The Rig Read online

  All this was engrossing beyond anything I had ever experienced. I had no sense of the passage of time. I plunged ever deeper into the Song, absorbing its secrets and filing them away in my mind.

  Along with the first footfall in the System, there came crime. Synthesised drugs were imaginative and various, and theft was commonplace. Along with the first assembly of the earliest Administration, there came organised crime. Gangs came and went, merged, fought and collapsed, reformed and grew, just as the political parties of the Administrata did. And over the years of growth, as the Administrata became more structured, organised crime became more significant. Finally only two great and farsighted organisations were left. Those organisations were headed, now, five generations post-arrival, by Ethan Drame and Spetkin Ligate.

  I searched and searched. It wasn’t easy. The Song was full of voids and lies. I meta-analysed the existing data, extrapolated and refined until, a few days later, I had what I confidently felt was a fair summary of the current status quo.

  Drame, I concluded, operated banks, while Ligate controlled transport systems. The full story was naturally far more complex than this, but this was the core of it.

  Ligate, then, was a pirate and a smuggler, while Drame, through his banks, owned and controlled debt. He was clever, acting almost legitimately much of the time, manipulating the confusions and eddies of interplanetary tax law to his advantage.

  Both Ligate and Drame used leverage to secure and expand their ground: the leverage of money, and of threat and its consequence. They were cold killers. But while both had proved themselves personally untouchable by the law, and enormously commercially successful, Ethan Drame had accelerated away from Ligate in the last few years, and the Song was flooded with rumours of a vendetta between them – that Ligate was determined to murder Drame, who had some brilliant financial strategist orchestrating his moves, and that Drame wanted Ligate finally disposed of.

  In the voids and silences of the Song, his name wasn’t anywhere to be found, but my father, without the slightest doubt, had been Drame’s strategist.

  I lay in the rv unit and could only think, and I drifted through the Song and thought for three hundred and thirty-eight hours and forty-five minutes. I had the option of switching my thoughts off and sleeping a dreamless rv sleep, and I couldn’t, I didn’t do it.

  The Song was clear. Spetkin Ligate had killed my father, and I was carrying the puter with every scrap of information that Drame needed and that Ligate was probably desperate to get his hands on. And I was the only one who could access it.

  There was only one question remaining, and the Song did not hold the answer to it. To which of the two terrible enemies, in this agitated sleep, was I headed?

  Eleven

  BALE

  The times he woke up, he couldn’t turn his head too well. His head ached worse than any hangover. Now and then he opened his dry lips and said, ‘Hey. Can you hear me?’ without getting any answer, and occasionally he glimpsed medics walk past him, heading for the next bed, where there was a guy in what looked like some sort of skull-fracture scaffolding. Sometimes the passing medics glanced at Bale and sometimes they didn’t. There weren’t just medics, either. There were people wearing Paxtags, though he recognised none of them, and there were others. He was sure the others weren’t friends of the guy. They had the look of the type of people whose stories Bale enjoyed taking apart, eye-shifting deskers unused to being streetside.

  But these deskers were looking happy. Maybe they were legals, he thought. He’d never seen an unhappy legal.

  Bale slept, half-woke, slept again, woke up.

  He knew he wasn’t in a good state. He ran through his memory of the whole thing. He knew he should be dead. Every time he closed his eyes he saw the flat of that hand coming at the bridge of his nose like the end of a training sim just before it tells you, ‘Incorrect option. You’re dead. Retry?’

  Maybe he’d been through AfterLife. Was this what it was like, coming out the other side? Maybe decades had passed.

  No. No one would vote to bring back a Paxer. Not one with Bale’s history, anyway.

  He dozed, woke again, dozed again.

  In the end, it was the guy in the headcage who opened the conversation. Having rolled carefully to his right so he could face the next bed, Bale was examining the peculiar rig more closely. He hadn’t seen anything like it before. Neck or spine injury, he guessed. The man hadn’t moved. He could have been a corpse, though for a corpse he had a lot of visitors.

  The corpse said, ‘Hey. You hear me?’

