2

West L’ankor wasn’t nearly as busy as it had been during the day, but the weather certainly held up without an issue. By the time Vanderman and Luna passed the cornerhouse and saw the West Avenue tram turn in for the night, the rain had thickened. Wind threatened to tear shrubs from curbs and lampposts from boardwalks, while each squall brought enough drizzle to spike her skin. Outside the stripclub, rubberised tarpaulins blew slipshod over the gazebos and pergolas, and the potted ferns rattled grimly, almost wrenched from their roots.

It wasn’t uncommon for Zemon to get hit with a spell of bad weather, but this had definitely been the worst in the past four, maybe five years. Even the billboards swapped to indicate that a

STAGE 3 RAINSTORM

嵐

was building.

She and Vanderman hurried across the street with the haptic suits stashed in chrome-yellow suitcases. The blue streetlights were flickering, Bridge Scarlet’s front sign fulgurated, and the thrum from the junction boxes fixed upon the power poles was tuned out by the wind.

Luna tugged down on her hood and stopped at the stripclub entrance, next to the white stencils of seductive pole dancers against taffy-pink backdrops.

Some men and women stuck around smoking cigarettes under the side-awnings – crazy people – but most had left for the night. Which was odd, considering most stripclubs were packed round-the-clock.

Luna pushed on the handle bars. Wouldn't budge. Then she noticed that the LED sign to the left of BRIDGE SCARLET had switched from OPEN to CLOSED.

“What the fuck?” She backed away and almost slipped on the marble path.

Vanderman caught up with her. “What is it?”

“Can’t you read?” She brushed her fringe from her eye, taking deep breaths. “Why’s it closed?”

Vanderman didn’t seem to get it at first. He was staring up at the sign with a face best described as a serial killer pretending to know nothing about a murder. “Time is it?”

“Quarter to eight,” Luna said.

He gave an understanding nod. “’Splains it. We probably have to go around back.” He pulled out his phone and speed-dialled Liz. They walked over to the seating area with gazebos and pergolas. His hair had been drenched and now flopped over his forehead like a trimmed barcode.

“She pickin’ up?” said Luna.

“It’s ringin’,” he said, running a hand over his forehead. The phone continued to ring with that steady on-and-off buzz.

Bzzz.... Bzzz.... Bzzz....

“Ringing a bit long, isn’t it?” Luna snapped, sitting astride the wooden bench. The situation itself was discomforting. She flashed back to four years ago when she and her sister were thrown out from L’illian after failing to pay rent. The point that their mother had died from brain cancer didn’t frankly matter to the landlord. He had shown up at the door with an eviction notice sticking out from under his belt, telling them to pay up or shut up. Couple weeks later, after Luna put her heart and soul into applying to every convenience store and hotel and gas station in the entire ZLB Triangle, they were forced to live in a compact alley between an arms dealer and an underground bar called DANGER ZONE.

Luna could still remember the way Sarah shivered under the mink-trimmed hoover-blanket, listening to water slipping and slithering down the rainspout. That particular winter had brought a storm similar to this, one that lasted a week and a half and left the two struggling to find warmth. Food was sparse; they were forced to eat leftovers from wastebins and, yes, even dumpsters.

It wasn’t until a week later, when Sarah had fallen terribly ill with a mixture of influenza and food poisoning, that Luna decided to gather what little money she had panhandled and visit an old Japanese restaurant (which she couldn’t recall the name of). She looked at the prices, found she couldn’t even afford the cheapest meal, and stopped a man on the street. A man dressed in a slim jacket and cargo blackjeans.

“Hey bud, got a quarter?” she had asked him.

The memory was still fresh in her mind – she couldn’t forget his answer:

“Money problems?”

Luna sighed, bringing herself back to the present. The phone was still ringing, she was still shivering, and she was still living this fucking nightmare.

The ringing turned into an automated voice message from Liz:

“Yo, if you’re callin’ now I’m probably busy fucking your mom or sister. Leave a message after the beep.”

BEEEEEP!

But Vanderman didn’t. Instead, he tucked the phone in his inside jacket pocket and told Luna to move around back. She didn’t know where around back was, but she followed him regardless. They left the seating area and trotted under the West Avenue tramrail. They crossed more smokers, some illegally parked vehicles, and turned right towards the alley. Trash everywhere – the watery, foetid kind – and a homeless man on every corner, normally lying against a dumpster or inside a decrepit car. They stopped at a dimly glowing MiliCorp ATM, and through a narrow, red-brick passageway Luna saw a flush door, almost identical to the one she had seen in the surgery.

