for being here, since watch programs would be listening for key words and phrases and assessing for out-of-character behaviour. Grinning, he glanced at Pramer, but was surprised to see he seemed chastened by the teenager's reply. Odd, decidedly so.