  He sounded like his sinuses were blocked. Bale said, ‘I hear you. You’ve been asleep a long time.’

  The reply came, low and unsteady, ‘I wouldn’t exactly call it sleep.’

  Bale said, ‘Well, it’s better than the alternative.’

  ‘I’m not complaining. You’re Marus Bale, right? The Paxer? I’m Tallen. Herrel Tallen. You saved my life, you know that?’

  ‘How was that?’ Bale’s head was throbbing.

  ‘In the waste tunnels. Don’t you know?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Apparently, if you hadn’t kept him running, he’d have had time to finish me.’ A pause, which Bale wasn’t sure how to read, then the man added, ‘I thought maybe you were going to die.’

  ‘Ah.’ Now it made sense, the two of them being put side-by-side. ‘So did I, Tallen. Listen. I didn’t know anything about you, didn’t even see you. If you think I saved you, you’re wrong. Medics do this, put people together like there’s some bond. The idea is we’re more likely to pull through if we’re bonded. Like I’m so proud of what I’ve done, and…’ He let it go, knowing he shouldn’t say it. He’d gone too far already. The guy didn’t deserve it.

  But the man completed it, flatly. ‘And I’m too grateful and guilty to let myself die after you almost got yourself killed for me.’

  ‘Something like that,’ Bale said. ‘But like I told you, I didn’t know you were down there. I don’t even know how I’m alive.’

  ‘How about I say thanks anyway?’

  ‘That’d do it.’ Bale tried to say it like it was meant. He didn’t like being here with the man next to him. He wasn’t going to let himself get involved. He knew better than to pick up guilt for the man getting left like this, worse than dead.

  Later, after a few more driftaways and sleeps, Bale observed, ‘You’ve got lots of friends, Tallen.’

  ‘No. I’ve got interested parties.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Seems I didn’t have enough medical cover for what happened. They could have let me die. I was an opportunity. I cost them a fortune. Don’t exactly feel it, though.’

  * * *

  Razer stood for a few minutes just looking at him asleep before whispering, ‘Bale?’ And then she saw him hurt himself with a smile.

  She said, ‘You’re a sight, you know that? I thought you were dead.’

  ‘I thought so too.’

  ‘Are you in pain?’

  ‘Less now. How long have I been here?’

  ‘A while. A week and a few days. They weren’t allowing you ordinary visitors. They didn’t believe I was your sister or your wife.’

  ‘Now I’m allowed visitors?’

  ‘No. I told them I’m your legal.’

  ‘They believed that?’

  She smiled. ‘I can be very convincing.’

  ‘Tell them to let me out, then.’

  ‘As your legal, I’d advise against that. You don’t look good enough to me.’ She glanced at the bed beyond Bale’s. ‘He looks a lot worse. What happened to him?’

  ‘Apparently I saved his life. You wouldn’t believe it to look at him, would you?’

  She stared at the motionless body for a while. ‘You’re sure he’s alive? He doesn’t look like he’s breathing. What is that?’

  ‘Ask him.’

  She raised her voice and said, ‘Are you in pain?’

  The man murmured, ‘I recognise your voice.
I can’t turn my head.’

  She moved across and bent over him, and let out a sharp breath. ‘Tallen.’ She took a step away and looked at him again. Why hadn’t she realised? ‘The red bar,’ she said. ‘We spoke there. You remember that? These last nights, I’ve been looking for you there. No one knew where you were. I should have guessed. Don’t you have any friends, Tallen? Anyone? Are you in pain? Can I get someone?’ Her heart was thumping crazily and she didn’t quite know why. She remembered the words they’d exchanged and the expression on his face. Her questions had somehow energised him. He had done more than answer them. He had considered his answers and asked his own questions and been fascinated by the way she thought. He had surprised her, and it had been a long time since Razer had been surprised by anything. There was something about him, similar to Bale, but also the opposite. An odd tenderness.

  ‘I remember you. Tired. Going to sleep now.’

  Bale reached out, wincing, and touched her arm. She looked back at him and said, ‘I’d believe you saved his life. You’re quite something, Bale.’