“Here,” breathed Vanderman, and he led her down the passage. It was slightly warmer in this area, thought Luna. The east-pushing wind couldn’t quite catch them here, nor could the rain.

She stuffed her hand in her furry pocket, feeling the invis-suit move around in the case. Vanderman pressed the buzzer.

They stood around for thirty seconds.

“You sure she meant to meet here?” said Luna.

Vanderman shrugged. “Where else is she gonna go?”

“Home?”

He pointed to the door, eyes wide and glossy. “That’s her home.”

She grimaced without meaning to. “This is an apartment?”

“Multiple,” he said. “Dyker and Peach live in the same complex. She's the owner.”

“She’s their landlord?”

A nod. “Yup. And – ”

Before he could continue, a voice called – “COMING!” – from the other side. Distant, like a woman at the end of a tunnel. Then footsteps. Then keys, and finally, a click. The door opened and Liz was standing on the other side, beckoning them inside.

“Your phone dead?” asked Vanderman.

They stepped in from the cold.

“You mean my MD?” Liz said, shutting the door.

“I called you a couple minutes ago,” he said, and then Liz pressed her forefinger against her neural port. She stood there in silence for some time, seemingly going through her settings to see what the problem was.

They were standing in front of a flight of stairs that climbed into a metal-plated door. It reminded Luna of the maintenance door at the bottom of Vadchia Plaza, with the worn paint, except this had a strange spider-weave as opposed to metal grating. Similar to her arachnofibre suit. An incandescent bulb swayed on a piece of string, and across the bottom corner a rusty pipe leaked from its stopcock. Tip-tap… tip-tap… tip-tap….

“Oh,” Liz said suddenly, “it was on silent.”

Luna sneered questioningly. “Your MD was on silent?”

She nodded. “Guess I musta done it by accident.” Then, after a brief second, she added, “Huh. Never done that before.”

“Yeah well me neither,” said Luna, and then she stepped forward, holding the yellow case at arms’ length. “Here. The suits.”

“Not gonna carry ’em up for me?” beamed Liz, her pearly whites intensely bright in the dark. “Big strong woman like you making me do all the work?”

Vanderman laughed. “All that strength installed and you’re tired already.”

“What?” said Luna. “No, I’m not. Look, where do you want them? And they’re not washed.”

Liz chuckled. “I could tell. The cases don’t hide the stench as much as you would imagine.” She took her first step on the stairs before turning again. “Up here.”

“What about Dyker?” said Luna, still worried about getting thrown out or, maybe, getting the cops called on them. That was the primary issue with all of this. The big what if that the average teenager likes to cogitate before giving a three-minute presentation to the class.

“He knows,” Liz said, her smile replaced with a flat line. “I talked to him.”

“And Peach?”

“Knows.”

“That’s a relief,” said Luna. The possibility that she might be put on the radar of wanted criminals was also nerve-wracking to consider. Maybe the police had already done that. Maybe her face would show up on one of those brown-tinged wanted posters from those western movies in the near future. Granted she never saw any in person – wasn’t even sure people used those anymore, what with the MD and all – but part of her expected Glitch to pull some strings, some aces, to make it happen. His reputation among military and police folk alike would no doubt help if he wanted it.

Luna and Vanderman followed Liz up the steps, past the door, and into an apartment corridor. The tartan-chequered floor was hard and slippery, but only for the first few steps. After that it was rough, as expected, and it led to a pink-glowing radiator bolted to the opposite side. Graffiti snatched fingers, hands, and WHERE’S JOHNNY? from the walls. All sorts of cars, helmets; random things. Across them, doors possessed outward-facing dial pads, each fixed to a holo-projector and adding a neat glacial-blue radiance to the dark. EXIT hung on its green-glowing stencil above the T-shaped junction, buzzing like a live wire. What was that smell? Oh, but of course: vinegar. Luna expected nothing less.

She was surprised. Her nose must have adapted to the unholy stench steaming from the cases. Either that or Liz had been greatly over-exaggerating.

Luna felt intensely hot when they reached Liz’s apartment. The sound of thunder rolled overhead in a strange forward-and-back motion. Luna didn’t like it. She didn’t like storms in general, but lightning especially. Something about the way it would fork down with its yellow prongs at such nightmarish speed…. God, it made her skin crawl.