  He didn’t seem to have any idea what to say to that, and she didn’t know why it made her choke up. Was it Bale’s bravery, or the shock of seeing Tallen here?

  After a moment she said, ‘They told you what happened?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I can’t remember it all.’

  ‘He killed ten people. You saved the eleventh.’ She glanced back at Tallen. Weird coincidence. Life was full of them, though. Her life, anyway. She touched Bale’s cheek and said, ‘But then, you nearly were the eleventh. He was a crazy. He’s dead.’

  She gently disengaged herself from him and stood up, looking along the aisle. ‘I think they just discovered I’m not a legal. I’ll see you when you’re out.’

  * * *

  Bale watched her go, then closed his eyes and fixed her there, in profile, as she’d looked when she was talking to Tallen. The expression on her face as she looked at Tallen – that had been more than surprise.

  When he next woke up, Bale eased himself to the side of his bed, rested his feet flat on the cold floor and just breathed there, looking at Tallen with a bit more interest. There were several days of scrawny beard over the man’s jaws, and Bale examined the metal cage enclosing his head. The bedcovers drawn up to his neck were held entirely clear of his body by some kind of concealed armature that ran all the way down the bed, covering his entire body. Bale had seen that part of the procedure before, the protection of a body’s damaged, fragile flesh from contact and pressure, but he’d never seen a headcage like this. Tallen’s eyes were wide.

  Bale said, ‘You got burnt?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Why?’

  ‘Your bedding. That’s what they do if you’re burnt, keep it clear to let you heal. And what is that, on your head?’

  ‘You want the full term or the nickname?’

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘It’s a stereotactic neurosurgical targeting frame.’

  Bale shrugged. It took him a moment to realise Tallen wouldn’t have seen the gesture. He said, ‘You’ve lost me. Targeting I understand, and frame, but the rest of it, no.’

  Tallen smiled, the movement pulling ripples of skin up against a pair of silver struts securing the frame to his cheeks. The frame wasn’t on his skin at all, Bale realised. It was sunk right through it, down into the bone. There were two struts entering his temples and four more at the back of his skull. Tallen’s head, Bale now saw, was suspended within the gleaming exoskeleton. Its angles and joints were knotted with docks and sockets. He also noticed that Tallen had no pillow, and supposed there was no point in having one. It was eerie. Only the bottom jaw was free. ‘That’s a hell of a thing,’ he said.

  ‘It’s a surgical rig. I’ve been neurologically mapped and tapped and fixed up fine. I can do anything but move. Do you mind if we change the subject?’

  ‘Sure. Do you remember any of it, what happened to you?’

  ‘Some, yes. Are we allowed to talk about it?’

  Bale said, ‘You mean legally? Your guy’s dead. We can talk.’

  ‘Why did he do it?’

  ‘It wasn’t just you. He killed ten people.’ Bale reflected on what Razer had told him. ‘Maybe more. I guess he was a crazy, but he must have been a well-organised one. Anyhow, since he’s dead, there’s no case and no legals, so there’s no reason why we can’t talk. As long as you don’t mind.’

  ‘I remember some of it. Look, I can’t see you. Can you come round in front of me?’

  Bale limped over and hauled the chair to the foot of Tallen’s bed so he could face him. The shape of the frame under the bedclothes was reminiscent of a coffin. Bale said, ‘How far down does that thing go?’

  ‘To my hips. Every vertebra has its own dock.’ As Tallen frowned, the skin of his forehead scalloped deeply against the struts at his temples. ‘Actually, every vertebra has two docks. Every muscle has a myoelectric implant.’

  ‘You had nerve damage?’

  ‘I had brain injuries,’ Tallen said. ‘Neuromuscular consequences. Can’t move spine or head, can’t feel.’

  ‘And this is to repair it?’

  ‘If it works.’

  Bale nodded. ‘When will you know?’

  ‘When they decide to tell me.’

  Bale snorted. ‘Medics?’

  ‘Legals.’

  ‘You can’t move at all?’

  ‘This cage is too heavy. I’m like a bug on its back.’

  ‘What about your arms?’

  ‘They’re pinned to the cage. And my legs. They say it’s for my own safety. Only real movement I’ve got is my jaw. So I can moan.’ He took a long, shallow breath and let it go, then said, ‘You ever been hurt, Bale? I mean hurt bad?’

  ‘Apart from this time? Sure. Stabbed, shot, smashed up. But not like you.’

  In that flat, echoless voice of his, Tallen said, ‘Does it change you, getting hurt?’

  For a moment, Bale marvelled at what a stupid question that was, asked by a man who was never going to be the same again. ‘Inside? I don’t know. I don’t know how I was before the first time I got hurt. I’m not even sure I remember it any more. Working in Pax, it’s like being a soldier, you develop a shell after a while, a way of not thinking. It holds you together.’ Bale didn’t know what else to say. He wasn’t sure how to talk to Tallen. He could talk to Paxers and to crimers, but Tallen’s world, where people were complicated in different ways, was out of his reach. Struggling for a way through to him, Bale thought of Razer. Her world was closer to Tallen’s, and Bale could talk to her. In a moment of inspiration, he wondered what she might say to Tallen if she were here, and said that. ‘Do you feel changed?’

  ‘Yes. I do. But I’m not sure how. I mean, I think back, and there are gaps. I have memories, and they’re returning, but they don’t seem real. And what it is –’ a long, long pause, ‘– is that the me remembering them is not the me who experienced them. I look at things and they don’t seem real. I mean they seem real, but differently real. Does that make any sense?’

  Bale didn’t say anything, looking up and down the bare aisle lined with empty beds and curtain rails. Machinery beeped and cheeped, lumes twinkled. It was like a party long over but the lights were still on.

  ‘Well, you asked,’ Tallen said.

  ‘So tell me what you do remember. Of the attack, I mean.’ He felt easier asking Pax questions, and Tallen didn’t seem to mind.

  ‘I remember seeing the knife. It was blurred. I see it like a still, like it’s frozen in his hand. I looked from his face to the knife, and as I was looking, I was feeling the pain of the first blow. Like a delay, light and sound, you know?’

  ‘Flash and bang. I know.’ Bale looked at Tallen’s eyes. Tallen couldn’t shift his head or give himself away with a crossing of the legs, a scratching of the chin, so all Bale had were the eyes, but he could see the trouble there. Tallen obviously remembered some of it. Just enough to foul him up but not enough to make s
ense of it.

  ‘Maybe you shouldn’t think about it,’ Bale said. ‘It isn’t always good to know. They say it’s worse to imagine than to know, but that’s not always true. Believe me.’

  ‘No. I have to know as much as I can,’ Tallen said. ‘Look at me. I lie here and I can’t move, and even the past isn’t right any more, either it’s gone or it isn’t quite mine. If I know, at least I have control over it.’ His voice rose, and for the first time Bale felt the damage there, the helpless, raw, too-late panic.

  Bale said, ‘Do you get flashbacks?’ Stupid question, he thought instantly, but Tallen was opening his mouth to answer it.

  ‘Footsteps,’ Tallen murmured. ‘I don’t remember where. I was walking back from the beach, I think. I remember deserted streets, but I’m not sure when. The footsteps, the knife. I start to turn, then a thump in my side. The thump makes me gasp aloud. I actually feel it, every time. If I weren’t wearing this thing, I’d fold over with it.’ The skin of his face tightened around the struts and relaxed again. ‘Do you remember, Bale?’

  ‘We’re trained to. And usually we’re linked up to Vox, though I wasn’t this time.’ He saw in Tallen’s eyes that Vox meant nothing to him. ‘Vox is Pax’s central command and record puter. It logs everything and advises us. But we’re trained to remember. Colours, positions, movements –’

  ‘I mean you, Bale. Do you remember me?’

  ‘Like I said, I never saw you. I didn’t even know you were down there. All I was interested in was the K.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘We call a killer a K. Pax-speak. I had no idea about you. You know that, don’t you? Not at any stage. Didn’t they tell you?’